Ive had an HTPC since the days of Mediaportal 0.2 but as were selling the house at the moment Ive removed it and were just running the skyhdi.

Although Mediaportal has been reasonably solid for some time now, there has always been something which has failed at some point, or needed to be tweaked, or upgraded and frankly Im over it. I know there are plenty of people who have installed it, configured it and its run 24x7x365 with no further involvment but I havent had that experience.

I always knew NZ tv was dire, but I hadnt realised just how bad it really is. Two weeks with only the Sky box has driven us to tears some nights so I need an easy way to get our 'media' back from the server onto the tv.

As Ive put all my eggs into one basket with the HTPC Im a little behind with all the 'media player' technology so does anyone have any suggestions? I dont need to have live tv anymore, the Sky box can do that, and now I have a decent Logitech remote switching between the two is easy.

All the DVD's we buy are ripped on the server so it needs to play the whole range from SD to bluray and output HDMI to the tv and optical sound to the Amp (doesnt have any HDMI inputs sadly, although Im thinking of upgrading that too).

Ive just signed up to give Quickflix a go so being able to stream that and/or the BBC iplayer would be great. Im keen to explore the whole streaming options via a UK VPN too.

Do I just forget the research and just go out and buy a WDTV ?