I know there are some very tech savvy people on here (and some not-so!) and was hoping someone can help me!

Our current set up is 1 laptop and 1 iPad, with our TV linked to our Hi-Fi in the living room, and 1 PC in an upstairs bedroom. The laptop has about 50GB of photos / music, and the PC has about 700GB of photos, music and some films. I want to get rid of the PC, and keep / transfer it's content.

Can anybody tell me if there is something I can purchase that I can put in my living room which will let us listen to MP3's through the Hi-Fi, watch films on the TV, and view photos on the iPad/laptop?

I'm totally lost in all this tech stuff, 'slingboxes', networkable hard drives and media streamers etc. Can anybody help?!

What TV do you have? Some modern TV's let you plug a USB stick/hard-drive into them and will play movies/films/photos off of them.

My first reaction is that you need a PC

Do you use itunes?
What format are the films? Itunes compatible?

I would suggest what you want is a HTPC. You could use windows 7 with media centre or something open source like XBMC which can be used with windows or linux and is available as stand alone os. The limit is noise in a living room. You can get small nettop pcs which are great as HTPCs but tend to lack storage space so you may want a seperate storage device like a NAS.

What sort of budget do you have? What your existing Pc spec?

I have a HTPC with XBMC and a seperate media server running unraid server software which is great but may be overrkill for your needs

The tv is a four year old Sony LCD, great picture but sadly no USB port.

I think I've found find a partial answer, network hard drive with all the data on it, the something like apple tv to stream the music and films to the tv. But that still requires the laptop to be on which I want to avoid!

MRS no more PCs!!

Yeah a NAS type server is a great way to store your files. As you say the appletv needs anothre computer to host the library and also restircts you on formats for movie files etc.

A cheap nettop like an acer revo and xmbc would make a great partner. I have mounted mine to the back of my tv and its nigh on silent.

What network do you have? Where would the network drive be?

Hyper - I do use iTunes across the board, and as far as I know the films are iTunes compatible, although since they're on the PC I haven't watched them in years.

The PC is an old dual core 2GB DDR2 RAM etc from 2006, in a big case. I really don't want to buy another PC if I can avoid it as that then means I will need a separate keyboard & mouse, on top of the laptop and iPad which already reside in the sofa side of the living room.

Is there no box like a NAS but which has a HDMI output to go to the Hi-Fi amp (and onto the TV), and would be controllable from the ipad or laptop?

I have a sky N type router with 4 network cable inputs, with the sky HD box in one, and the laptop, PC and ipad all using the wireless. The NAS would be next to the router which is also in the living room.

So if I went with the NAS & apple TV, could the apple TV use the library from the NAS via the laptop or iPad?

The PC is tempting, but I'm reluctant because of the above!

I'm reading a bit about XMBC, which apparently can be added to an apple TV. Assuming that this can then 'see' the NAS, it sounds like just the ticket!

I *think* the AppleTv will only use the fully iTunes library from your laptop but will it airplay files from the iPad as required.

The issue is you need the laptop so if its off (or out of the house) I think its fairly useless. Someone with one may be able to advise better.

Its doesn't seem like recycling your old pc is an option but don't discount a pc. You can easily add an ir remote control and use something like teamviewer to remote control the it when you would want to use a keyboard/mouse.

re XBMC on Appletv 2 yes you can but you need to jailbreak it (you can also have it on iPads) so you need to be happy about doing that.

Hmmm food for thought here. My preference at the moment is the ATV with XMBC, & NAS.

The original ATV had a hard drive, and with airplay which I think would do exactly what I want, but the hard drives they offered are tiny by modern standards!

Cheers for the input Hyperlink.

You can upgrade the old Appletvs to have larger SATA type drives if needs be just limited by the availability of 2.5" SATA laptop drives, 1tb is about the largest available which may be too small for all your files.

Would you want to use HD? the Appletv 1 isnt realy man enough of HD contect with modifying it. You can add a video card at the expense of the wifi connection.

I'm not that fussed about HD, it's mainly for music and photos. So could be an option with a larger Hard drive.

It seems odd to me that there doesn't appear to be an off the shelf solution, so far everything we've dug out requires some sort of modification to get it to do what I want!

You have an ipad. There is your problem. I have a similar set up We can share ALL our media to all non apple devices without issue. Add and apple product and the hell commences.

If anyone can explain a good reason why apple restricts this I am all ears.

Oh yes, I am not paying for another piece of apple crap such as their apple TV.

IMHO apple has become what MS was in the 90s.

Hughly sucessful?

Anyway back on topic i have looked at most things on the market (apple/ms/whatever) and have not found anything off the shelf which meets my needs in both media players and NAS storage devices hence why i have gone self build for both. Its more work and isnt always a easy path but i can get what i want.

Chaps, after much searching I think I've found a solution in the 1TB WD TV Live Hub. This plugs in via HDMI, into the router via ethernet, and is also searchable by iPads / iPhones.

Cheers for the help chaps

You could try this:

AppleTV, connected to TV
Controlled by iPad, using Remote App and thanks to airplay you can use iPad as a controller with picture on TV. (Playing games is awesome this way).

In regards to a server, look for an apple G4 dual 1GHz you can pick them up for around £50 Either use Mac Leopard as a client OS or if you like tinkering use Leopard Server.

Set it as single user/autoboot, (you can use energy saver to detail bootup and shut down times), get it to autostart iTunes and switch on home sharing and Voila, your media served.

For music we have 4 airport Expresses, these connect to various powered speakers/ amps etc. You can control music library using remote app on iPad and volumes etc. Its great at parties, loud music in conservatory, quieter in kitchen and lounge and intermediate elsewhere (my neighbours listen to some awesome music, well they do when we have a party LOL)..

To get net signal to the expresses either use cat6 (or 5e) wiring or Ethernet over PowerLine adapters these ones are good and less than £32 for 2 and you are sorted.
If you set airport express to create a network (5GHz) you will get a stronger wifi signal all around your house too.

You can then serve films music and photos to TV, music to airport expresses and in my experience it all works well.

Easy to setup and easy to control and it all works very well.

I've got an iPhone/iPad and Apple TV - works a treat for sharing all sorts of stuff to the big screen, but as above you need to be heavilly iTunes reliant for it to work smoothly.

Have a look at a Roku 2 box...pretty much an Apple TV (even looks like one) but I think it might be a little more open to connecting to NAS setups etc.

Apple TV prices really are bonkers - I just sold my original gen one for £110 on ebay - more than I paid for the 3rd gen I'd upgraded to! 3rd Gen isn't yet jailbroken (essential for XMBC etc) so it seems the 1st and 2nd are at a premium.

I reckon Apple will open up the Apple TV (3rd gen at least) pretty soon to 3rd party Apps, so it might gain a whole load of new features eventually - but things like the Roku and WD Live boxes do it all already for cheaper...