Are there any High Definition Network Media Players that support USB external drives. E.g. I could take a USB hard drive formated in NTFS and plug it into the media player and play WMV-HD's H.264 content .ts files and high def divx etc

I basically want something like XBMC but with the power to play back HD content and have cool features like wireless built in and usb connectivity etc

So essentially it would be Xbox replacement

The HD Mediabox supports USB external drives (thread here) but it does not, unfortunately, support H.264

What you want is easily done, apart from the H.264 bit.

I think what i probably need is a one of those mini PC media centre's basically a mini pc sitting under my TV with enough hardware power to handle HD playback.

To justify the spend though it would need to replace my toppy though, a freeview tuner or two or better still a high def sat card to recieve the BBC HD trial.

I'm not bothered about playing games on it, just enough power to really perform as a media hub.

Any ideas anyone?

That is easily done as long as you have the cash to spend, you're going to need a dual core processor and decent graphics card to ensure you get the best possible H.264 playback.

HD playback in itself is nothing special, my very ancient AMD 2800 can handle virtually everything except the latest codecs so it depends how much you want H.264 content.

Don't go spending too much on watching BBC HD, it's scheduled to end in May, nothing definite has been mentioned about extending it.

mate I was in exactly the same situation as you, wanted to replace my xbox xbmc setup with a HD option, got myself a helios x3000 with external HD and its fantastic. Obviously no h264, but theres enough .ts and wmvhd stuff out there to be happy with! Go for it pal.

Mick