You can run your VMC in one room and feel pretty good about yourself. You have all of your media available to you in one central location, it’s easy to use, and even your wife likes it. But I have to say, the best feature of a Media Center setup is extending it beyond one room and sharing your media through out your house and even over the internet.

Today I’ll be covering the various ways to extend your VMC experience to the rest of the house. None of them are perfect solutions but they get the job done.

DSM-750

Let’s start with the D-Link Medialounge DSM-750. Starting at around $275, this little box will let you use the wireless N band to push media around your home.  It’s also set up to deliver HD content to your HDTVs if you have one somewhere other than with your VMC machine.  I wouldn’t recommend using wireless to stream HD content, but like most of the other products in this post, you also get an ethernet port to hook it up with.  With HDMI, you know you’re getting a box that’s very future proof.

DMA 2200

Next up is the Linksys DMA 2100 and 2200.  To be honest, I don’t have a lot of experience with most of these products and this is true about this one as well.  The main difference I’ve found between the 21 and 2200 is that the 2200 comes with a built in DVD player.  Looking online, I was able to find them both priced right around $250.  I would wonder why you’d need a built in DVD player, but as of right now, VMC doesn’t support streaming of DVDs to extenders, so for the same price it could be worth it.  As posted earlier, I’ve moved most of my collection over to HDD in the form of WMV, so this isn’t a concern.  If transcoding and buying hard drives isn’t something you want to get into then this is a feature to consider.  This extender also boasts the HDMI you’ll need to get all of the HD features to your living room.

HP MediaSmart HDTV

The extender I’ll share today is HP’s MediaSmart HDTV.  This is a pretty cool product that I hope to use myself some day.  This is also the most expensive…

Available at Best Buy for right around $1700, the 47 inch model isn’t really any more expensive than another LCD HDTV, but if you don’t need a new TV then this is a waste of your money.  If you do, then you’re in luck.  With an extender built right in, you can basically add a surround sound system and you’re ready to go.  Supporting both wireless and wired connections, this should be able to handle whatever HD content you care to watch.

As stated above, I don’t have much experience with the extenders I’ve talked about so far.  I can only go by what I’ve been told.  They all work and they all bring the VMC experience to any TV in your home.  Something to remember however is that VMC requires a computer to run, and while extending it doesn’t require a Dual Core powerhorse, you need something behind it.  Everything I’ve read has pointed to these extenders being slow to load VMC, and slow while navigating menus.  Once you’re streaming you’re set, but getting there could take awhile.

Xbox 360

The last extender I’ll share today is the Xbox 360.  This is my weapon of choice in putting my VMC where I want it.  If you’re a gamer, you not only get the extender, but a great gaming system as well, so it’s win/win for the same price.  If you’re not a gamer I can recommend this extender not only on personal experience but because it’s built by MS.  They’re designed to work together.  The one thing you’ll hear about the 360 is the amount of noise it puts out.  While this may be true during gaming, I find the box rather quiet while using VMC.  I don’t know if I’m deaf or if I just watch my content that loud, but it’s never bothered me in the least.  Not only that, but you don’t have the lag problems that have been associated with the products above.  The 360 has more than enough power to push your content and the VMC interface as long as your network can handle it.

I hope this has helped you chose an extender.  Moving VMC away from the monitor is the first step toward a fully integrated home entertainment PC.

Up Next:  Software that makes your content available outside of your network…