How to Enjoy Your Music, Photos and Videos on Your Home Entertainment System

Here's a deceptively simple, yet amazingly powerful, way to consolidate your entertainment options. With a network-attached storage (NAS) device and a Boxee Box by D-Link you can access all kinds of media from your all of your computers and the web right in your living room. Here's how. 1. Centralize your media storage
First, you'll need a hard drive. You can use a standard external USB hard drive or a NAS device. A USB hard drive can be easily used by the device it's connected to directly. A NAS gives you extra flexibility because it can be attached to your router and accessed from any PC or media player device in the house. D-Link's DNS-325 is a fine choice for a NAS, offering exhaustive storage capacities in a convenient and compact package. Simply connect it to your network and fill it with movies, music, photos, and anything else you'd like to view on your television.
2. Set up a wireless network
The next step of the operation is wireless. Any wireless network can send media from your NAS to your TV, but if you're interested in high definition media, then speed,range and bandwidth are crucial. D-Link's DIR-825 is a dual-band 802.11n router that provides all the bandwidth you need for today's HD movies and television programming and can handle HD media without hiccups and stutters.

DIR-825

Boxee Box

3. Connect to your media
Since most TVs can't access your computer network directly, you need an interface between your television and the network you just set up. D-Link's Boxee Box plugs into your HDTV via an HDMI cable and can access your network wirelessly. Just configure it for wireless and you'll have direct access to online media as well as the movies, music and photos stored on your NAS, or on other computers in the house. As a bonus you'll be able to access programming streamed from the web, including new movies from Netflix and Vudu.