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Sister in law bought us a new 42 inch flat screen TV. Reviews say its a great TV but its a no frills set. It only has 3 inputs, 2 HDMI and component in.

I will be installing it on the wall, and passing wires through so everything will be hidden.

My question is, what do I need to be able to watch movies that I have downoaded that are currently saved somewhere on my network?

A video card with HDMI output.

yup i get that but that means i need a pc connected to the tv...

Raspberry pi..  

Pull an ethernet cable for your tv or raspberry pi in my case...

on my sons TV I have a cheap upconverting dvd player with HDMI that supports a USB flash drive $20... fill usb flash drive with whatever divx you want to watch...

get a samsung wifi smart tv with voice commands, hands free remote, web cam for video messaging. im sure u could share via network to your brand new smart tv :p

One bit of advice. The "guide channel" that tells what is on will be going away soon. This feature should not be considered in your choice anymore.

Something like this will work.  Use one myself and even on double wireless (wireless from storage device to router then wireless from router to this box) I can watch anything with no stutters.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/wd-wd-tv-live-hd-media-player-wdbhg70000nbk-vesn-wdbhg70000nbk-vesn/10180535.aspx

I use a Roku Player - Roku.com (Its has built in Wifi)
Install the Plex Channel in the Channel Store on the Roku (Simple, and free)
Install Plex Media Server on your PC (Easy and free from plexapp.com)
Point the newly installed Plex Server on your PC to your Movie files on your PC (all in a GUI interface)
Open the Plex Channel on Roku and stream away. It will stream in HD or SD. It automatically detects and transcodes the files for you.

It works really well. Been using Roku + Plex for about a year now. The only thing you need to buy is the Roku device for $50 bucks, and then your good to go. No fees after that or anything.

-Ryan

I had a 2 year old Samsung LCD TV, not only did it have an ethernet port where you could share files to it using a DLNA server on your computer, but also a flash card reader and a USB port where you could hook up a hard drive and watch movies (in supported formats). If you wanted to do any TV watching from online, you got the wrong TV.

About all you can do is build a media center PC with Win7 ultimate or something like MythTV. You can add a TV tuner card that gets ClearQAM for basic cable or a CableCard for more channels to use PC media center software like a DVR too. An Apple TV is $100 but it has more Apple store lock-in.

I think tis is the answer i was looking for, thank you.

A raspberry pi will do that for 1 third the price...

they are 35 bucks...

Throw it out.

Throw you out.... You're clearly burnt out :P

Could one be burnt out if they are illuminated?  How can I be a burn out, if I feel happy?  Just because others say so?  Other people do not control your reality, your judgement of me does not make it true.

HDMI cable to Computer or Ipad.

Lots of good advice here now :) Im sure oneof these options will work for you