NAS to stream video files

[t3rm3y]

Hello all, i hear good things about this community.

I currently have a portable harddrive with my backed up video filesm in all manner of formats.
i can plug the harddrive directly into the tv and watch the files fine, but if i want to watch them on another tv (which hasnt got the usb port) i used to use a blu ray player (with USB) but that has started playing really choppy and will only play .avi filems not .mp4.

I was told to try a NAS unit, but i have no clue of these.
I have home plugs which carry the connection around the house. - does the nas plug into a tv? or do i need a ethernet connection on the tv and the files are streamed?

does the NAS unit manage the actual playing of the file and just "projects the image to the TV - i.e. if the blu ray player cant play the .mp4 files, how do i know they will work on the TV?

The only other method i can use is to plug the portable HD to the xbox and watch on the 2nd tv that weay - but i have not tried with .mp4 files, and its quite bulky to be moving from room to room.

any ideas?
i was lookign at this one :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004AIWOXY/ref=s9_cartx_co_d40_g147_ir01?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=left-6&pf_rd_r=02MKXP5AVWXWGTVZGKVP&pf_rd_t=3201&pf_rd_p=206696987&pf_rd_i=typ01

 

[tomatthe]

NAS would generally just be a place to store files, it may support DLNA, but you would still need a device to read the stream to connect to your tv. There are lots of devices which can do this, personally I prefer the WD Live tv devices.

Something like this, http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/B005KOZNBW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338292031&sr=8-1

Those devices will also let you hook a usb drive directly to them, so you wouldn't really need a nas setup if you didn't mind using the usb drive. They will play pretty much any format, and connect to your tv via hdmi.

 

[t3rm3y]

oh ok, thats sounds much better.
do you know if the wd Live can handle files from a portable drive smoothly? i suspect that the stuttering / choppy playback via the portable drive plugged into the blu ray player is because there is no cpu or brain reading the files, like on the xbox ?