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I've gone with the WDTV series for my media needs - the earlier gens were very hackable but they've turned on codesigning in the latest WDTV Live Media hub range. They're not bad and play everything I throw at them (Sigmatek decoders, afaicr)

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I'm using an older WDTV LIVE and indeed, I never had issues with decoding stuff. The downside is that it's somewhat limited, e.g. I cannot adjust audio sync which sometimes gets quite annoying. Being able to jump 30s (and such) back and forth instead of "analog" rewinding and fast-forwarding would be nice as well.

I'm still waiting for a device that handles XBMC well, is responsive, has an optical audio output and offers DTS pass-through -- apparently there's no such thing. Lack of support for DTS/DD 5.1 pass-through is the main problem; last time I checked Minix seemed to be close, but not there yet.

My current media player is a 3 or 4 year old ACRyan PlayOn Mini, which works wonderfully and has played everything I've ever tried on it. The only downside is that there are some video files which once you start fast-forwarding you can't stop. I _think_ this is due to mkv header compression which my version of the firmware doesn't support.

Since any new media player will be the replacement for my primary TV, it has to pass the wife and daughter test. :)

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