how expensive are those hard drive media players? 'cause, there are non-drive players which can stream things from a Windows pc over ethernet, for only about $200 USD... which may be perfectly adequate for your needs.
there's this...
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318
and this...
http://www.linksys.com/extend/
an Xbox game console is also a good choice at $150 USD, since it's easy to apply a hack to it (no mucking around with the nuts & bolts: you just need a memory card, a USB memory card writer, and a particular game which is able to boot the hacked save file), install Xbox Media Center, and essentially have a small-ish multimedia PC for a low price in your tv room.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/index.php
apparently Microsoft has also taken a cue from the hackers and released a similar thing officially, which can be used without voiding the warranty...
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x...erextender.htm
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