I'm replacing my desktop soon and I'm trying to decide what to do about watching avis on my HD TV.

Bear with me.. would it be possible to get an external HD to plug into my TV (if so what cable am I looking for?) and set this external HD onto a wireless network to my PC?

i.e. I can wirelessly move the avis from my desktop to my external HD then watch them on the telly?

If I can do that, how do I set up the wireless connection and what technology am I looking for in my new desktop?

Plus.. will the avis look better or worse than ripping them to DVD-R and watching them on my aging DVD player?

Phew! Thanks.

I presume by 'avis' you mean .AVI files?

If so then yes, you can stream them wirelessly.

You'll need a wireless media box .... PC world have been advertising a Linksys one on TV recently, I'm sure there are others available.

Not sure what wireless technology the use .... wireless G I susect. In which case, lower bitrate stuff should stream over it OK. HD stuff would struggle. The only way I think you'd get away with streaming HD would be to use a Pre-N network. Not sure how many wireless media centres support that.

I stream SD video using wireless-G but do still get the odd glitch (to be expected .... such is wireless). HD stuff is too much, it's unwatchable. I have to take the extrenal drive down and connect it to the laptop to use that.