With home media streaming devices rising the features available to consumers continues to improve. This really is why I have decided to write an article on the significance of picking the right device to suit your needs. By looking at the media streaming device it may appear which it has Wi-Fi capabilities accompanied with the ability to stream Netflix and Pandora so you assume you are all set. If those are the only features you are after then that's great and also by all means make the purchase. My only regret could be that there probably is a media streaming device around at the same price point that may offer more features. Therefore media streaming devices are capable of doing much more than Netflix, YouTube, and Pandora. Three aspects that I will cover in detail are supported media file formats the device can read, significance of USB ports, and automatic media categorization.

The largest challenge used to be finding a media streaming device outside your PC that offered the ability to play your entire media collection. Now consumers have numerous options available allowing a multitude of selections. For this example I will compare both the Boxee Box and Roku supported media file formats. With both the Roku and Boxee Box offering a great selection of application as well as the capability to stream Netflix, there is still an enormous gap with the number of supported media file formats built in. The Roku offers only 3 supported media file formats versus the Boxee Box at 21. This really is an enormous gap in supported media file formats and should you have a personal media collection there's a high chance the Roku can't suit your needs. One more noteworthy point is these supported media file formats cannot be updated. As nice it could be like it really is on your PC going to a website and installing a file, these devices don't have this ability. Both Boxee Box and Roku are excellent products, but at the exact same point it really is up to you to determine which is a far better fit for your house media center.

Most devices these days offer USB 2.0 ports that may work just fine for just about any home media collection. Something to take into account will be the range of USB ports that the product offers. When I first started my media collection, before the invention of NAS devices, I used to keep movies and music on just about any storage device I might find then plug it into my computer. Fortunately with today's technology there are NAS devices to help us keep our collection all in one place on our network. If you're new to the hobby you would probably look at eight terabyte NAS and say that is crazy I could never fill that up. Well... Let me just say you may get there sooner than later. So getting back to my original point you probably will purchase an external hard drive to begin your collection. Should you have only one USB port you shall find yourself spending countless hours transferring data to a larger drive when it fills up. With a second or third USB port you may just plug in another hard drive without interruption. The obvious answer is to purchase a NAS device with expandable bays, but this really is a costly expense and if you're just getting your feet wet with the hobby this option might not be realistic.

Something Boxee and XBMC have done extremely well is the capability to categorize your media collection. Let me give you an example that explains what I am speaking about. Within your media collection you've got The 40-Year-Old Virgin on your storage device. When you direct Boxee or XBMC to that file source it will detect your movie and add it under the film section. Once within the movie section a picture will be applied of the watching full movie cover with details about the film and often trailers. As your collection grows each movie will be added giving you the capability to categorize to your liking. The benefit of automatic media categorization is that you should not have to search through files to search out what you want. With this you've got the ability to provide your collection a visual appeal accompanied with information that is imported from different sources on the web.

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