Hardware Streaming via Serviio

I am moving into a Granny flat with my daughter. I would like to be able to share my media files across the network with her.
I have been using Serviio for some time for pictures music and videos ( mostly MKV's). It has proved a very reliable solution for me. I have been serving 3 tv's, a newer smart tv, a slightly older one with ethernet and an older one still with no network capabilities. The last one gets it's feed through a network capable BD player. Serviio does a great job with all of them.
My daughter has an older 60" Sony TV and BD player with no network capabilities.
I am not sure whether to use a network capable BD player or one of the other hardware solutions such as WDTV, Roku, Netgear etc.
I would really appreciate it anyone would share their experiences with any of these devices.

thanks
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pete

[atc98092]

My first suggestion is a Blu-Ray player. The Sony players I have were under $100 and play MKV natively. This allows you to select different audio channels as well as captions. Depending on the file, HD audio can also be available. I have some ripped Blu-Ray discs with both DTS Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD audio that will play. And of course, you can always just pop a disc in to watch as well!

When it comes to media players, one question you have to ask is what will they stream? They all do Netflix, but not all do Amazon Instant Video. Also be careful, because not all media players stream from DLNA, which is what you need for Serviio to work.

The Roku players now support DLNA, using the free Roku Media Player channel (app). However, it will not stream HD audio, and it has limited media support, which means most of your videos will likely need transcoding. While they support MKV files, they will NOT play videos with a MPEG2 video stream. That is what every DVD contains, so a ripped DVD will always need transcoding. I've also never been able to get captions to work with the Roku, but haven't put much effort into it yet.

My daughter just bought an Amazon Fire TV. Outstanding user interface, but again does not support DLNA out of the box. I did discover an app yesterday that shows their Serviio machine, but we are going to have to build a profile for it, because it doesn't show any videos, which means it won't play anything without transcoding.

Thanks for your comments.
A blueray player was my first choice also. Since most of my files are MKV Sony would be the logical choice.
I think I'll steer clear of all the other boxes. Judging from your comments I think they could be a very frustrating choice. There is no interest in content other than from Serviio so they offer no advantage.
Any particular Sony player you like?
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Pete

[atc98092]

I certainly have had success with the ones in my signature line. Be careful though, I think I read somewhere that Sony no longer includes DLNA support in all players. I know other people have good success with Panasonic and Samsung players, but I have no recommendations with those brands.

[spudy12]

If your files are locally avalible on the network then I'd say your best bet (personally) is a Raspberry Pi running RaspbMC (http://www.raspbmc.com/)
Install to a class 10 SD card and a USB 3 memory stick and then just add your network shares.

Scrapes all Movie and TV series data and can be controlled with TV remote over HDMI
Capable of 1080p playback and HD audio

Just also remember, all Blu Ray players now a days have Cinavia support installed on them......