Chad contributes to free-backup-software.net. More on this topic can be found at DLNA Rocks - Backup Meets the TV and BreWii - Wii Home Brew Made Easy! Play HomeBrew and Backup Wii Games!
I had a great "Black Friday"! I walked away with a nice new Samsung LED LCD TV. Sure, it looks great but the best part is the connectivity. With the help of a little $80 wireless USB add-on, the TV natively talks with my wireless network.
These new TVs have a feature called DLNA which provides the ability to browse network shares and play media in a standardized manner.
Which brings us to the best part of my wireless network -- the "Movies" share on my ReadyNAS backup box. The ReadyNAS is a really slick little backup tool. It's basically a Debian Linux box with hardware RAID and four drive bays. I've got three of them filled with 2TB drives. The ReadyNAS Raid box sits next to my wireless router and printer and acts as a print server, media share and backup device. It was good already, but with the new DLNA based LCD TV it just got a notch better since I can watch movies and listen to music streaming over the network.
I have a hunch. I think DLNA is going to boost on-line streaming services but also it might just boost movie piracy. Movie piracy gets a little juicer when you can stick a cheap 2tb drive full of movies on your network share and watch them from any TV in the house.