Since the Roku video player is so good at what it does with Netflix and Amazon and because it gets connected into the home LAN, why not add codecs for .dvr-ms and .wmv and .wmv hd, and Quicktime?

Then we could play our Windows Media Center recorded TV shows and other video files we download to our PC's or Home Server via the Roku video player. The Roku player is far better than any of the Media Center Extenders on the market.

Is this a technical issue or legal?

You are not the first person to suggest this. They are going to be releasing an API soon. Once they do that, a third party may be able to develop that if Roku isn't already doing so. So this may be a possibility in the near future. I don't see any legal obstacles, but you never know these days.

I've been looking for a player to stream WMV (mostly) from the internet directly to my HDTV without turning on the computer at all. These are mostly in the nature of hometown local news broadcasts/sports reports that are available on tv stations' websites, where the url remains constant on a day-to-day basis. I would like the capability to store around 20 preset urls for these streams into a remote control accessible on-screen menu.

It sounds like the current Roku video player doesn't have the required codec for this yet - is my understanding correct? Did the old HD1000 have such capability? I haven't been able to locate a single player made by anyone that allows you to store internet video urls; hence, I haven't purchased any video player yet. Just wondering if anyone else happened to know any more than I do about this particular feature.

Thanks...

.
Hmm... wmv streams to a player, direct from the internet. I don't know of any players either.

Some out there can stream MPEG/DIVX and others can stream FLV (I think).

I know you don't want to have a computer on at all, but if you are willing to forgo this desire and resign to having a computer on, many UPNP players will work with real time transcoding server apps such as TVersity http://tversity.com/, which can transcode internet streams and then broadcast to the player.

There is another suggestion, but I don't know if it'll do what you want, and I believe it also requires that you have a PC on. Take a look at Orb http://www.orb.com/.

I know that's not what you wanted, but thought I'd offer something as a suggestion.

Yup,
Prodigious Juggalo

Do the stations you stream this from on your computer currently have a decent video feed? Where I am the video feeds from my local news station look awful on my computer, I shudder to think what these would look like on my big screen TV. I think that is why you have not see any players that can do this. Most of the time the quality of WMV feeds is horrible, that is why Hulu and most of the good streaming sites don't use WMV. If you have a local affiliate site that has good quality feeds, it would probably look OK on your TV, if not, I don't even think it would be watchable.

One way to put streaming video from your PC to your TV is the Slingcatcher paired with sling box. The sling projector software sends the slected video playing on your PC to any TV anywhere in the world. Mine works great. Check out details at the sling media website

Here are a few examples. Some of the feeds are only so-so in quality, but some others are better, and would look decent on a tv...

WTTG-TV 5 Washington, DC - Live news (at 5 pm ET) - 339 kbps (16:9)
http://mfile.akamai.com/23076/live/refl ... bkup=30199

WKMG-TV 6 Orlando, FL - Live news (at 5 pm ET) - 491 kbps (16:9)
http://mfile.akamai.com/12909/live/reflector:53408.asx

KTTV-TV 11 Los Angeles, CA - Good Day Live (repeated during the day) - 295 kbps (16:9)
http://mfile.akamai.com/23073/live/reflector:34194.asx

WSVN-TV 7 Miami, FL - Live news (at 5 pm ET) - 273 kbps (4:3)
http://wm-live.world.mii-streaming.net/live/WSVN/pull/1

WJXT-TV 4 Jacksonville, FL - Live news (at 5 pm ET) - 289 kbps (4:3)
http://mfile.akamai.com/12925/live/reflector:57298.asx

I have TVersity on my computer now, and I'm aware of the Sling products, but I find that I'd prefer to not involve the computer at all. It would be better if I could just access some of these feeds directly on the tv.