Matt Haughey has done a terrific review of the Gateway Connected DVD Player, a device that combines a progressive scan DVD player with a wireless media server. The best part is the price: the entire package is available for $179.98, plus tax and shipping, with a widely available Gateway on-line coupon.

Haughey has been looking for an alternative to the TiVo Home Media Option since he switched from a TiVo Series 2 DVR to DirecTV with TiVo, which does not support the Home Media Option. The Gateway Connected DVD Player was his device of choice after surveying the available media server-type devices.

The PVRblog article contains lots of screenshots of the Gateway Connected DVD Player's user interface. These pictures helped me to understand the capabilities of the Connected DVD Player.

It's important to understand that the media server capabilities of this device require access to a Windows PC that is running the Gateway media server software. At my house, I have a Linux server running Samba that has my digital photos and MP3 library on it. In order to take advantage of the Connected DVD Player's network capabilities, I'd have to leave a PC on all the time, in addition to my server. That's not the greatest option, but at least I can do it. Macintosh users and Open Source software purists are out of luck in this regard.