I am going to just what you outlined and for all the reasons you mentioned. I ordered the HP Media Connect, should have it this Thursday.

I took at look at that just now on the HP website. I like the fact that it does video as well as audio. From what I could tell, it doesn't look like there is any method for browsing your audio collection without having a TV monitor on though. Is that correct?

That's the beauty of the squeezebox duet system...the LCD color display on the remote controller. That system does not do video though.

Scott