Decide what to buy | the Reevoo.com blog, featuring news on TVs, cameras, laptops, mp3 players & other gadgets, shopping tips and deals, reviews and more

Wouldn’t it be amazing if your stereo could play all the music on your computer? Or play the same music in all the rooms in your house? Or if you could watch the videos you’ve got on your computer on your TV?

If any of this sounds appealing, you should consider buying a wireless media streamer.  These devices use a wireless internet connection to share music and videos between devices including hifis, computers and TVs, and between different rooms.

Although this arrangement might sound tricky to set up, you don’t need a degree in electrical engineering to set up most streaming systems.  Some manufacturers, like Sonos, go out of their ways to make it easy, by selling ‘bundles’ of everything you need to get started, while others design ’single unit’ systems, like the Sony NASSC55PKE

There are two main varieties of media streamer.  The first variety concentrates on music, detecting the music files on your computer and either plugging into your stereo system or speakers to play them.  Audio streamers from the upper end of the market will usually work with a subscription to a music-streaming service like Napster, Spotify or Last.fm (more about these services later).

The other kind streams both audio and video content, and is usually used to display videos saved to your computer hard drive on your TV, or show TV on your computer.  More high-end versions also display your photos on your TV or offer direct access to sites like YouTube.

You may already be familiar with some of the big names in the media streamer area: Sonos multi-room music streaming systems are well-known, as are the Squeezebox range of video streamers and Apple’s Apple TV.

Unfortunately, the variety of different types of streamers on the market means that it’s much harder to decide which streamer to buy than, for example, which TV to buy.

We’ve just added a dedicated media streamers section to Reevoo.com which is a great place to start.  We’ll add in more detail on the different types over the next few weeks and we’ll also be writing some blog posts to guide you through this complicated market.