Apple’s latest product, the still un-shipped Apple TV, has brought a lot of attention to these crazy things called media extenders/players/devices. Essentially, they take content off your home network and stream it to a TV in your house. While Apple certainly has the most press in the field, there are tons of these things out there. One of the nicer looking ones is the recently announced Linksys KiSS 1600.

What you instantly notice is the fact that there is a DVD drive in this thing. Like many DVD players on the market, the DVD drive will upscale all of your DVDs they’re regularly 480p I believe) to 720p (HD resolution). It won’t be “true” HD, but you will definitely see an improvement over a regular player. Just be sure to use an HDMI cable, otherwise you’ll be stuck with the regular DVD resolution. The complete specs of this device aren’t yet available, but you should be able to stream most video files (not iTunes bought ones though), music files, and pictures. You can also access internet radio through the device and supposedly some sort of gaming platform. The box itself also has a USB port for adding some quick storage. There’s nothing easier than copying a few movies over to your mini external USB hard drive and plugging it in. That way you won’t have to worry about your wi-fi signal dropping out during the real important parts of the movie.

The Linksys KiSS 1600 was just introduced at CeBIT and you should be able to purchase it soon for about $500.

[via CrunchGear]