I used a boxee box as a player to bridge the gap between dumb tv and nas box but its now died of death. I need a device to play my nas content via hdmi, any recommendations? Needs to be cheap and have a remote so the kids can operate it. Would the Roku Express+ do the job?

I’m sure a Roku would work. I use a fire tv stick. Install the VLC app and then it will play pretty much every file format.

Wait for Black Friday deals they will be cheap.

If you don’t need any streaming services then an older wdtv from eBay would be a good bet. They play pretty much any format you throw at them

Don’t rate the Amazon fire stick

If budget is higher then the Nvidia shield with built in Plex server is great streamer and Nas player.

I dont need any other steaming service, purely just something to play my nas content through.
Will the firestick be able to see content on my nas or will it require side loading of other stuff.
I will look at wdtv stuff, is it the wdtv live i should be looking at?

You’ll be able to browse the folders on your NAS using a fire tv stick.

I also used to use a raspberry pi with Kodi installed but this is more technical and does fall under the suitable for kids remit!

For simple use by the kids and some parental control run Plex on the NAS (depends on your NAS) and a client on a box of your choice attached to the TV. You’ll need to tell Plex where the films and videos are on the NAS and it will take a while to index it all.

Refurbished AppleTV does client duties on our set-up, Roku boxes do a reasonable job with Plex too. With a simple tweek or two to your home firewall you can access the library from outside the house too.

My nas doesnt support plex so its not an option. So much conflicting info on the net, i appear to have gone down a rabbit hole for just asking a simple question

I have a Raspberry Pi running OSMC but they also sell a complete unit which might be worth a look?

https://osmc.tv/2018/07/vero-4k-is-here/

Anything you can run Kodi on.

Works on my FireTV so pretty sure it would on the stick.
Think it’s available on Roku as well.

What @kamakazie said.

This wdtv live would do the job

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F133235513008

I had one until they stopped supporting iPlayer streaming.

I’m pretty sure that our basic single tuner Humax FreeSat box will stream from the media server built into our small WD Nas drive.

I would suggest the Raspberry Pi if you have time + inclination for tech knowledge, although the OSes available these days make things relatively easy (OSMC for instance). You can pick up an IR receiver for a couple of £, solder it to the pi (or maybe use pin connectors) and program the PI to respond to any old IR remote control you can get your hands on, or you can spend £20 on a usb dongle + remote.

Lots of people use infuse for this purpose – it certainly has an apple TV app, and would pass the child-friendly test. Dunno if they have apps for other platforms.

Plex is really at it’s best when you have it running directly on your NAS – I did have to upgrade my ancient synology to be able to do this, but it was money well spent.

The apply TV is a decent choice of client: has all the free-to-air apps on there, spotify etc. The front end is good, and the remote is simple (albeit a bit fragile).