So you just bought a shiny new HDTV set and you're loving the quality you get from digital cable and DVDs. If you also have HD video on your PC, whether downloaded from the Internet, recorded with a TV tuner, or imported from your HD camcorder, you're in luck: You can send it from your computer to the TV for the ultimate digital entertainment experience.

There are two basic options for sharing flicks and tunes with your TV. Either connect your computer directly to your TV (see "Making the Direct Connection" below), or use a set-top box that acts as an intermediary, retrieving video from your PC over your home network and delivering it to your HDTV through direct HDMI or component connections. Most of these boxes also stream music and photos, and some even handle podcasts, Internet radio, YouTube, downloaded rental movies, and other streaming video sources.

If you have Vista Home Premium or Ultimate, the simplest box to add is a Windows Media Center Extender (or an Xbox 360). Extenders basically put the familiar Media Center interface--like the one you see on your PC's monitor--directly on your TV screen, making it easy to navigate your shared files just as if you were sitting in front of the computer.

Note: Media Center extenders have been around a while, and they're not all created equal. For HD support, be sure to buy a second-generation extender with HDMI output, like the D-Link DSM-750, the Linksys DMA2100 and DMA2200, or the forthcoming Niveus Media Extender.

Using a Windows Media Center Extender

To see how well the new Media Extenders work, we tried out the Linksys DMA2200 (US$350). This model adds a 1080p upscaling DVD player to the basic DMA2100 extender ($200). If you already have a progressive-scan upconverting DVD player, the DMA2100 is all you need.

To get up and running with your Media Center Extender, start by plugging it into an HDMI or component video port on your HDTV, then run through a few configuration screens to configure your TV resolution and aspect ratio, and the type of network you will use (wired or wireless). If your network is wireless (as most home networks are), you also need to choose your network and encryption settings. All this is easy to navigate with the included Linksys remote. Finally you'll be presented with a key to type into Media Center on your PC, so it can recognize the extender. In our case, the extender was automagically recognized by Vista, which popped up the "Found new hardware" balloon to prompt us. Click the balloon to complete the setup, and enter the key you received from the extender.

Once Windows Media Center connects to your extender, you'll need to set up the media folders you want the extender to be able to access, and then Media Center will check the quality of your network connection, which is vitally important for smooth HD streaming. This is where things fall apart for many users, since most people still use 802.11g Wi-Fi at home; in this configuration, most extenders will barely function. Switching to wired ethernet on the PC side yields a slight improvement, but the change remains nonfunctional for HD video. In our trials, we swapped our old 802.11g router for Linksys' WRT600N 802.11n model, which finally gave us near-acceptable performance on the 2.4-GHz band, and perfect performance on the 5-GHz band. (The extender includes dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi.)

To be fair, Linksys strongly recommends using 5-GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi