In the quest to get your PC’s media to your TV, we’ve examined three models so far: the extender, direct from a laptop, and a media adapter with a USB drive. Today’s method, the set-top box, puts a new spin on the extender. While a regular extender exists solely to pull media from your PC, the set-top serves a different primary function, usually to tune in channels from your cable or satellite provider. In our case, we used the set-top box for Verizon’s fiber optic FiOS service, which serves up a big dish of digital TV and broadband access with a tasty side order of PC-based media playback. The functionality of this is so simple that it can be easily controlled with the set-top’s remote control.

At the end of 2008, FiOS broadband Internet service reached 10 million homes across 16 states. Of these, 24.9%, or roughly 2.5 million, were subscribers, and many of these opted to also get their TV service from the same fiber feed. Verizon was among the first to figure out that subscribers using both its Internet and TV services could enjoy applications bridging both worlds. If 147,000 channels of programming can’t keep you happy, perhaps sharing photos and music from your PC to the home theater will.