Buffalo announced today the launch of its new LinkTheater High Definition Digital Media Player, a device that streams videos, pictures music from Windows or Mac PCs, NAS devices, USB hard drives, and DLNA media servers to a television set or stereo.The LinkTheater also automatically backs up content storage on flash-based USB drives and video camera, when the devices are plugged into its front USB port.

The unit supports 720p and 1080i hi-def video output and 480i and 480p video modes,m as well as JPG, BMP, PNG, and GIF, MP3, WAV, WMA, Dolby Digital (AC-3), AAC-LC, and AAC-HE, and DRM10 file formats. It also features 10/100 LAN port, analog audio/video connectors, D4/component video connectors, optical audio connectors, and comes bundled with a remote.

The device will be available later this month for $199. For more information, check out Buffalo's site.

Mark Hachman adds: It wasn't quite clear from the announcement what sort of transport mechanism this uses. A Buffalo spokeswoman tells me that wired Ethernet is required, as well as an HDMI cable to the TV.