I swear to dog this wall doesn't have a single stud in it

If you can't find a stud, there's a more brute force option - [link] Those suckers will hold anything.

I come across enough shows on Hulu Plus that have the "oh so sad we can only stream this on a computer not a device" flag

Hmm. I should check the shows I would be watching (Arrow, SHIELD, the Flash, possibly Gotham, possibly Constantine [oh Jesus, it's all comic book shows I AM SO PREDICTABLE]) and see if they have that flag. That would be annoying.

I have a Roku streaming stick and a chromecast. I like them for different reasons. I had a Roku 2 but it wouldn't recognize the remote or the app so I don't the stick. The stick has Amazon Prime and the chromecast doesnt. You can cast from Amazon ' website but I found the audio seemed a little out of synch.

If you can't find a stud, there's a more brute force option - [link]. Those suckers will hold anything.

The description specifically says "Do not use for mounting televisions". You really need studs for heavy items like that.

Yiu can definitely install minidlna (the embedded DLNA clients used by Linux routers) on DD-WRT. I'm not sure how easy it would be to set it up to stream media from media that isn't physically connected, though. You could definitely set it up to do so by simply mounting the network drives and adding the filders, but I am not sure how well Minidlna scales to large media collections.

Have you considered dropping DLNA entirely and moving to a plex server? It seems likely to me that you might have a computer you could use for that, and then streaming from anywhere simply requires that you mount them all on the server computer and have lots of plex clients. And Plex clients are available on so much, now: even my new Vizio smart TV has a client. I have always had better luck with Plex, I just don't have an always-on PC in my house.

Full disclosure: I bought this router eventually solely because it has a lot of the power or DD-WRT without the hassles. DD was a bit of a nightmare. The Asus firmware is actually based on DD-WRT but with nicer interface and support.

Have you considered dropping DLNA entirely and moving to a plex server?

I have no idea if my three or so year old TV supports that. It's the primary client, and I haven't been able to install any server with the reliability of what comes running on my Lenovo device--even the QNAP apps on that NAS don't have the same success rate.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to set it up to stream media from media that isn't physically connected, though

Somewhat ironically, my primary media NAS is the only one not directly attached to the router. But that would a simple enough swap out, to put the one NAS I will never use for media storage on the switch instead.

I have a Linksys E3200, in readiness for installing DD-WRT, but my devices are all reliably broadcasting their server names, so the killer apps of DNS and permanent DHCP addresses never actually tipped me over into installing it.

Does anyone have any opinions on the Chromecast vs. the Roku streaming stick?

I just purchased the Amazon FireTV. On the whole, I like it better than my AppleTV. Much faster, no hiccups. The Netflix app interface isn't as good as AppleTV, but it streams a lot better. And with the help of a third party app, I can stream videos from my networked hard drive (Lacie MyCould).

The remote is bluetooth, so probably will not work with a universal remote. But it does show up on my Samsung Anynet+, which allows you to use your TV remote to control the FireTV. No clue how well that works, since I do not use my TV remote.

Amazon FireTV does not have HBOgo yet, but it's been announced "soon" or "before years end" or some such. It's definitely geared towards Amazon Prime. The controls for Amazon stuff is great.

No clue how it compares to Chromecast or Roku, as I do not have either of those. But figured I'd mention the FireTV as an option.

I have an old iMac, first generation Intel. From like 2006. The screen is dying (tons of lines across it), and it won't run anything close to latest OS. I had a hard drive failure a few years back, and replaced it. So I want to reclaim that puppy before disposing of it. Also wondering if the DVD-R drive is something I could slap into an external enclosure? I figure, if I buy a newer mac, they don't come with optical drives. So why not use that one, right? Just wondering if anyone has any experience opening one of these up?

I come across enough shows on Hulu Plus that have the "oh so sad we can only stream this on a computer not a device" flag

They do that less and less now. I even watch SYTYCD on my TV now.

Hmm. I should check the shows I would be watching (Arrow, SHIELD, the Flash, possibly Gotham, possibly Constantine

Tep, ARROW and SHIELD are definitely available via TV, though they only keep new episodes up for so long. See also, SLEEPY HOLLOW.