The title says it all really.

I'm trying to stream video across our WAN from a cable TV STB at a remote site and then view it on a TV with a Slingcatcher.

The 'locked down' nature of the slingbox really pisses me off, I want to be able to view the output on any machine with VLC or Mediaplayer, not install some massive bloatware app. I'd like to be able to support more than 1 client at a time (not 100's at a time, more like 2 or 3). I want to be able to add the streamer by address from the UI of the receiver box and not sign up for some stupid 'account' with the supplier to link them all together that then requires me to poke holes in the corporate internet firewall just to make an internal connection between the two.

Then there's the Slingcatcher, what a POS. You can't add other web streams, it's super picky about what network drives it'll connect to and the picture quality sucks ass.

I'm loathed to have to install whole PC's at each end with VLC on, but right now they're the only option I have. I'd like something small and solid state that boots in 10 seconds like a slingbox and slingcatcher, but without all the crap that seems to go with it.

Anybody seen anything that would suit the bill? I know the Popcorn Hour, WDTV Live and eGreat M34A seem to get good reviews, but I need an encoding end too.