Streaming with TVersity (
http://tversity.com/) and transcoding with ffdshow (
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow, and be sure and check the TVeristy site for recommended versions) is an unbelievable experience. Both are free (but TVersity will not doubt start charging once they work out all the kinks in the product) and provide you on the fly viewing/listening of a ton of media formats. You can install some other transcoders for the formats not handled by ffdshow.
Personally, I love downloading the HD recordings of shows and streaming them direct to my PS3 + HDTV. No wasted time converting and burning the media, and when I'm done, I just delete them (after a suitable length of time seeding of course ;-))
The TVersity product isn't as shiny os MS offerings, but because they don't bow at feet of the DRM gods, there aren't any issues with what kind of content can be streamed.
