Wish we could play digital movies on gamepad off usb HDD, SD or flash drive. .

I have about 500GB of digital movies that I would absolutely love to be able to stream on the gamepad. 

It should be possible for Nintendo to allow video streaming on gamepad, I just don't think it would be in their best interests. Anyone think Nintendo will ever allow it?

I would love media streaming, only reason I still have my Ps3.

Perhaps - it does seem like it would be physically possible on the Wii U via an update. The closest thing they've done in that regard is playing MP3 songs on the 3DS by storing them on your SD card. Which is a resent endeavor, so I could imagine them open to the idea.

Yea especially since we have to buy bigger storage in the first place...

There are other, cheaper machines on the marketplace that provide that service should you continue to desire it.