Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player
by Western Digital
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Our Price: $312.75 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $59.00 (click here) Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player
Customer Review: An excellent product and for the price ... cannot be beat!
Summary: 5 Stars
The WD Media player is an excellent product and for the price cannot be beat! I have two 1TB WD disks attached to the unit full of pictures, music and movies. It is 100% plug-and-play and will play just about any standard media format without issue. You can take a disk, attach it to the PC (I use Vista but it does not matter.) and make any edits to file names, directory structures, etc., viewing it as a standard Vista folder structure and then re-attach it to the WD Media player for use. It re-reads the disk in a few moments and you are ready to go. It's just that simple. A few very minor points:
1. The WD Media player does not support component video so if you have a pre-HDMI high def TV (i.e. Mitsubishi Diamond Series) you'll have to use the supported composite video interface.
2. The remote does not understand video chapter dividers.
3. Though it can understand MP3 format and iTunes playlists, etc. it is necessary to use the supplied software to reformat the naming conventions of the iTunes directory so the WD Media player can understand the iPOD/iTunes format. I'll take their word for it but I was a bit uncomfortable reformatting my 100GB iTunes repository. Instead, I simply copied the iTunes directory to the WD 1TB hard drive. It plays the music just fine though I cannot take advantage of playlists and metadata.
4. Though it will place a bookmark into movie it does not remember locations in picture or music folders.
All in all ... it is a great product and well worth the money.
Customer Review: Great Device w/Minor Flaws
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had the WD TV HD for close to 6 months now. I download a lot of movies and wanted the easiest/cheapest way to watch them on my TV.
I have attached an Iomega external hard drive (in addition to various flash drives) and have had no issues with the device not recognizing them.
I have played AVI, MPEG4, WMV, DIVX and ISO's with virtually no issues. I should note that it does not recognize any of my FLV files. And of the 100's of movies I've played, there has been an issue playing a handful of them. There is no consistency as to a particular video formet, etc. Just for some reason it doesn't recognize the files. But I wouldn't let that deter you, b/c it's happened to less than 5% of the movies I've played.
I only have 3 minor negatives:
1. The remote is the the only way to use the device. So if you don't have the remote, it's useless. I have taken it to a friend's place and left the remote at home on a couple of occasions.
2. It doesn't recognize chapters, so you can not skip to a certain part of the movie very easily. You have to fast forward from the start, which can be very slow and tedious.
3. The audio can be slightly off. About 10% of my movies the audio is just slightly off (like a 1/2 second). It is annoying at first, but after awhile, you get used to it.
Other than those minor flaws, I highly recommend the WD TV. It is the cheapest and easiest way to watch video files on your TV.
Customer Review: Unbelievable for the price
Summary: 5 Stars
This device is exactly what I was looking for.
I was using the xbox 360 for video streaming from my computer, but I have a laptop, and it wasn't especially convenient to always have the laptop plugged in and connected to an external hard drive when you wanted to watch a movie...
I now have a player for all of my ripped movies and home videos that doesn't steal bandwidth from my router and is dead-simple to operate.
I just plugged it into my external hard drive, plugged in the HDMI cable to my TV and that's all the setup there was. It plays HD .AVI and .MP4 with no weirdness. Smooth, instant playback on extremely high-bitrate video files.
I currently have a Lacie 1TB drive hooked up to it, but it's nice to know that I still have a free USB port, for when I'd like to add another drive.
My friend bought one as well and was having problems with jerky fast-forwarding of .m4a files (which is a non-standard .mp4 container created by Apple). After installing the new firmware update and trying a few things, he found the solution... just rename the file, so that the extension is .mp4 instead of .m4a and then the fast-forwarding worked perfectly on the same files. I just thought I'd include that, in case any one else encounters that problem.
Other than that, I highly recommend the WD HD Media Player if you have a decent sized collection of videos, and you'd like to watch them without having to worry about having a computer around.
Customer Review: Dont believe the ngative reviews!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading the negative reviews about this item I can only say. WHAT!!? Obviously these people have no idea what this device does. It WILL NOT make non-HD content magically become High Def. Anyone who thinks that is going to very disappointed if they purchase this product. This device can play 'just about' any format you throw at it. I will quantify that by saying most video formats will play without issue. Is it perfect? No. Its darn close though. All of my movies are in .mkv format and they play and look amazing! Every format I have tried has played without a problem. I had built a home theater pc to specifically watch HD content and it would stutter and hiccup on 1080p content. I connect this device and Im watching 1080p with no freezing or artifact. Now I have noticed one issue with this device that could possibly be fixed with a firmware update. Any .mkv file that is encoded with DTS format sound will automatically run across the optical output for sound output instead of the HDMI connection. I found a free program to re-encode the sound of the .mkv to Dolby and the sound now plays thru the HDMI connection. This may not be a problem if you have the device connected to a receiver using the optical connection. I am totally satisfied with device it plays 1080p content without issue and almost any current video format. I have it connected to a 1080p lcd tv and movies look Amazing! Try it I don't think you will be disappointed. I do have issue with the remote though. Seems a little cheap.Customer Review: Sometimes the simplest things are the best.
Summary: 5 Stars
I was wandering about in a retail electronics store about 2 weeks ago and stumbled upon this little gem. Over the last several months I have been looking for either a Media Extender or a hard drive based media player. My feeling was that anything purchased would be an experiment so $300 or more was over my budget for a science project. When I saw this little number for $100.00 there was no hesitation and, for me, it was a good move. It has a very simple user interface and the expansion possibilities are endless. WD says it is optimized for WD drives but I have tried it with 4 different drives and 2 zip drives and it works great. I have tried it via HDMI to a digital TV and via RCA cables to an old projection screen TV and it works flawlessly. The picture quality is quite amazing even hooked up to my 11 year old 61" Sony projection model. It is very compact and can be easily moved from room to room. The only thing I had to do was upgrade the firmware. It was as simple as downloading a zip file and putting the extracted files in the root directory of a portable drive. Once the drive was connected it recognized the updates and did it's thing. The only feature that would make it better is the ability to password protect movies and content not suitable for children. It's not a huge deal because more mature content can just be put on a different drive. If you don't mind a few more cables hanging from behind your TV and are into simple, this player just might be for you.