Western Digital TV HD Live Media Player Review

Digital distribution and streaming are the future, and that future is one that creates a different set of storage and screening problems than the one faced by collectors of DVDs and Blu-rays like myself. The emergence of media players, brought to the market by the likes of Western Digital caters for such concerns, addressing even more specifically the need of certain digital fans for a less clumsy solution to linking multimedia files housed on personal computers with TVs. So, with that context defining the emergence of gaming systems like OnLive and the announcement of international expansion for Netflix in the past few months alone, it is great to see that the hardware solutions conceived to handle the evolution are catching up. Media players are going to be an important part of any future that includes digital distribution, the continued strong presence of social networking (and its inherent bias towards sharing and storing media) and the smart phone revolution which has turned anyone capable of holding their phone into an amateur photographer. Today, thanks to DABS.com, we have got our hands on one such player - the very competitively priced, hugely accessible Western Digital TV HD Live Media Player. And here follows my thoughts on the system... Features Turn your USB drive into an HD media player Play videos, music, and photos from the Internet Full-HD 1080p video playback Collect without limits Play a wide variety of file formats Easy navigation Access files anywhere on your home network Supported FormatsVideo: MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264), Subtitle SRT (UTF-8) Photo: JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG Audio: MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA Playlist PLS, M3U, WPL Design Small, sleek and unassuming, the media player sits nicely in line with most contemporary digital and TV boxes, which is important since it's the sort of tech that should be primarily functional. Crucially, the box is tiny, so housing it isn't likely to be a problem, even when paired with the necessary external hard-drive (which you'd hope would be similarly designed for the sake of your feng shui). In terms of the aesthetics/ergonomics relationship, the player's a winner - simplicity in design is an eternally undervalued achievement when it comes to ease of use, and very basically, it's nigh-on impossible to lose your way with the WD Media Player - the ports on the back are as close to self-explanatory as tech gets, especially with the labels on each socket and the remote is pleasantly without the superfluous bells and whistles that can be found on some other modern controllers. Set-Up The box comes with a remote control and can be connected up to your TV with the included composite AV cables, or by HDMI, which will of course require a purchase (or recycling of one you already own). It's all simple enough to be achieved without the need for instructions, and the menus once you're set-up have been given an extra sheen since the preceding model landed on the market. Everything feels very slick, and it's very easy to find your way around at first. Usability Beautifully simple - the player allows you to connect any and every USB mass storage device to it, and then it's simply a matter of enjoying your multimedia files via your TV. The content on whatever storage device you connect (and there's an option of connecting two at once if need be) - whether thumbdrive or hard-drive - appears on screen, in a simple, easily navigable menu set-up that clearly distinguishes what each file is, even though the stock thumbnail image remains the same for all files. So provided your own inventory system is up to scratch on your storage device, the Media player will display it all perfectly, and since I'm anal about ordering, it was never an issue for me. The universal USB compatibility is perfectly appropriate for the majority of mainstream consumers, since that market remains governed by that connectivity feature, so the lack of additional options isn't in any way catastrophic. But, you would think, size and design permitting, that the next generation of the product, or even an entirely different system will facilitate those users who choose to store in other manners apart from external drives. Within the on-screen system itself, functionality is very strong, menus are very slick, and allow for searching, including by Artist and Track for music, which adds an extra level of ease to the preceding model as well. The player also allows for image interaction - while editing is not possible (and why would it be?) - the user can zoom in as desired and pan around the image, and video can be fast-forwarded, paused, rewound and skipped, just as it would on a conventional player. Performance Unlike the first generation of media players, the WD Media Player is very well suited to its task: there is a slight delay between connection and being able to access the files, but it's hardly noticeable, and in fact is comparable to a conventional start up on an external hard-drive anyway. Interaction is very nearly instantaneous, and the functionality matched the design's slickness in every sense. One of the key points here is to remember that the player can only be as good as your own File Naming system, so if you're prone to using cryptic file names which won't necessarily reflect what the file contains, it's probably best to change your habits before you invest. Still, the fact that the player includes three separate file viewing options makes searching and browsing through your media easy, with the option to view files in list form, or as thumbnails or finally as a list with a preview. It can handle up to 1080 video without a problem, and nobody is watching anything beyond that, so that has to be full marks in terms of capabilities. There's also the option to plug your digital camera directly into the player, cutting out the storage middle-man and allowing photographers both amateur and professional to use their high definition, large sized TVs to view their handy-work, which has to be a bonus over the limitations of a computer screen. And finally, the Player comes equipped with an ethernet port on the rear, meaning the ability to access shared drives or media servers on your own home network which would require either a wireless-to-wired adapter or a USB wireless adapter to connect. The connectivity option also allows users to take advantage of a number of included online services including Live 365, Flickr, Youtube and Pandora. Final Thoughts Available for just £99.99 from Dabs.com, the WD Live Media Player makes the technology available for a very affordable price, making it a more accessible entry-point for most consumers. And added to that price the fact that the performance is beyond question, it's a bargain to say the least. An essential for a tech-geek Christmas present. Western Digital TV HD Live Media Player is available to buy from Dabs.com