Western Digital's
WD TV HD Media Player kept a low profile before hitting shelves this month, but with only $99 separating MaddHat.com from a thorough teardown, the inevitable next step was taken. Besides snapshots inside and out -- and the ubiquitous iPhone size comparison photo -- a quick runthrough with a variety of MKV-packed videos revealed delightfully nerdy results. The 1080p h.264 decoding was smooth, although some odd sharpening on 720p files while in 1080p output mode, and less than optimal results with 1080i-encoded files were noted. 1080p24 support didn't make it into the box, same for .ISO direct support -- no worries though, as it wasn't enough to stop the .m2ts files in the Blu-ray backups from playing directly. Good for the price, but with stiff competition --
Popcorn Hour anyone? -- being "good enough" in this sector is getting harder, pics and details are beyond the read link.
posted Nov 4th 2008 12:02PM
...Oh no!
Damn, beat me to it. :(
you're so beautiful like a tree or a high class prostitute.
lol! the first thing that popped into my head when I read the title, too!
I would have said it if you didn't. Props!
Do me bay-bay ( I like it in the morning time)
I need a body bag
Nice BBD reference.... haven't heard that song in years.
I must say I'm impressed. A $100 device that does a better job of being a media center device than a PS3 (I don't even know how much time I spent trying a variety of ways to make my PS3 play all my digital media until I finally gave up and made one of my computers a HTPC).
I find the PS3 to be a decent media player, other than when it comes to apple quicktime .mov files. The WD unit would be much better if it featured a gigabit ethernet jack and 802.11.
Picked one up last night.. Works amazing well, It will not replace he HTPC downstairs but I have one of the Divx boxes in the bedroom right now from beta testing it. The divx box interface is slow and a pain to use. Does not play bearly any file formats and even gets out of sync quite a bit. The ONLY advantage it has is networking wired/wireless. The WD box beats it in EVERY other way. The interface is simple and QUICK. Its going to stay up in the bedroom. Might even get one for my parents so I can send stuff to them on a USB stick or a HD to watch.
BVD ON HD.
whoops not my fruit looms, i meant BBD on HD.
Boys II Men, ABC, BBD.
And the east coast family.
(ABC- Another Bad Creation)
(BBD- Bel Biv Devoe)
What was that bit about the iPhone?
Wow i didnt take much notice of this when it was announced, i thought it was going to be another one of those generic cheap and nasty players that only support all the low end codecs.
If this really does playback Blu-ray nice and smoothly i might even buy one instead of building a media center pc.
I had to pick a format. Mp3 or AAC was just so easy. DVDs are a real hassle. I chose ISO because it leaves captions (subtitles), menus & is just one file.
Hope 4 gazillion hrs of conversion weren't wasted. Popcorn Hour & LaCinema better stay options for a long, long time.
Ok, I don't normally comment on site design issues, but really grey-on-black text (with a very light stroke text on top of that)? This is the hardest to read site I've seen in a really long time.
Oh nooooooooooooo.
I need a body bag.
Oh NOOOOO.
You know I saw BBD a few months ago live and they have not skipped a beat. Infact better than when I was a kid.
Needs a network port and support for HD dolby and dts and I'm on board!!!!!!!!!
It does support DTS by pass through via the HDMI or optical connection (need to change the Audio Output setting to Digital). You need a reciever that decodes DTS, and if you have one that does Dolby TrueHD it probably does DTS.
What files systems does this thing recognize? I'd love to see HFS but I /really/ doubt it. I'm certain of fat32 and ntfs but what about EXT3? Anyone know? The review lacks these essential details ):
Dude, you really need to learn how to read, or put in you contacts or something...
"It supports drives formatted with FAT32, NTFS, and HFS+ file systems."
And to those moaning about this and that support, the thing is $100, it's not going to have support for every feature you can dream up.
Why is that people just come on here to bitch about stuff?
Personally I think it looks like a great deal, although my Xbox 360 have been fine for 90% of the stuff I have, so I haven't had to look else where so far.
Would it be fair to describe this as a NeurosAudio OSD Media Center PLUS the ability to play back 720/1080 but w/o the ability to record?
Just collected mine (UK/EU version) from the delivery depot. Very impressed with the size of it and no more Xbox 360 noise! Interface is nice and video plays smooth. Very good for the price (£60) and a welcome friend for my WD Passport :)
Hello mate, how did you get this in the UK? i've been looking for a while now
Thanks!
Hi, where did you pick it up for £60? I live in the UK and the best I can see is £79 on play! Cheers in advance.
I agree with the previous person who said get it network capable.
Add in a few more codecs and support for ISOs then that would be awesome. As is I think it could play anything I have, only problem is I have it on my computer and don't have an external hdd. Could use my new 8 gig flash drive, I knew that would come in handy.
I'll look for a v2 when I get an HDTV.
@ Tobi
Where did you get it from for £60??
It will never be network capable. The whole point is to boost sales of external HDs for Western Digital.
Best you can hope for is NAS compatability.
I'm hoping Wi-Fi can be hacked in using one of the USB ports. Seems plausible.
Got one Sunday. It rocks. It gets really hot though.
Will it play subs in a MKV container?
It would have been great if there was anyway to stream files directly to the device. I have everything on my computer. I hate having to plug/unplug stuff (e.g. flash drives) to transfer files.
Anybody know of any other hardware that has all these options, but let you stream files directly to the device?
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/
Not sure of what codecs it supports, you'll have to check that out yourself. The A110 allows you to add a HDD directly to it or stream, the A100 can only play from streamed sources.
I thought they had Wi-Fi but they do not, only an Ethernet port.
both the popcornhour a100 & a110 can play off of an internal hd or usb hdd/stick as well as network.. a100 has pata, a110 has sata connex
You might as well just get a popcorn hour with an internal hard drive. The price will be very similar in the end plus you have much more versatility such as to stream from your PC or from an internal hard drive. With this WD box you need unplug and swap the hard drive every time you add new media. I suppose it is a cheap alternative if you already have an external hard drive or flash drive and you don't mind the back and forth. I bought one and really want to keep it but the new popcorn hour just seems like a better alternative.
Check out the Mediagate MG-450HD. The interface is a little clucky, but works with streaming over ethernet or Wifi.
http://www.mediagateusa.com/mg450hd.html
Goes for $200 here http://www.eworldsale.com/mediagate-mg-450hd-80211g-wireless-hd-multimedia-center-35-inch-sata-hard-drive_5853_9115.html
I know the MediaGate MG-450HD can stream files and plays on TV and can also support HD Movies (via HDMI port) - http://www.mwave.com.au/newAU/mwaveAU/productdetail.asp?sku=29030209
I'm now sure where your from... but they are being sold over at the US also...
This sucks.. I live in Canada and BestBuy up here doesn't carry it. I can't even order it and have it delivered IN the States, as BestBuy requires both billing and shipping to reside in the States. The Western Digital site sells it for $129, which is 30% higher.. I think I may just go with the iSTAR HD, which comes with network (ftp/http/samba/nfs) support, as well as an external eSATA connector, etc and sells for $188.
Anyone think this thing can/will get firmware updates? Would be great if they support updating the interface and added format such as .ISO files. Just curious.
Just got one of these after reading 'confirmations' on here on the previous post that it supported ISO and .IFO..... It seems it doesn't? It just plays VOBs individually, and doesn't pick up the .IFO for playing dvd rips.....or am I missing a trick? Any info appreciated
I just got mine Tim and hooked it in to my home theater (got one of the last 2 of the 20 units my Best Buy got in - employee told me they sold like 12 the day they got them in). In the manual towards the end there is a mention of firmware upgrades. Who knows...maybe WD will release extra codec and wi-fi support? (not likely, but we can dream)
Otherwise than that this thing is a steal for $99 (had a $20 gift card to from work! so it really got it for $79). I've tired 5 1080p .mkv files and 4 720p .mkv's and they all play great. Other formats I've tested were quicktime, xvid, h.264 and no hiccups at all. It's a little warm to the touch after it's on for 2+ hours but nothing big. Unit is very small, fits in the palm of my hand. Very satisfied.
I was about to pull the trigger on a $200 Popcorn Hour A-100 earlier this week until I heard about this on Engadget. Saved $100+. Awesome.
I just got one today, and it does support DVD in ISO format as far as I can tell, but on selected dvdrips, the aspect ratio is squished, more so than the correct aspect ratio that it maintains playing on my PC....is anyone else experiencing this? My mkv's and avi's are displaying correctly, but some 2:35:1 aspect films are being squished =/
Just to clarify, I have a straight rip, in VIDEO_TS folder, of Around The World In 80 Days, and the player is squishing the aspect ratio beyond the intended 2:35:1 widescreen. However another rip I have of Happy Feet is displaying correctly, not sure what the problem could be.
Try adjusting the aspect ratio under video setting to "normal"; seems counter-intuitive, but it worked for me for some of my widescreen movies. Only problem is, you have to change it back to "widescreen" for your other movies. Hopefully this will be corrected in a firmware update.
Try adjusting settings to "Normal" from "widescreen" under video settings. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but it worked for me for some of my movies. Only problem is, you have to switch back to "widescreen" for your other movies. Hopefully, this will be remedied in a firmware update.
some older widescreen dvds have the black bars encoded as part of the video, so while you see it as widescreen the player sees it as 4:3. when the 4:3 image is stretched across your widescreen tv the image would then looked squished.
I just had to comment, watching HD rips, with this thing adjusted to 1080p, even on my 720p projector is like,
it's . . . my God . . . it's full of stars . . .
So I bought one, and it's been working fine until...Hellboy 2. Artifacts all over the place. It's 1080p, h264, mkv container. I emailed CS and so far they have been useless, but we'll see what happens.
Hopefully it's just a defective unit, because I really like the thing. I'd like wifi, but my router is g, and I won't get an n unless mine breaks, so no streaming 1080p. I have a spare external HDD, so it works out great.
I love this product, It saves me from buying another PC to drive my flat Screen and reduces the noise level from my wife about the appearance of it all. I'll probably make a little shelf to perch on top of the wall mounted flat screen to hold the Satellite receiver and WDTV.
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WD could probably market a related product for the business world too. That product would play .pdf and .ppt (power point) files for road warrier business presentations. This little box is even easier to carry than a laptop.
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The WD MY Book and Passport USB external drives are great companions - but so is the Thermaltake BLACX hot-plug docking station that accepts bare SATA hard drives for PCs just like plug-in cassettes. The 3.5 inch drives are like video cassettes on steroids. A 1 TB SATA drive can pack 200 HD movies in 720p format and 7 times that number as .avi encoded DVDs. You can then fit dozens of these drives in a drawer. And - they only wear and consume power when they are playing. Think of a follow-on product that is styled like video gear with a hard drive slot in the front and the guts of a WDTV inside.