Western Digital Television - Hd Media Player Review

Currently, we all want to be able to watch all of their media easily. Not to mention, why not, with media coming from numerous places... video cameras, surveillance cameras, mobile phones not to mention, the Internet. You additionally shouldn't need to physically swap your DVDs or Blu-Rays discs because that'd be, well, un-United States! 750-something doughnuts a year, we Canadians eat. It's gotta please take a toll somewhere.

But in all seriousness, playing all the different media you could have isn't always easy. Let's look at the alternatives us might have.

Xbox 360 Console - Somewhat capable, but has codec incompatibility, no built-in WiFi, loudness along with other issues. Amazingly, the 360 is reported to be able to read HFS+ (Mac) partitions that we like for many reasons, even though the PS3, a non-Apple competitor company's product, cannot read HFS+ or NTFS. A lot more amazing still, the 360 can't read NTFS. I'd love to understand what happened c = continual reporting... was there a disgruntled employee(s) who said,"let's stick to the MS man baby! HFS but no NTFS!! HAHA! There!" The menu, sorry, Dashboard works pretty well for any console, but not really for me like a media center. Finally, the 360 just uses an excessive amount of darn power.

Sony Playstation 3 Slim - Thought to be a great media player by a lot of, this doesn't happen meet with the exact same kind of fanfare in my house. It would not handle MKVs, although the files within that container are usually Suitable for the PS3, it wouldn't take files bigger than 4GB, it wouldn't stream these sorts of videos from your PC (and in many cases when it could, its 802.11g speeds would hold it back). Also can get loud/hot such as the 360, also it takes a great deal of power. In addition ,, the PS3 developing a Blu-Ray player is its saving grace. That, its Blu-Ray boot up speed it comes with it may decode the lossless formats internally turn it into a decent player. I even such as the XMB to a degree where I don't mind utilizing it for organizing pictures and music, but as it wouldn't handle my MKV video collection, it too, unfortunately, has got to obtain a thumbs down.

Wii - Hah. I'll discuss the 1080p media center capabilities of my original Game Boy next.

Popcorn Hour - It was the primary proper media center thingys which had all of the requisite features in some recoverable format. Hard drive, included, as well as WiFi, RSS Bit Torrenting skills and the ability to play back MKVs and high-bitrate 1080p video. Only dilemma is, this hadn't take action well. Top notch reports abound from the player stuttering, freezing, and usually sucking at playing back 1080p video.

Various other networked media streamers - These all work decently well for pictures, music and in many cases SD video, but then again, use the 360 and PS3 with TVersity. Nay, the true test is full-bandwidth 1080p video, that i'm afraid both players in addition to their skimpy wireless connections are lower than the position.

HTPC - This would be the one solution for some time. I even have posts detailing what they do and ways to place them together. How come these work? Because they're just computers attached to TVs. Dual-core CPUs, plenty of RAM and fancy videos ought to make short work of what you can throw their way, at least the theory is that. Having owned HTPCs since I surely could connect an S-video cable to my Radeon 9700 Pro in older times, Let me tell you how the experience since smooth as it needs to be. Why? Because we're using Windows! XP Media Center Edition was simply XP, and Vista has Media Center integrated, to ensure that Media Center is simply Watch Satellite TV on PC - Live Internet TV for Free an application that runs on top. BSODs, freezes, slowdowns along with other issues will still happen, particularly if use the box for other purposes, such as downloading without anyone's knowledge. That, and also the incredibly complex setup procedure was seriously annoying. You need to of course install Vista, then again the codecs, and being sure that things are being upconverted and handled properly, sound has been output through the coax or toslink or HDMI the actual way it should, and after that finally calibrating the playback quality output was obviously a chore and more. Most of these problems disappear when utilizing Plex using a Mac as your HTPC. It's among the best media center frontends I have seen, and incredibly efficient featuring its processing, playing video back smoothly which don't in VLC or Quicktime with Perian. Still, the correct answer is a smart investment (well, this is a depreciating asset, but let's not split hairs) to get a complete PC, and that too a Mac. Your only aesthetically-acceptable option is a Mac Mini, in addition to their price-performance relationship is uncommon (in a bad way).

WD TV HD Media Player - Finally, that brings us to the object this review is around, the Western Digital TV HD Media Player. Nobody was expecting it, at all, as of this price, and positively not from WD. But none of them of this is important.

We're made to believe so good things are available in small packages, and it appears that this tiny device is often a proponent of this idea. It's unbelievably small, at least to my eyes, which are employed to seeing acceptable 1080p playback from big boxes that includes massive coolers atop multi-core CPUS breathing hot air, sucking electricity down and increasing the racket and sweltering heat manufactured by one other components inside that (usually) ugly box. It does not have any fans, is quite green and gasp... actually does what its likely to! Setup can't be easier, but no AV device of all time has been easier to set up, physically. The electricity cable, the HDMI cable... and you are clearly done. Yes, re-decorating true with lots of other HDMI devices, but it is tiny, and there are just a number of jacks, therefore it is very hard to spoil it. No physical buttons take presctiption the unit, therefore it is turned on with the remote. A far more-white-than-blue Leds up for power, and in case you have a USB device plugged in, it'll flash or light up, determined by whether it is scanning the drive or is preparing to go. I encountered an issue in early stages. After establishing be simple cabling and getting to the menu, I found that it wouldn't recognize my external 1 TB hard disk drive. Alarmed, I immediately copied a 720p Tv series to my Patriot Xporter usb drive and plugged it in. Right after seconds of inactivity, it started flashing and also the videos showed up. Still, when it wouldn't read 1 TB hard disk drives, it's no effective 1080p media center now, could it be? I updated the firmware, and after that it finally saw the drive. I noticed speed improvements at the same time! Hopefully it are certain to get better with each and every firmware update.