Western Digital Black TV HD Media Player

Comment:
Have to attach composite to hdtv to set WD TV to 1080p-60Mhz manually to run hdmi, auto can't find it. This is a pain but once this is set it played any video I have tried to date fine. Once cold booted I have to go in and set the video resolution again, keeps it on stand-by mode.Mine came loaded with the latest firmware.

Comment:
Great product. The video is great, the sound is awesome. Come on WD improve the user interface. The procedure for selecting videos, music or pictures is lame. You can do better. Having said that; this beats a wireless media player all over. Get yourself a WD Passport HD that ends the need to hook up an AC adapter and it's all good. This product brings all you media to your lfat panel TV in a easy to use manner.

Comment:
Okay, i got this device from yesterday. I got few movies in HD 720p and 1080p output HDMI. Really nice. I can ready almost all format. One thing, you guys need to aware, this can't ready DTS audio. I use software to convert into AC3 audio format. It works good now. Every movies got the sound. Really awesome. GET IT NOW!!!

Comment:
A warning - as of March 09, with all firmware update s, this box is not as universal as everyone claims. I have 50-60 DV files from my older sony camcorder - the WD TV will not play them. I have another 20-30 hours of analog video captured by Studio as .avi files - WD TV will not play them. I have another 30 hours of HD video from my Sony HDR - HC1 camcorder, which captures as .m2v with a separate .wav file for the sound - the WD TV will play the video OR the audio, but not both at the same time. Like watching silent movies.Playing DVDs means you have to go through the directory file structure and find an obscure .VOB file - no menus, no features, no chapters - very primitive.Yes, of course you can go through and convert all your files, but with 1 terabyte + of video in already otherwise useful form, why should someone buy anonther 2 or 3 hard drives, and spend 100+ hours at least converting all these files to something with less resolution. That's why I bought this box, so it would play these files, not to make more work for myself. This WD TV is a real disappointment.Until there is a significant, if ever, firmware update  for all this mess, this was a $120 mistake - another piece of near useless gear sitting in a box. So much for early adopters...

Comment:
As of March 09, with all firmware updates, this box is not as universal as WD claims. I have 50-60 DV files from my older sony camcorder - the WD TV will not play them. I have another 20-30 hours of analog video captured by Studio as .avi files - WD TV will not play them. I have another 30 hours of HD video from my Sony HDR - HC1 camcorder, which captures as .m2v with a separate .wav file for the sound - the WD TV will play the video OR the audio, but not both at the same time. Like watching silent movies. Yes, of course I can go through and convert all the files, but with 1 terabyte + of video in already otherwise useful form, why should someone buy anonther 2 or 3 hard drives, and spend 100+ hours at least converting all these files to something with less resolution. Thats why I bought this box, so it would play these files, not to make more work for myself. This WD TV is a real disappointment.

Comment:
I must disagree with the 2 reviews before mine. This unit does in fact support AC3. It does not support DTS, but it will pass it through, so you must have a receiver that will decode DTS to hear it! You can always convert the DTS to AC3 with software you can find on the net. Takes about 15 minutes to convert! Secondly, when it comes to image quality. It all depends on the quality of the encoding, and the file itself. I have found some HD videos are just ok, but others are fantastic! Over all, this is a great product. I have one unit now, and I am planning to buy another. I highly recommend you check it out!

Comment:
Well worth the money! Just make sure you update  the firmware first. The interface works well, the including remote is very small, about 10 cm, and works great. The two usb ports are great, leave a usb external hard drive connected to the back, and can use flash drives on the side for quicker access. All around, well worth the money if you are looking for something to play back almost all media files.

Comment:
This is a good unit that plays almost everything Mkvs included. The video playback at 1080p is flawless. Unfortunately most of my HD have audio encoded in AC3 which this unit does not support, so no sound. Contacted WD to find out if there will be a firmware update to fix the problem. If they cant fix it I'll have to return it.

Comment:
I just purchased WDTV and successfully connected it to Sony Bravia XBR. PROS: This product is an excellent idea. It handles most of the known formats of image and video files. It provides surround sound if present in video stream. No need to connect laptop to watch photos or HD movies. CONS: However image quality is unacceptably poor for the device with ''HD'' suffix. Colors are oversaturated and image has high contrast - lack of detail in shadows and burnt-out highlights. Some dithering is visible. It looks like images are reduced to 16bit. The same goes for videos, HD content plays without any frame drops but image is not clear, some graininess is strongly visible on High Definition content! Lost detail in shadows and highlights. I could not find any settings to correct this. CONCLUSION: Regrettably, I will have to return this product. Is this a low end product and quality limitations are expected for this price? Is the marketing dept at WD thinking that consumers a dumb enough to b

Comment:
Just does everything you expect it to do at a great price. On top of that, tigerdirect had the unit delivered within 2 business days of ordering.

Comment:
This is a great product except for one thing, not all removable drives are recognized, i'm not sure why and WD has little info on this. Drives that i found didn't work are Acomdata Samba hard drive enclosure with a 1TB WD drive, if hard drive is installed in my masscool MP-1369SA media player and used as usb drive WD media player recognizes it. Drive enclosures that work are WD dual-option combo, inoi mobile video used as usb drive, and mediasonic smart-drive. The only difference i can see between the drives that work and those that don't is the acomdata drives don't have a push button for power on an on/off switch, maybe that's why they don't work.

Comment:
Picked this up because of the wide range of file compatibility advertised. So far - hasn't hit a format yet it doesn't like. Though am experiencing a strange pause while playing .m2v video files. Not sure if its the hard drive or the WD player. Love the size of the unit and it's ability to use any number of different USB devices. Only thing it's missing is network capability.

Comment:
This is a great device for those people who want to watch videos on their tv, but dislike the idea of connecting their computer all the time or the cost of a dedicated HTPC.Simple enough for the parents to use. Small enough to bring it around. Cheap enough to give it to the parents.The only issue i find with this device is when i want to add more files i need to reconnect the hard drive to my computer to transfer files, but it isn't a big issue.

Comment:
Great product, small, very nice looking great for the entertainment center will play everything except dts audio files w/mkv. Which seems to be most of my movies. Called western digital and got no solution, thay said maybe an update soon to fix this problem. Don't have that long to wait, so I went and got a true ''popcorn hour''.

Comment:
Don't forget to update  the firmware. You can go to the Western Digital site and download it from there.Great for the price. No ethernet, but if you want something similar with an ethernet/wifi it'd cost you nearly twice the price. It does exactly what I need it to do and it does it quite well.

Comment:
For the right price and support so many formats of HD video and even FLAC (lossless) audio, I am impressed with this player and definitely recommend a buy to anyone.

Comment:
I tried a few wired and wireless media extenders to play my pictures, videos, and music files on my TV. However, they all had significant faults such as poor quality, slow response, limited file support, requiring Vista, etc. This unit played 95% of my files with decent quality and response. I've connected several USB media to it and it recongized them all. It is small and quiet. Can't complain for $130.

Comment:
For the money it's not a bad player depending on your needs. I was testing this unit out for a couple of people and I found that the lack of network support was my biggest complaint. IMO there are better units in the market that do this and more but are definitely more expensive.I would of also liked the ability for the unit to detect a VIDEO_TS folder and read the IFO file to play the movie instead of having to go into the folder and clicking on the IFO file. I found it more annoying then confusing since I was used to another product (SageTV) that this is a standard feature.If your going to buy this product, I would highly recommend using a hard drive that is USB powered instead of lugging a drive that requires an additional power source. I found lugging the external drive and trying to reach the power bar every time I wanted to add movies to the unit quite annoying.

Comment:
This is a great product! I've been waiting for something like this for a long time.Previously, I was using the networked DLink DSM-320 Media Player but found that box to have problems (wireless throughput was not great enough to keep up with the video, wired network bogged down, no HDMI HD output, too many buttons on the remote, poor FF and REV).What I really wanted is a media player that allows me to load a video file onto a flash drive from my PC, and then play that flash drive on our HD LCD TV (HDMI input) or our old tube set (composite video input). I didn't want to run network cables all over the house or slow down the network.This box does it all almost perfectly. It was up and running in 5 minutes on both TVs. The user interface is elegant and simple, and its easy to find files using different search methods. The quality of the video is great on both TV sets. I love that it has 2 USB inputs. I can keep a bunch of TV shows (Scooby Doo!) ready to go on one USB flash for the kids and can use the other USB input for swapping flash drives with our movies.The only problem I've had so far is that it wouldn't play MKV HD files that used DTS audio format. Apparently, the DTS audio comes out on the optical connector only but not on the audio RCA jacks in analog nor on the HDMI connector. So I could see the movie but could hear nothing. But by following these instructions (http://audioconverter.heartware.dk/Tutorial/), I easily converted DTS audio into DD audio and was able to play the 720p and 1080p MKV files.Rarely do I REALLY like a product. But this one is sure a winner in my view! This review was modfied by poster @ 01-08-09 02:44 AM

Comment:
Bought it for 130CAD while on sale.Picture is clear, smooth, cheap for a media centre.plug in USB memory/USB hard drive and plays movie.Does its job well and simple to use.Plays many format.Review available:http://www.trustedreviews.com/multimedia/review/2008/12/02/Western-Digital-WD-TV-HD-Media-Player/p1Video Review:http://www.trustedreviews.com/video/70 This review was modfied by poster @ 01-06-09 07:50 PM