wd tv live frontAn HD TV won’t serve full potential if if you don’t watch HD movies on it. My first option is to get an Apple TV, but it can’t play 1080p Full HD. Then I heard of  the Wertern Digital WD TV Live, WD’s upgrade to the it’s Hard Disk Drive Media Player, the newer version adds Network connectivity, Youtube, Flickr and Pandora as well as an improved user interface. With wide range of media format it support Maximum PC labeled it as “The Movie Pirate’s Perfect Media Player” on their hand’s on review.

So what is exactly the WD TV Live and what’s in it that my HD TV will love. To answer that question I made a list of the the benefits of the Western Digital WDTV Live.

  1. It plays 1080p Full HD flawlessly
  2. WDTV Supports media file formats such as AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9, JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG, MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS, PLS, M3U, WPL, SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, and SMI.
  3. It connects to a network attached storage or computer and plays its content straight to your TV
  4. With WDTV you can access Onnline content from YouTube, Pandora, Flickr and Live365 internet radio.
  5. Supports USB Wi-Fi adapter so you use it without wires
  6. Although it’s optimized for the My Passport portable hard drive you can add limitless amount and size of hard drive.
  7. Plays content from digital  camcorder, scameras, and portable media players that can be recognized as a storage devices.
  8. Everything seems faster, boot-up, thumbnail loading and over all performance
  9. Firmware updates  can be done directly over the Internet
  10. It can now transfer files between USB  devices, pull files off the network, and delete unwanted files.
  11. With preview mode, it shows the file’s information and plays the media
  12. Finger print resistant maate charcoal casing
  13. New smaller component connection

The WDTV does it job but according to crunchgear there are still some stuff that can be added or fixed such as

  1. Netflix ‘Watch Now’ functionality
  2. access to sites like Hulu
  3. the ability to navigate by ‘chapter’ like on a DVD (with VOB, MKV, etc),
  4. an internet browse
  5. built-in wi-fi and bluetooth for bluetooth headset, data streaming, keyboard and mouse
  6. A physical on/off button

The Register also recommends the WDTV Live and noted that

The WD TV grows up. The original was a great way of hooking up a hard drive full of content to your telly, but the Live makes it a fully fledged network media player, allowing you to hide the HDD right out of the way. It’s not perfect – the UI is still a tad clunky and inconsistent in places – but it does the job.

Also trusted reviews rated the WDTV 8/10 stars in terms of design, features, performance, and value.

Priced at around $150 USD, I think it can replace my current DVD player.

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