This is a review of the Western Digital TV Live media player. Let me start by saying this is a great multi-purpose full-HD 1080p media player. I have used a broad range of players to watch movies on my TV and projector over time: PCs and laptops, PS3s, X-Box 360s, dvd and divx players, and nothing comes close to the little WD TV Live player. It is a versatile unit that will play all your media, from photos to music and movies without giving you any problems. The device has excellent connectivity, including and HDMI port, 2 USB ports (where you can attach any size drives), a Toslink optical out, a composite out, and an ethernet port. The firmware gets updated via your network connection. When it first came out, it was a bit buggy with some of the advanced features, but via the recent udpates, it's now nearly flawless. On the advanced side, this player will let you create folders on your drive and assign thumbnails to them by simply dropping a jpg file. It will also let you create thumbnails for all your movies, which is awesome. That means you can scroll through your entire movie collection as thumbnails. When you move over each movie, it tells you file name and file size, which is quite helpful. The best feature of the device by far is that it plays nearly every format known to man: divx, xvid, mkvs, avis, movs, mp4s, ISOs, etc, etc. - no matter the codec and the container, even ISOs of discs, this player will handle it. Physically, it's tiny, so you can tuck it away pretty much anywhere near your display, TV or projector. No moving parts, so it makes no noise, and it's pretty good handling heat. It gets a little warm, but nothing bad. As if that's not enough, the networked connection will let you play movies or music from anywhere on your home network, plus you can connect to the web and access YouTube, Pandora, Flicker and Live365 radio. Oh, and this puppy will handle subtitles too, in many different formats. Pretty sweet.
Western Digital WD TV Live side view Price: $106.99	Western Digital WD TV Live (back view) Price: $106.99
Western Digital WD TV Live (unit & remote) Price: $106.99	Western Digital WD TV Live, next to monitor Price: $106.99
What's in the Box? HD Media Player, Compact remote with batteries, Composite AV cable, Component AV cable, AC adapter, Quick Install Guide. Compatibility HDMI, Full HD (1080p), AAC, MP3, JPEG, USB 2.0, H.264, SimplayHD™, Energy Star®, Dolby Digital, DTS, DLNA, Bonjour, AVCHD Features: Full-HD 1080p video playback and navigation Play a wide variety of file formats. No need to spend time transcoding. Play videos, music and photos from the Internet on your big screen TV Access files anywhere on your home network Turn your USB drive into an HD media player Play media seamlessly from multiple USB drives Advanced navigation options (thumbnails, media library, and search) HDMI 1.3, composite video and component video output SPDIF digital output Ultra-compact design File formats supported: Video: 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 Photo: JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG Audio: MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS Subtitle: SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI I am very happy with them overall. I can take them with me on weekend trips, you can create an instant dance floor anywhere any time :) Product Details Shipping Weight: 2 pounds Product Dimensions: 3.9 x 4.9 x 1.6 inches ; 10.7 ounces ASIN: B002KKFP9Y Item model number: WDBAAN0000NBK-NESN Average Customer Review on Amazon: (4 stars from 257 reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #38 in Electronics

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