Western Digital TV HD 1080P Media Player - Electronics / Photography (Western Digital)

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Customer Reviews of Western Digital TV HD 1080P Media Player

Ian C
York UK
8th January 2009

Doesn't do what it says on the tin
I have all my CDs ripped to my PC, which is connected to my Sony AV receiver so I can play music through my 7.1 speaker system. While this works well, it means I have to start up the PC every time I want to play music, so I bought this little device to circumvent that. Unfortunately though, I find that it will not play my music files, most of which I have ripped in WMA (lossless) format, despite the specification saying it will play WMAs with no mention of a restriction in bitrates. It will play a few files I have in WMA 192Kb/s, which is what makes me think it can't handle high bitrates, but that is not really good enough as I'm gradually going to lossless for better sound quality. This device will also not play back the sound properly on videos I have taken with my digital camera, despite fiddling with various settings. So... it is currently winging its way back to Amazon for a refund as it is clearly not as described and definitely not fit for purpose in my case. It's a shame as I can see the potential, but it's not a patch on a PC connected straight into my AV system. For another reason, the interface is very slow, particularly with photos, plus you get no thumbnails of album art in music, though I gather that may be fixed in a firmware update. In conclusion, I can see why others are raving over it as it obviously fits with what they want it to do and/or can't get the PC near to their AV systems, but for me, it just doesn't do what I bought it for.

Friend

29th December 2008

A Brilliant Device
-It plays .MKV files perfectly- be that 720p or 1080p- without any problems on my HD TV.

-Customer support for this product is exceptional as the WD team have already released a new firmware which addresses several issues and adds several new features. They plan on releasing even more!

-The price is a complete bargain.

-Only downside is that it does not decode DTS audio, which MANY .mkv files are encoded with. This results in no audio if using a HDMI cable only, and so the only way you can get sound is by using an optical cable and connecting it to your surround sound (given it has a DTS decoder). HOWEVER, I have found a way around this problem and that is converting MKV DTS to MKV AC3 using the Popcorn Audio Converter (Google it- it's freeware).

~This device truly is brilliant and I highly recommend it to everybody~

Gadget Connoisseur
Scotland, UK
27th December 2008

WD TV - Miracle Box
I was very wary of this with it having a 'Western Digital' badge on it. I had the 'LG' thing in mind - they were once great when they made just televisions, but then they branched out and slap their name on all sorts of rubbish. Absolutely not so with the WD TV though - this thing is every bit as good as WD drives are reliable... Not just that, but this device fills a small gap that I had been waiting for.

I got myself a 40" Samsung 1080P back in October, but for a few weeks it was going to waste on standard def TV, so I decided to invest in a media player, and with the price and features of this, it was a clear winner - at least on paper. Having used it for a month or two now, I cannot praise it enough, especially after the recent firmware update which appears to solve pretty much every bug it used to have, as well as introduce some new features and codec support, so it's good to see WD are keen to support this wonder device of theirs.

Now, onto the important stuff... Has played every single DivX and XviD file I have thrown at it - 100% success. Has played about 90-95% of all 1080P MKV x264's that I have fed it too. Now, the biggest downfall of this device is the fact that it does not support DTS audio which is a pretty common format for 1080P x264's that you'll find on various 'sources'. If you connect the WD TV to a home cinema with a DTS decoder then you'll be fine, otherwise you'll need to transcode the DTS audio into AC3, which will play fine. The process should take about 15min to an hour on a modern computer with free software... The bundled conversion software that WD give you may do the job too, but I religiously dont touch anything developed by Arcsoft so could not say for sure.

Video quality is absolutely fantastic though... Obviously though if you feed this thing standard def DivX's, you wont notice much difference because the WD TV does not 'upscale' it to make it appear of higher quality by filling in 'blanks', so to get the full potential you need to play 720 or 1080P files, and trust me one again - the quality you will get on a full HD TV is absolutely superb - way better than streaming WMV's from PC to Xbox 360.

Besides the DTS support, the only negative things I can say about WD TV is the remote is very basic - but it does the job so it's really just a minor niggle I have. The other thing is the menu/GUI is a little sluggish (not painfully so, but enough to be a slight annoyance). The other thing about the GUI is it seems to be optimised for standard definition or 720P displays, as it seems a bit low quality and pixelated on my full hd display... But your going to spend your time watching movies - not the menus, so again this is a very minor flaw.

ttp
Lancashire
19th December 2008

Good idea, poor connections
I only had this device for a couple of hours before sending it back. The main problem I had was with the HDMI connection. If the cable moved slightly then the image would disappear from my TV. The composite connection worked fine but it was the HDMI connection I needed.
I also tried to play a DVD ISO without any success although that might have been due to the ISO.

tuohy
UK
10th December 2008

A bargain at eighty quid!
Like many people I have accumulated a number of videos from various sources mkv's, ts files etc. To play from a laptop these require codec downloads and lots of fiddling, similarly the PS3 and XBox 360 play some but not all of my files. The popcorn hour A110 (after it's recent firmware update) WILL play most of these files and if you want to spend £200 and you have a cat5e network is ideal.
BUT all you have to do with this low cost bit of kit is attach it to a flash drive or USB hard disk and it will play anything, it is small enough to take on holiday and fits neatly underneath the telly. The remote is functional but small.
It is the perfect companion to a hauppauge hd pvr because it will effortlessly play the .ts files this produces (of captured/time shifted HD content from a HD box)