For the past 8 years I have enjoyed being a user of the MG35 "Media-gate" media player siting on my LAN and accessing movies, TV captures, music and photo's residing on my PC located in my home office. The networked MG35 was connected to my LCD HD TV located in the lounge room and served it's purpose well over the years.
As time and tide move on what with new file formats (H.264/AAC / MP4 and the like) no access to the net from this media player, unable to handle High Definition (720P / 1080P etc.) TV captures and no way of "previewing" any media prior to using the play button, I thought it time to have a look at a replacement.
Yesterday afternoon, following several days of research saw me commit to spending $196.00 AUS. (I believe RRP $149.00 US, although I am sure street price would be cheaper) at a local Electronics store on the Western Digital WD TV Live HD Media Player. My price included standard 12 months + 12 months extended warranty.
It took me longer to physically disconnect and remove my MG35 media player from the network & TV than it did to "fire up" the replacement. Well that might be a bit of an exaggeration.....but connecting the WD TV Live HD box was "simple". Plug in the RJ45, plug-in the HDMI cable to the TV and WD, insert 2 batteries in the small but easy to use remote control, turn on the power switch (after plugging it in first.........I'm like a kid with a new toy at Christmas)....and bingo. Several screens later I was scrolling through multiple hard drives on the 3 PC's on the LAN. One can not only "preview" movies & TV shows (when you can't remember if you have seen that one or this one) the clever d*** WD actually begins to "Run" the movie in a very small box (similar to PIP) with sound might I say, then when you say "Oh yea, that's the one I wanted" it starts from the beginning.
The WD TV Live processor features 500MHz cpu speed, a 333MHz coprocessor, a 333MHz DSP, and up to 1 GB of 64-bit DDR-2 DRAM. The WD TV Live comes with 512MB of DRAM and 256MB of NAND Flash memory installed. Western Digital has tweaked the original Sigma SMP8600 Family design slightly by including 6 video Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) which should give it the ability to handle high-def content with ease.
Under a "file management" screen you can even delete, move, copy,...............Oh hell, this is a great little media player, one can do much, why not go and have a look if your interested WD TV Live HD Media Player
Hey I almost forgot, two of the "BIG" things that attracted me to this particular media player, because their are many units on the market were:
1/ with an internet connection present it will check and offer you firmware upgrades (as it did for me when I first turned it on)
2/ should you not wish to OR unable to connect to your network (hard cable or WiFi) you can plug in 2 USB hard drives, camera's, USB sticks etc.
Whilst this unit is not the only contender out there for me it seriously represented a good "Bang for my Buck".
Highly recommended.