Media Player WD TV Live HD Media Player

[Tasgandy]

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.

[Ishi]

I can't really spend that much like you lol so I use the default Windows Media Center on Windows 7 cause I use a TV tuner and so far its simple but not bad. I can also listen to local FM radio in Windows Media Center cause my tuner includes an antenna. I can also record TV in it but I wish, I could get a free service online that would bring more TV shows on my Windows Media Center but I don't know if any free service supports my country.

 

Windows Media Player allows me to stream for online radio stations too. I prefer using default programs lol...

[Tasgandy]

I can't really spend that much like you lol so I use the default Windows Media Center on Windows 7 cause I use a TV tuner and so far its simple but not bad. I can also listen to local FM radio in Windows Media Center cause my tuner includes an antenna. I can also record TV in it but I wish, I could get a free service online that would bring more TV shows on my Windows Media Center but I don't know if any free service supports my country.

 

Windows Media Player allows me to stream for online radio stations too. I prefer using default programs lol...

I hear you and understand Ishi, the only reason I have a little spare cash is that last September I gave up smoking........put some away and spend it on computer related software and hardware.

 

I also have a couple of HD TV capture cards, (Ultraview & Winfast) hence the reason I spend a lot of time editing out adverts, then processing HD 1080P profile with TMPGEnc 4.X creating DivX *.avi movies / shows that I view in the lounge room. Many rooms in the house have been networked with 10/100 and TV aerial and I did not want to put a PC in the lounge, the wife would not appreciate it. I also still have a DVD player I use also coupled up to the same TV via S Video. I suppose it is my way of enjoying my semi retirement, I've been working for some 48 years and getting ready for full time retirement.

 

Your system sounds great as the media centre included with Win 7 is not to bad at all, I have tried it as I do have 1 Win 7 box.

[Ishi]

You have a fascination of setting up a lot of these entertainment stuff whilst keeping yourself wired and I guess you have spent a lot of money and you just avoid things that your wife would hate such as not putting a PC on the lounge and not cleaning the CPU on top of the couch or a table. You are 63 or 64 years young , if I am not wrong but you like gadgets.

 

However, do you have a storage where all your shared media files are stored??? A common storage that all your networked TV's and PC's can access the media files from???

 

I have more than enough budget for this Western Digital WD TV Live HD Media Player, you are saying as it would cost $104.99 but I'd rather spend the money on other hardware like a larger hard disk or Windows 8 like what I said earlier.

 

I use a Western Digital hard drive though.

[Tasgandy]

You have a fascination of setting up a lot of these entertainment stuff whilst keeping yourself wired and I guess you have spent a lot of money and you just avoid things that your wife would hate such as not putting a PC on the lounge and not cleaning the CPU on top of the couch or a table. You are 63 or 64 years young , if I am not wrong but you like gadgets.

 

However, do you have a storage where all your shared media files are stored??? A common storage that all your networked TV's and PC's can access the media files from???

 

I have more than enough budget for this Western Digital WD TV Live HD Media Player, you are saying as it would cost $104.99 but I'd rather spend the money on other hardware like a larger hard disk or Windows 8 like what I said earlier.

 

I use a Western Digital hard drive though.

Yes Ishi you are correct, I do like gadgets, in particular computer based / related gadgets. Probably related to the fact that I have been involved in the industry since the days of IBM DOS 3.0 around 1983 and yes I am 64 years of age, will turn 65 next February.

 

With regard to storage of multimedia files, each of my PC's have multiple physical hard drives and these days HD space is very cheap and most PC tower boxes can accommodate at least 6 HD's, one just needs a powerful power supply which are not all that expensive these days. We have come a long way since the days of my first PC with a 10MB hard drive.

[rridgely]

I use my xbox to basically do what your doing.

I have media center on all my pcs now and just let it connect to them. Its actually pretty slick because the xbox can bring up the default media center interface and with the remote I bought it makes it really nice. Plus it does netflix streaming which is awesome.

 

However I'm really looking forward to seeing how the new boxee box turns out. If it works I'm deffinitely getting one:

http://www.boxee.tv/box