Western Digital - WD TV HD Media Player for USB Storage Devices

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FrameMakers

FrameMakers

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Mar 20, 2001
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Powell, OH
This looks interesting. You load up an external hard drive with your movie collection and can access them all without having to find the DVD of the movie you want.
Best
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Best Buy has them for $99

Combined with a My Passport portable drive (sold separately), this player is the most convenient way to play HD movies or user-generated videos, listen to high-quality digital music and show high-resolution slideshows of your family photos on your TV. Also works with popular USB drives, and digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized as mass storage devices.

Designed for My Passport, works with many other USB storage devices - Play content from most popular USB drives,and digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized as mass storage devices.
Full HD video playback and navigation - up to 1080p - Experience the spectacular picture quality of HD video and crystal clear sound clarity of digital audio. Use the included remote control to navigate through your entertainment choices using our crisp, animated HD menus.
Collect without limits - There's no limit to the size of your media collection; just add more USB drives for more space.
Advanced navigation
  • Thumbnail and list views – Browse your content by filename or by thumbnails of photos, album covers and movie cover art.
  • Media Library – This unique feature lets you view all your media by media type in one menu regardless of its location in folders or drives. You can view your content by categories such as genre, album, artist and date.
  • Search – Search by genre, title, artist, filename and partial filename.
Photo viewing
  • Create custom slide shows with a variety of transitions and background music
  • Zoom and pan
  • Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
Movie viewing
  • Fast forward, rewind, pause, zoom, and pan
  • View subtitles
  • Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
Music playback
  • Fast forward, rewind, pause, shuffle, repeat
  • Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
Access two USB drives simultaneously - Two USB ports on the player let you connect two USB storage devices and access them simultaneously. Our Media Library feature aggregates the content on both drives into one list sorted by media type.
HDMI and composite video connections - The High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port lets you connect to the highest quality HDTV or home theater. Additional composite (RCA) outputs ensure compatibility with virtually all television sets.
Includes free media conversion software - ArcSoft MediaConverter™ 2.5 -- a fast, easy-to-use application that converts photo, video, and music files into formats optimized for use on the WD TV HD Media Player.
Ultra-compact design - Fits easily into your entertainment center.
Ideal For

Hassle-free playback of HD movies, home videos, digital music, and photos on your TV.


Is anyone using one of these or something like this?
 
So does this run the drive without a computer being hooked up?

I know the computer is needed to load the movies to the drive.
 
It depends on your source of HD movies. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is protected in the HDMI interface. At present it is illegal for a company (WD) to sell a device that bypasses these copyright issues for HDTV. These devices will typically down-res HD to 480i when copying. My DishNetwork DVR allows me to copy an HD movie (or program) to an external hard drive. Dish Network was only allowed to do this with two restrictions 1. Only one copy of the movie or program is allowed for personal viewing, so the copy on the DVR is erased when the one on the hard drive is created. 2. The file must be encrypted so that it can't be played on any other device than a DishNetwork DVR (no PC). DRM is being enforced so strictly that pay per view HD movies, if recorded can only be used for a 24 hour period before they are automatically erased. I suspect that WD is complying with the DRM restrictions on any device that they are publicly selling. I wouldn't be very confident of the utility of this device for HD programming from any source other than your own camera unless you can confirm that it has encryption similar to DishNetwork's to limit the ability of the consumer to "copy" HD product elsewhere..
 
Hey Pat, I hadn't even considered the whole pirating issues this would raise. We have about 400 DVDs and was considering the storage of these on hard drive from the original. I also use the Up Converting DVD player which greatly improves any DVD.
 
Jeff Rodier said:
Hey Pat, I hadn't even considered the whole pirating issues this would raise. We have about 400 DVDs and was considering the storage of these on hard drive from the original. I also use the Up Converting DVD player which greatly improves any DVD.
Click to expand...

If you are interested in this product for non HD DVDs, to make access more convenient, it's probably OK. The need for an up-converting player may not be all that important as most HDTVs do that up-conversion from 480i to their native resolution pretty well, anyway.
 
I bought an Up Coverting DVD player by RCA last year for $49 and the difference on basic DVDs is amazing. Now the question is does this thing Up Convert or not. I have 2 42" LCD 720 TVs.

If it does not I would have to run them through the Up Converting DVD palyer to the hard drive (like thats going to happen). Then would they hold the improved feature. Now I'm thinking its just easier to keep them on the bookshelf and pop one in when needed.

Way too much technology in my life already.
 
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