Home > Consumer Reviews > Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player

This thing works! For a hundred bucks, I can now play, what is essentially cinema grade imagery, to my 1080p projector.
This is something that would have required thousands of dollars worth of machine just a few years ago.

The menus are a bit primitive, but suffice. The picture quality is excellent, and really comes down to how good the encoding was done on the file. Though it can output stereo audio, good DTS and DOLBY sound is passed through digitally, so you have to have an amp capable of decoding DTS or Dolby. No biggie. Optical out takes care of that.
It is important to note that this thing really needs to be plugged via HDMI. Again, no biggie. If you're looking at this, you probably have that capability. Though there is analog video out, it is (ugh) composite. No S or component -- but then again, that would have increased the price dramatically, I would think.


Frankly, I am blown away that this thing exists for this price. I was examining building an HTPC, or a Popcorn media player, etc. - but the additional functionality that these other machines provided wasn't worth the extra few hundred dollars. For my home theater, I have been very happy with this.

What don't I like? well, the remote is a bit toy-like. It is not ergonomically conducive and(considering that this is a media player and will probably be used in subdued light) it sure could use a backlight.
The firmware update has taken care of some issues and hopefully, future upgrades will address the rest.

The major gripes for me:
1. The remote has a slight delay which tempts one to push a button more than once.
2. skipping through files is not nearly as friendly as a typical dvd player.
3. the blue lights on the box are BRIGHT! wish these could be turned off - again, in a home theater environment, the less light being emitted by machines, the better.
4. Don't lose the remote or you're S.O.L.

The fact that I'm nit picking like this really means that I think this is a killer app.

And it's only $100.00!!! What's next? free with two proof of purchase of a box of Cheerios?
What a world.

oh, and with some firmware hacks (god bless the hackers), a whole world of possibilities opens up with this machine, including connecting to a DVD player and networking.

I have two of these now in my house, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. The first thing you want to do is upgrade the firmware that takes care of a lot of the incompatability problems people may have written about. The second part is simple. If you have a full DTS or digital audio movie or file you are trying to play on this media player it will ONLY play through optical out. My setup is simple, I have all my movies separated by AC3 audio and digital DTS audio. The ones with digital audio I have in my living room hooked up to the receiver with optical out and HDMI for video going to the TV. The movies with AC3 5.1 thats not digital all play perfectly fine over a standard HDMI cable after the firmware upgrade. I watch Television and HD movies on this thing non stop, I have a WD 1TB USB drive hooked up to it and a WD 2TB My Book hooked up to it and it has played them all fine with no skipping or lag even 13GB 1080p MKV files. I can't tell you how many people I have demoed this device for and they ran out and bought one. Just be prepared to sell your blu-ray collection because the future is HD on a harddrive, now I just wish there was media bigger than 2TB externally I am running out of space already.

So, it is true. Blu-ray is dead! So small yet capable to play 1080P.

OK, that maybe a little too soon and a little too harsh. But devices like these are like asteroids about to push the dinosaurs toward extinction. Blu-ray might be shaking now. Just recently, it was still celebrating its costly victory from HD-DVD as the winner between the two hi-def formats. HD-DVD might be saying now, ha-ha, you too...and join the party.

I like gadgets, I always have something that I call my new toy. But this is similar to the feeling the time I got my first computer, or the first time I got an iPod. A deja vu, once again I am very excited. With how much the prices of USB external hard drives has fallen, you can now buy a terabyte for a hundred bucks. It is so tiny, it can fit on the palm of your hand. This thing can take 2 external drives at the same time. It can play music, it can play slideshow of family photos, ...but where it really excel is playing movies. Powerful enough to play 1080P high definition movies which even my HD TV can only play 1080i the most. I love this thing so much that I am ready to marry it. You can even stick a keychain pen drive, or an SD card, or any memory with a supplied adapter, and it will play as well. Plays almost anything you throw on it: MPEG 1/2/4, WMV9, AVI, Xvid, AVC, H.264, MKV, ISO, etc. So quiet, you don't hear it at all. We also bring it with us on long trips to watch movies in the car.

It is a very powerful but a very simple device. At the back, it has an HDMI connection where you get your Hi-def, a USB, an optical for digital audio, the familiar red, white and yellow cable connection for older TVs, and another USB on the side.

YouTube now has tons of Hi Def movie trailers that is gorgeous to watch on a big LCD screen. All you need to do is install Greasemonkey on your Firefox browser and look for scripts to download videos on YouTube. They also have lots of HD documentary materials. You can also back-up movies you own and manage all of them in one central location. Even it is not hi-def, it upconverts lower res content to a much better resolution. I also have a separate folder for all the home videos that I want to preserve forever. I used to burn them to DVDs but now some of them skips or ends up coasters as the kids scratches them or the dye on the discs don't last very long.

Western Digital also releases better firmware from time tor time to enhance its capability aside from fixing the early bugs.

The box does not provide you an HDMI cable or an Optical cable. It comes with a tiny remote, and the red, white and yellow cable. The remote on the other hand is the only way to control it so make sure not to lose it; which I am sure won't happen anyway (... and I repeat, which I am sure won't happen anyway) . If the dog on the other hand decided to treat it as a fetch toy, the remote is available on their website for 14$.

There is a community forum for users at WDTVForum.com.

Now, the rumor is that WD will release a new model that will be equipped with an ethernet which will make it capable of live streaming.

Happy viewing!

After reading the negative reviews about this item I can only say. WHAT!!? Obviously these people have no idea what this device does. It WILL NOT make non-HD content magically become High Def. Anyone who thinks that is going to very disappointed if they purchase this product. This device can play 'just about' any format you throw at it. I will quantify that by saying most video formats will play without issue. Is it perfect? No. Its darn close though. All of my movies are in .mkv format and they play and look amazing! Every format I have tried has played without a problem. I had built a home theater pc to specifically watch HD content and it would stutter and hiccup on 1080p content. I connect this device and Im watching 1080p with no freezing or artifact. Now I have noticed one issue with this device that could possibly be fixed with a firmware update. Any .mkv file that is encoded with DTS format sound will automatically run across the optical output for sound output instead of the HDMI connection. I found a free program to re-encode the sound of the .mkv to Dolby and the sound now plays thru the HDMI connection. This may not be a problem if you have the device connected to a receiver using the optical connection. I am totally satisfied with device it plays 1080p content without issue and almost any current video format. I have it connected to a 1080p lcd tv and movies look Amazing! Try it I don't think you will be disappointed. I do have issue with the remote though. Seems a little cheap.

Save Money - I use Media Center to record TV shows on my PC. I used to burn each to a 30 cent DVD-R to watch on my TV. Now I copy the dvr-ms file to a jump drive, plug that into my WD TV and Tah-Dah! watch the show on my TV! For free!

Home Movies and Photos Always Accessible - Once a year or so I go on a rampage and get all my pics and vids organized by date on DVDs and CDs in boxes that are all labeled and pretty. Then, over time, the system falls apart. I take out a photo DVD, play it, put it in a pile, then put the pile into a box, and then... where's that DVD? Now every time I want to show off my 2007 Sky Walk photos I know right where to go. All organized by trip and date on my white WD Passport hard drive. I back up the dv-avi files to a data DVD and make video DVDs as usual. Then yes, it's extra work to convert the captured dv-avi (too big and the WD TV won't play them) to xvid or wmv-9 (not 8!) or whatever and put it on my white drive... but I do it once and it's done. No more, "Really! She, oh, you gotta see! Where IS that disk! Nevermind. I can't find it."

Portable - Now when the family gets together we can easily watch the footage from the previous times the family got together! Fun! The WD gadget is little, the drives are little, it's all easy to transport and hook up to anyone else's TV. Take an RF Converter if you think you might be playing it on an ancient TV with only cable or antennae inputs.

Music During Slideshows. Wonderful.

I LOVE my WD TV gizmo. No more DVDs left behind at a pal's house after movie night. No more "You forgot the DVD where dad rides the horse backwards AGAIN?"