Western Digital HD Media Player – Dirt Cheap HTPC!

**Freddie** · April 26, 2009, 08:06 AM

The Western Digital HD Media Player

US - $99.99
UK - £79.99
Canada - $149.99 (*points and and gives a 'ha ha' in the style of Nelson Muntz*)
Euro Zone - €91.00

Western Digital TV HD 1080P Media Player

Western Digital WDAVP00BE TV HD Media Player Combined with a USB 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.

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.

From what I've read this little device can play all of the popular video formats - MPEGS, DIVX, XVIDS, WMV, AVI (and HD movies) etc and apparently is can read and play DVD .iso files (DVD rips) which is really exciting as it means you won't have to convert your DVD library into another format which is very time consuming. The video reviews I've seen show this play back all of the above without any stuttering or playback issues. It also plays virtually every music and picture format you think of. It also comes with it's own remote control which is very handy to navigate the apparently simply interface.

This is everything I've been looking for in a HTPC (the only thing it lacks is a TV card and PVR but for the price I can live without it), so much so I've gone ahead and bought one an hour ago (along with HDMI to component lead). I'll let you know how good it is out once I've got this up and running.

**Tharros** · April 26, 2009, 08:41 AM

Cool, but it takes away the fun (and excuse) of building a HTPC

Might look into buying one however. I need to save my cash. I would like to build a HTPC but I need the money for when I go and study in Germany - Oh the sacrifices I make

**Roman Clone** · April 26, 2009, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by Tharros

Cool, but it takes away the fun (and excuse) of building a HTPC

Might look into buying one however. I need to save my cash. I would like to build a HTPC but I need the money for when I go and study in Germany - Oh the sacrifices I make

Oh trust me - If what I've heard about what goes on in Deutschland is true, your neighbors will be entertainment enough.

**Lord Feloric** · May 01, 2009, 03:44 PM

Edit. Wrong thread.

**Freddie** · May 01, 2009, 03:46 PM

Just to update you all on this, the Media player arrived today and I quickly set it up before I went out this evening. It's only running of composite (via SCART) only because the HDMI to component cable has yet to arrive but even on composite the playback quality is very good and that's viewing DVD rips to XVIDS on a 32" screen so I'm very happy.

The remote isn't very impressive, it's very small and the buttons are all close together but you don't have to hold it for long. The only over problem I have with the setup which is my fault is the my directory of films, at the moment all 188 of them are lumped into one folder and arranged alphabetically and trying to find what you want can be a long winded process, it would also help if each of the films had cover art on them rather then the generic stop gap logo. Other then that so far so good and when the HDMI cable arrives it will be even better.

I'll post some images latter of it in action.

**Tharros** · May 02, 2009, 11:38 PM

Sounds interesting - too bad about the remote but it can't be deal breaking thought. Luckily I already have all my stuff organised

Can't wait for those images

**Freddie** · May 03, 2009, 03:16 AM

Originally Posted by Tharros

Sounds interesting - too bad about the remote but it can't be deal breaking thought. Luckily I already have all my stuff organised

Can't wait for those images

It's a shame my Dad has lent his camera to some guy as work so the images will have to wait.

I watched a movie of it last night (Rise of the Foot Solider), the image quality of the XVID was amazing when viewing on a large TV (rather then a monitor) and you would have never have guessed it was a compressed DVD rip and that's running of a composite to scart so the quality will only improve once I get my HDMI to Component cable

BTW I can confirm it will play DVD .iso files but it only plays the actually film but not the menus. I'll check WD website latter to see if this can fixed via a firmware update.

**Mar77** · May 03, 2009, 08:12 AM

It only works with content you already have though...you cannot watch videos on the Internet through it can you? It also lacks video capture abilities...two big losses IMO.

**mp0295** · May 03, 2009, 05:45 PM

Oh thats cool i want one. How exactly does it get it content besides USB? Do you just look over the net work for shared files/folders? If not i can deal with that. But i just thought of if it has not network connectivity is it possible to connect a wireless USB device to it then?

Also do you use foler veiw navigation throguh folders or just it finding playable content and then aranging it

**Freddie** · May 03, 2009, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by mp0295

Oh thats cool i want one. How exactly does it get it content besides USB? Do you just look over the net work for shared files/folders? If not i can deal with that. But i just thought of if it has not network connectivity is it possible to connect a wireless USB device to it then?

Also do you use foler veiw navigation throguh folders or just it finding playable content and then aranging it

At the moment it's running of an external USB Western Digital My Book hard drive (also made by Western Digital as well) and there's not network port which is bummer and I haven't thought about trying to connect it via a wireless USB key since I don't have a wireless switch/router. The only way to give it content is USB, but you can connect it directly to your PC (it's very small and light weight) and download content from the web directly to a USB stick that's attached to it (you would have to buy your own USB stick).

Navigating is very easy, the Media Player scans your whole hard drive and see's all the folders that are on it and how they arranged, you then simply open each folder as if you were opening them in Windows Explorer with a mouse. You can either arrange your files to be viewed as thumbnails or in a list mode (I have mine in list mode due the large number of films I have on my hard drive).

There's also some software that came with the device which I haven't tried yet, it may resolve some of the issue with how the files are arranged or deal with the lack of cover art (if it did I would then use Thumbnail view).

I can't believe how good this is, I would never have thought a device so small could have a CPU that could playback movies as well as this can with any lag whatsoever.

**mp0295** · May 04, 2009, 06:10 PM

By connect directly to pc do you mean take a USB cord and connect the 2? but i thought USB wasnt bi duplux...

**Freddie** · May 05, 2009, 08:24 AM

Originally Posted by mp0295

By connect directly to pc do you mean take a USB cord and connect the 2? but i thought USB wasnt bi duplux...

Good question.

I won't know until I plug it in and try but I can't see how else it can work if you need to load firmware unless you burn it to USB stick and load it on directly.

**Cyrus the Virus** · May 14, 2009, 03:35 PM

Sounds like a cheap version of Popcorn hour.

**mrmouth** · May 15, 2009, 11:53 AM

I'm tech retarded when it comes to things like this. Cant you do all this stuff on a PS3, or even a 360? Aside from the .iso support...

**Freddie** · May 15, 2009, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by BarnabyJones

I'm tech retarded when it comes to things like this. Cant you do all this stuff on a PS3, or even a 360? Aside from the .iso support...

I'm not sure if you can play XVIDS/DIVS files on a console there might be a way but I'm sure it would long winded and involve breaking terms of the licence agreement. You would have to find out what video formats are supported on the 360 and PS3 and then see if there was any way to encode your DVD files to that format. The other issue you have of course is space, an Elite 360 and PS3 has what 120Gb's? That won't take long to fill up never mind all your installations and saved games for your games etc.

Also going back to lead, the HDMI to Component lead didn't work, I wasn't able to work why until a day after it failed when I discovered that I was trying to run from a digital source (HDMI) to an analogue source (component) which won't work unless you have an expensive converter so it looks like I'll have to make do with composite for now. However even when running composite the picture quality is just as good to the eye as a DVD is unless you sit really close and look at a freeze frame you would then be able to see the drop in quality.