Product Description

The WD TV Live HD Media Player from Western Digital has everything you need to play your HD media collection and the fun stuff you find on the web in brilliant HD 1080p on your big screen HDTV. Because it supports a wide variety of file types, you can instantly enjoy all your home digital media, regardless of the file format. Plus you get direct access to a huge selection of video, photos, and music from popular internet sites like YouTube, Flickr, Live 365, and Pandora (U.S. only) right from the beautifully easy WDTV navigation screen. The WD TV Live HD media player is exceptionally easy to use so anyone in the family can do it and, because it’s networked, you can easily access media from any PC in the home. Compatibility; HDMI, Full HD (1080p), AAC, MP3, JPEG, USB 2.0, H.264, SimplayHD, Energy Star, Dolby Digital, DTS, DLNA, Bonjour, AVCHD, Windows Vista. Box contains; Media Player, Compact remote with batteries, Composite AV cable, Component AV cable, AC adapter, CD with sample media, Quick Install Guide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Western Digital
• Model: WDBAAN0000NBK-NESN
• Dimensions: 1.57" h x 4.94" w x 3.94" l, .67 pounds

Features

• Play Full HD 1080p video, music and photos on your HD TV
• Supports widest variety of file formats and devices
• Network capable for easy access to the newest content from PCs, network drives, internet favorites
• Play network and internet content

From the Manufacturer

WD TV Live - Play a world of HD media on your TV.

HD video, photos and music - they're on your computer, on your USB drives, on the Internet, but how do you enjoy them on your TV? Now it's easy! Play a world of Full-HD, 1080p media on your big screen TV with the WD TV Live network-ready HD media player.

Play network and Internet content. Stream content from Internet sites like YouTube, Flickr, Live365 and from your home network.	Full-HD 1080p resolution. Experience spectacular Full-HD video and crystal-clear digital audio.	Enjoy your media instantly. Supports a wide variety of the most popular file formats. No need to spend time transcoding.

Full-HD 1080p video playback and navigation - This is the real thing; Full-HD 1080p playback. Sit back and enjoy the spectacular picture quality of brilliant high definition video and the crystal-clear sound of digital audio. Use the included remote control to make your entertainment choices using our crisp, animated navigation menus.

Play a wide variety of file formats - WD TV Live supports a wide variety of the most popular file formats. No need to spend time transcoding.

Play videos, music and photos from the Internet on your big screen TV - Explore and watch YouTube videos and Flickr pictures on the big screen. Rock out to thousands of radio stations via Live365 and discover new music with Pandora radio.

Access files anywhere on your home network - Play movies, music, and photos from any PC or drive on your home network. The Ethernet port connects this player to your home network through a wired connection or via popular, supported WiFi adapters (sold separately). Ideal for use with WD's My Book World.

Turn your USB drive into an HD media player - Play content from most popular USB drives, and digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized as mass storage devices. Optimized for My Passport portable hard drives.

Collect without limits - There's no limit to the size of your media collection; just add more USB drives for more space.

Play media seamlessly from multiple USB drives - Two USB ports on the player let you connect multiple USB storage devices and access them simultaneously. Our media library feature collects the content on all the drives into one list sorted by media type.

Transfer files easily - Copy, move or delete files stored on a USB drive, a network drive, your camcorder, or a camera to the attached USB drive using the on-screen menus.

Show photos and movies directly from your digital camera or video camera - Works with digital cameras, digital video cameras, in fact, any digital imaging device that supports Picture Transfer Protocol.

Advanced navigation options

• 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

File Copy

• Copy files between USB drives

HDMI 1.3, composite video and component video output - The HDMI port lets you connect to the highest quality HD TV or home theater. Additional composite (RCA), and component outputs ensure compatibility with virtually all television sets.

SPDIF digital output - The optical audio output sends digital signals to your AV receiver for the best surround sound experience.

Online Services Play a world of media on your TV! WD TV Live supports a list of popular online services that delivers Internet content onto your HD TV. YouTube - Broadcast yourself. World's #1 video sharing website. Pandora - Free, personalized Internet radio playing only the music you love. Enter your favorite songs or artists, and enjoy stations created just for you. Rate songs as they play, because Pandora caters to your tastes and adapts stations to your feedback on the spot. Flickr - Share your photos. Watch the world. Live365 - Listen to thousands of commercial-free Internet radio stations! Live365 has broadcasts from Radio Disney, Santana, David Byrne, Pat Metheny, and Paul Oakenfold, as well as stations created by music lovers just like you! Easily browse through popular genres such as rock, hip-hop, jazz, and new age. Or discover treasures in some of the less-traveled styles such as gospel, comedy, anime, Hindi, trip hop, 30s, glam, tribal, Celtic, and 100s more.

WiFi ready- Supports wireless network connection with optional USB wireless adapter.

Ultra-compact design - Fits easily into your entertainment center.

File formats supported

Video:
AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9

Photo:
JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG

Audio:
MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS

Playlist:
PLS, M3U, WPL

Subtitle:
SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

System Requirements

• My Passport portable hard drive or other USB storage device with supported video or audio content stored on it.
• Standard or high definition television with HDMI or composite video connections.
• Home network and broadband connectivity for online services.

Compatibility

HDMI, Full HD (1080p), AAC, MP3, JPEG, USB 2.0, H.264, SimplayHD™, Energy Star®, Dolby Digital, DTS, DLNA, Bonjour, AVCHD, Windows Vista®

Note: Compatibility may vary, depending on user's hardware configuration and operating system.

What's in the box

HD Media Player, Compact remote with batteries, Composite AV cable, Component AV cable, AC adapter, Quick Install Guide.

Customer Reviews

Does it come in black?
After much anticipation, WDTV Live is finally here! I'll get right to the point, because I know there are a lot of questions from current Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player owners and those sitting on the fence about the capabilities of the Live in comparison to other media players on the market. I also considered the ASUS O!Play ($99) while waiting for the Live's release or the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+HD ($135). The WDTV is a proven quantity and for the Live, I had high expectations.

Cosmetically, not much has changed. Not even the box. The Live is nearly identical to the WDTV except in color, being matte grey instead of shiny piano black. Ease of setup and usage carries over from its forebear, so WDTV users will be right at home with the Live's interface and settings. At the rear, the ports have been slightly rearranged to make room for a LAN port and component out. HDMI is now 1.3 instead of 1.2, capable of a color depth of 12 bits per pixel. Batteries are included in the box, as are component and composite cables, but bring your own HDMI or LAN cable.

Building on the strengths of the original (and successful) WDTV, WD has made an already excellent player even better. They listened to users and addressed two of the biggest complaints of the WDTV, namely: lack of network connectivity and lack of DTS down-mixing.

I am pleased to report that on these two counts, the Live is a winner, packaged inside the same compact form factor as its predecessor and sold at a very reasonable price. The most exciting thing is network connectivity because the Live can be made wireless!

1) Network connectivity: out of the box, the Live connects via CAT-5. I have no interest in connecting USB hard drives to the Live because it limits my mobility. I have 2 NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices (D-Link DNS321 2-Bay SATA, RAID 0/1 Gigabit Ethernet Port Network Storage Enclosure and D-Link 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure) and have been streaming movies wirelessly to my PlayStation 3, but I don't like the PS3's lack of MKV support and wasteful energy consumption. My PS3 can now go back to being a dedicated game and Blu-ray machine.

I was surprised to discover that my AirLink 101 AWLL6070 150Mbps 802.11n Wireless LAN USB 2.0 Adapter (purchased for a failed WDTV networking hack attempt) worked. I plugged it in, changed the Live's setting to wireless and it saw my wireless network with no fuss. I really have to hand it to WD for making the device open-ended, unlike the NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live (Black) (which I tested and returned), which requires a proprietary $40 Netgear dongle. Other dongles will work too with the Live, and WD has a forum listing them.

2) DTS down-mixing: this was another shortcoming of the original WDTV. The Live down-mixes DTS to 2.0 so you don't need to slave it to an audio receiver anymore. Many of my MKV's are encoded with DTS, so this is another huge improvement. DTS Master Audio does not seem to be supported, but I am not very concerned as DTS MA is rarely encountered in the wild (though that may change in the future). All my files are MP3, AAC, AC3, or DTS audio streams, which all work on the Live. Many of the tested MKVs have multiple audio streams for different language tracks. You can also mux additional tracks and subtitles into the MKV file with the free and awesome mkvmerge GUI program. Subtitle files can be downloaded from sites like DivxStation.

DTS downmixing means now I can take a portable drive of movies over to a friend's house and not worry about compatibility, greatly increasing the versatility and value of the Live. The inclusion of both component and composite outs removes the worry about older TV's. And like the WDTV, the Live will downsample to standard def for non-HDTV's. However, if you have an HDTV and an AVR, you'll want to use them for maximum enjoyment.

But the most biggest selling point for me is wireless. After discovering WiFi connectivity, I lost all interest in using the Live as a wired device. With just $20 (cost of AirLink), I now have a wireless player that easily out-competes more expensive ones like the Popcorn Hour A-110 HD Networked Media Tank (EU), and can enjoy the freedom and convenience of putting this player anywhere in my house. I don't have messy and dangerous wires all the floor to trip over (I killed a 1 TB hard drive full of movies this way) and I don't need an audio receiver. All the 720p/1080i/p videos I had on my NAS played perfectly with the except of one 1080p .mp4 which had intermittent hiccups every minute or so.

The Live saw each device 2x on the menu, as a media share and a network share. With media share, the files are divided into 3 categories: video, photos, music. Only some of my movies showed up (WMV, MP4, AVI, TS), no MKV's. With network share, all the files are listed. This is the listing option to use if you have a NAS.

3) Additionally, third complaint on the WDTV was lack of support for 1080p24. This format now plays. VOB is now also supported, for those of you who make DVD archives.

USABILITY:

The WDTV had the most attractive and usable interface of any of the 10+ media players I tested over the years, and WD didn't mess with a winning formula. Graphically, the Live retains the blue cool-toned look and easy-to-use navigation of the WDTV. It adds a third listing option, Preview mode. Movies will now start playing in a smaller window on the right if you pause over the title for a second or two (with audio). Every movie I tested plays in preview. The remote control is the same as the WDTV. Navigation long directories is still somewhat of a pain because of no Page Up/Page Down button, but if you hold the up or down button down, it'll scroll by a page at a time after a second or two. Commands are fast and responsive. No spinning dials that plague the Netgear Live Entertainer.

For rewinding, the preview sometimes does not match the time-code. The timer was counting down, but the screen showed video from the opposite direction. If you stop rewinding and resume again, it'll show the proper preview. This is a small nuisance that I hope WD fixes soon in a firmware update.

Subtitle support via embedded or external still works great for Western and non-Western character sets because of Unicode. Embedded subs are pre-tagged with the language code, so the device will display "Subtitle 1/3 - English". For external .srt files, I discovered that if I name them the same as the movie and include a dash, then the language (e.g. "MOVIENAME - ENG.srt"), the WD will display the part after the dash as the language name.

INTERNET STREAMING:

For YouTube, the videos looked really good. The Live will select HD streams if available. I was surprised at the video quality of some of the ones I loaded, particularly one music video. Startup was fast, if not instantaneous, and I did not notice a buffering delay. Currently, YouTube is the only site supported, and searching is only in Western characters. The onscreen keyboard is arranged in row, A-Z, with 0-9 at the bottom. (Plugging in a USB keyboard did nothing.) I'm hoping for Hulu, Vimeo, and more in the future, like a WDTV Live Channels Guide or something like that, organized by interests (sports, history, science, news, etc), or regions of the world. It would be a very useful feature for people like my dad, who doesn't know how to use the web and he'd be able to watch shows from other parts of the world. Maybe in a future firmware update.

I didn't test Pandora or Live365 (internet radio) because I'm not interested in listening to radio/music out of my TV. Noticeably missing is NetFlix support, a feature prominent on some networked media players, Blu-ray players, and gaming platforms (Xbox 360), though word is that WD is at work on an update.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Next on my wishlist is RMVB support. This is the last thing missing from the long list of supported formats, because then I can throw out the really crappy RMVB player I have. Sadly, it seems to be hardware related and cannot be added with a firmware refresh.

Lastly, if the Live came in new colors like fire engine red like the Western Digital My Passport Essential 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive WDMER3200TN (Real Red), or banana yellow, that'd be hot. I don't particularly care for the Live's matte grey exterior and prefer the glossy finish of the WDTV. It's not solid grey. It's sparkly like glitter, a rather odd choice for a finish.

To sum up, this is the device you've been waiting for! It is a great little player for the price. It now does everything I want it to (minus RMVB playback) and is truly the versatile and unfettered player that I have been hoping for. As a gadgets guy and early adopter, I wasted several hundreds of dollars testing out disappointing players and can say definitely that WD makes one of the best players on the market.

UPDATE 1: 10/24/09:

1. Streaming from Windows PC's works great (XP). I turned on folder sharing and the Live saw my media files and sub-folders right away. Right-click the folder, select "Sharing", then check the box that says "Share this folder on the network" and give it a share name. Mac sharing doesn't seem to work, but I added this only for the curious.

2. I logged into Pandora and it worked with no lag and no buffering. Currently, it's listen only. You can't add new stations, so you'll still have to manage your presets from their website through a normal computer. I found out Live365 is a paid service ("my trial is about to expire in 5 days"), making the feature totally worthless to me.

3. I turned on "thick" subtitle outlines option and it makes them a lot easier to see, especially if there's a lot of white on the screen.

Excellent, easy to set up, really nice unit
There are already some very well-written informative reviews on this player, so I'll try to focus on the "out of the box experience" since mine is literally just out of the box today. Because my order on Amazon for this product was backordered for a month or more, I called all the local Best Buys until I found a WD TV Live that was not showing up on their "store availability" page and purchased it for $119 plus tax (oh how I missed Amazon when the tax was added on at my local store!). The price on Amazon has gone all over the place the last few days, from $119 to $149. I'm assuming we'll see it at $99 after the initial release period is over since several media players are now priced at that point.

I went home, unpacked the box and in my haste I didn't even see the installation CD that came with the unit. (I just ran it now so I could tell you about it - it includes a utility which allows your computer to "see" the WD TV, as well as the manual and some other fluff).

I plugged the WDTV into an ethernet jack on my router, used the supplied cables to attach to my TV, plugged in the power cable and literally minutes later I was watching videos stored on my computer! The WD TV immediately logged onto our computer network and saw both of our computers (Windows XP), and I was able to watch media stored on both. Wow. Very easy. Then I navigated to Pandora, punched in my account information, and 30 seconds later was listening to my Pandora music stations. Next stop was YouTube (another menu option), I plugged in my YouTube name and password, and was able to see my YouTube subscriptions.

I then went into the settings menu and clicked on "update firmware" just to make sure I had the latest firmware installed. After about 5 seconds of the unit checking with Western Digital, it confirmed my firmware is up to date. Again, very easy. I was also able to register the unit from the onscreen display, and received a confirmation email. I found the onscreen menus very logically laid out and easy to use.

Watching movies stored on my computer and accessing YouTube/Pandora was great - but I wanted to see if I could access Hulu. So, I navigated to the "media server" menu and it saw my Tversity software program running on one computer. I clicked on that and minutes later I was watching "Glee" (a program on ABC). The only issue I ran into was that fast forward would sometimes cause the program to freeze and I would need to re-start. Given that this media player is brand new and basically in what feels like a beta release, sold out just about everywhere, I'm assuming that a firmware upgrade in the coming weeks will fix that bug as well as any others I come across. I tried a few other programs and was only able to replicate the issue intermittently. However, pause caused no problems. And, I don't expect Western Digital to support Tversity, which may be the root of the problem (vs the WD player) so I'm not taking off marks for that one issue. I'm just happy I can watch a variety of shows streamed from Tversity on the WD TV. (A google search on Tversity will take you to the download site for that wonderful free to try program).

My previous media server, the D-Link DSM-320 D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player, Audio/Photo/Video, 802.11g, is not nearly as nice... I spent hours and hours and hours (days) configuring it and getting it to "see" my home network. I also found the user menus to be very cumbersome with navigation almost an afterthought. In contrast, the WD TV is a dream come true and definitely feels like the "next generation" of media servers.

I've tried a number of video and music formats, and they've all played with no problem (except for the fast forward issue above). I watched a slide show of pictures stored on one of my computers. All of this without reading a single manual or going to a single internet help forum. Literally, plug and play.

So, overall, I'd say this is a strong unit, and I'm very happy with it. Since I am reviewing the unit much sooner than I normally would, I do commit to the Amazon community that if I experience issues with the WD TV I'll return to update this review. But based on my experience with other media servers and other hardware setups, I think this is a winner. Highly recommended.

Hope this helps!


UPDATE 11/12/2009: Almost a month later and I'm 1000% happy with this player... no issues. Works great... fast..great interface... I'm going to give one or two of these as holiday presents this year. I've replaced my DVR on my second TV and no longer pay the cable company $14 per month for a DVR... this little gizmo is going to pay for itself!

A Beast of a Media Player
In the past I have dismissed various media players such as the Apple TV with 160GB Hard Drive - MB189LL/A because they either cost as much as a Xbox 360 Arcade or weren't anywhere near as versatile as the PlayStation 3 120 GB. Now there is a viable option that is more versatile than the PS3 (minus the Blu Ray) and costs less than the Xbox 360!

In terms of versatility, this unit excels. It plays media on attached USB drives like the consoles, and like the consoles, it can connect to a DLNA server (such as Tversity). What is unique is the network share support, both in terms of media playback (making media servers someone unneeded if this is your only media player) and in terms of adding any attached USB drives to your network. In terms of codec support, this unit plays just about anything. Where my PS3 could play m2ts files with ac3 (Dolby Digital), this unit can do that as well as play mkv files with either ac3 or DTS (or both since mkv and m2ts files can have multiple audio streams). WMV, mp4, mp3, etc all supported, as are many other formats I don't use (but you may).

The WD TV Live also sports many outputs (though you seem to be able to use just one at a time), including HDMI, component, composite, toslink, and RCA. It's also got 2 USB inputs (supporting optional wireless and drives) and ethernet in. The small unit is about the size of a paperback book and sports enough heft to stay in place (a sometimes overlooked feature). Rounding out the hardware is a mediocre, but functional and responsive remote control. WD says you can use the device with a Harmony.

The software is simple, easy to use, and a bit deliberate in that you must choose your media type (audio, video, or picture, then your source, then browse within. I imagine this would rock if I had many sources, but with one media server, fewer clicks would be a plus. The default thumbnail view may work well with local drives, but using media servers and shares, switching to the list view helped tremendously. While generally responsive, the UI generates some flicker at the bottom of the screen when browsing (using HDMI at 1080p, not sure if all scenarios generate this). Video playback is fine, though some files take a few moments to start up (maybe a tad quicker than Netflix on the 360). The PS3 totally blows the device away in that regard, but otherwise video playback is outstanding. AV is synched, and I've not noticed any hickups even playing 13gb+ 1080p h.264 (profile 4.1) DTS files (over 100mbps ethernet).

All in all, this device is my favorite media player, allowing me to move my PS3 to our other HD TV and retire our 360 from media playback duty (saving it for games). I haven't had a chance to check out the ASUS O!Play - TV HD Media Player (Black), but that may be worth a look (slightly different input and output options, but seemingly as flexible.