A Closer Look
The hookups on the back (from left to right) Power, USB, HDMI, Optical Audio, Component (video+audio)
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One of the interesting things I found while fiddling with the sound options was that although HDMI can carry sound, you can choose to use component sound instead which would allow ou to run it through an external sound system as long as you have the appropriate adapter.
The Western Digital TV HD media player does come with software to convert your current DVD’s to a digital format this process is slow and time consuming but effective. Unfortunately the box release of the WDTV does not yet allow you to plug in USB DVD drives and play media,your best bet is to move the collection to digital and play it with the WDTV your going to need to use the software.
As you can see from the pictures of the remote it’s quite small as well, to my knowledge you cannot use a universal remote to control the WDTV so by necessity you will be adding another remote to the collection, the remote does respond quite well and has a decent range from which it will pick up. My only real complaint with the remote itself is the terrible battery life the original batteries had, after changing the batteries to another brand I have not found any problems. (In case you were curious the remote takes 2x AAA batteries)
Inside the box you get the unit itself, a small set of component audio/video cables, CD containing basic ripping software, power supply and remote plus batteries. There was nothing in the box that really stood out other than the device itself, it would have been nice since this is an “HD” device to include a HDMI cable but sadly that’s a “provide your own” piece of equipment.
The player itself is pretty solid much like my initial description it matches the My Book’s that are the Western Digital flagship of external hard drives. The entire piece is finished in a black gloss, one that appears to attract dust and finger prints… what’s another piece of electronics to dust? On the front of the device you have a power indicator and HDMI logo that light up. On the side we have a single USB port and on the back we have the rest of the connectors, USB, HDMI, Component, and power.
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1. I have a WD TV USB player. Problem: Some YouTube downloads in FLV format have time lags between video and audio. I therefore use my FLV Downloader’s conversion programme to convert the videos to MP4 – which shows no such time lags
2. Is there a machine which records TV onto USB sticks?
Is there a Hard disk in the Media Player?
I changed the video settings and now I get a “input not supported” message, how do I go back to the main menu to change it back? is there any “reset” settings button?
Thanks
can i hook this up with my ps3 and xbox 360??
Electro,
The player only supports USB based media in the WDTV’s stock firmware. I am aware that there has been a decent following in the community regarding modding the WDTV and supposedly there is firmware that will allow USB based CD drives. I have not heard of support for USB HD media players working.
Does the HD player supports for playing of movies from BlueRay disks?
The WDTV since I reviewed it has replaced my cable bill I download the shows I want to see copy them all over to an external HD and watch them in upscaled 1080p its awesome.