WESTERN DIGITAL TV Live Media Player

good product but they're selling it for way too much here.
check Komplett and they're selling it for 60 euro less.
And it's even cheaper over here in Oz...

I bought this thing mainly for watching movies as i am not able to connect my laptop to TV. Now i am enjoying a real quality of my movies from my external drive!
it doesnt require a lot of space and it is a very good advantage as well!
I havent tried to connect it to the internet and home networking but these two options should be great advantages as well!
very happy with the product!

awesome little box. Allows you to watch anything (everything i've tested ~1000 different videos/films) on your telly. as a bonus it connects to the net to allow youTube and netRadio access.

If you're someone who has a lot of music or video (avi/divx/mpg/mkv) etc and get asked by friends/housemates/family to hook up your computer to the tv to watch a film on 'movie night' then this is for you. it saves a lot of hassle and allows anyone with no tech knowledge to flick through.

... if only they could 'upscale' my 10 year old telly to HD ;-)

I needed a sensible DLNA player, that could also handle playlists, modern video formats and OGG and FLAC audio. The WD TV Live seemed to fit, but DLNA is only mentioned with a small logo on the cardboard box, but not at all in the manual that I had downloaded earlier (and that also comes on a CD with the device.) This manual is pretty basic and useless to anyone with basic IT skills.

The good thing so is: No manual needed. I plugged everything in, and the WD TV Live offered intuitive and responsive menu, that already included the content from my DLNA server without any configuration. Plug and play. All my media comes via network, I have not connected any USB device to the box.

The WD TV Live is silent (it has no fan) and stays relatively cool. It is tiny, about 3-4 stacked CD jewel cases in size. The box can lay flat or upright. It played everything that I threw at it so far. Works fine with a Logitech Harmony remote, too. I am pretty happy about it!


NEGATIVES:
- Entering your credentials for YouTube, through the remote is truly a pain.
- Changing aspect ratio from 16:9 to 3:4 requires a restart, although it says it doesn't.
- Menu text (e.g. YouTube descriptions) are very small and barely readable on an old composite TV, better use HDMI.
- Minimalistic remote that lacks dedicated buttons for jumping to Movies/Music/Photo/Radio etc. while doing something else previously. You have to press Home and then start anew from there each time.