Pros: - Relatively simple to setup.
- Plays 720p and 1080p video without stuttering.
- Small
- Quiet
- Great lights that show status

Cons: This device has a lot of cons, so many I'd recommend not buying unless you're a very light video watcher and only plan to use it to show a family video here and there.

- Downloaded HD videos will rarely work (the WDTV doesn't support the audio of most downloaded .MKVs. Do not buy if you want to do this.)

- If you have a high capacity HDD, the thing takes AGES to recognize it (I have 400GB/1TB full and it takes 15-20 minutes to recognize the drive. My MacBook takes a minute.)

- Very poor UI. Adding cover art is unnecessarily difficult.

- No way to mark unread/read. Very annoying.

- Doesn't automatically play next video, no option to do this. Want to see the next video? Click next or go to menu and scroll down. Hard to watch a full season of TV consecutively.

- Doesn't come with HDMI cord.

- HDMI port is poor and cord comes loose easily.

- Laggy going through menus.

- Horrid customer support.

- Have to power cycle a lot. Sometimes won't turn on.

- SLOW fa

Other Thoughts: Do not buy this.

I intended to use this for all my video needs to hook up to my TV. It's a nightmare and is not for a power user, or even a "medium level" user.

I download a bunch of .MKVs file to show. Very rarely will play the audio. You get a great picture with no sound. WD recommends you re-encode. Yeah, right, I'm going to re-encode HD movies, which will take like 1hr+ for each. I'll pass.

I thought I could just plug in an HDD, it recognizes it and we go. No, it's not built for more than 100GB and will take 10-20 minutes for 500GB. I can't imagine hitting 1TB on this thing, an hour to recognize?

Can't mark unread either. No idea what the last episode of TV I watched was. Have to write it down.

Wouldn't output to TV in beginning, had to call customer support (ended up being cheap HDMI port) and it was just Indian people who were confusing.

Really, really, recommend against this. I researched it a lot but never imagined the ridiculous shortcomings this thing has. P

Pros: Newegg came through with quick shipping as usual. As for the Player, It was very nice while it worked.

Cons: After about 4 month the unit started corrupting every drive and thumbdrive connected. I went through the RMA process with Western Digital. After they had the drive for about a month with no status updates I called... Well it turned out the drive was flagged as "labels missing or device damage"??? Turns out they were unable to read the serial # due to it being smeared? I then asked if they could obtain they serial by plugging the unit in and checking the product info menu and was told "no we can't" After some complaining the WD supervisor told me she would request that the item be excepted and a new unit sent out and she would let me know what happens...

Other Thoughts: Check your barcode \ serial # on your unit... if it's not perfect, try and get an RMA from newegg. I've purchased too many WD products to be screwd over on my first warranty issue. I'll start building PC's without WD inside.

Pros: This little box brings ALOT of entertainment. Great picture and video (depending on the source format) and the menu is very user friendly.

Cons: Nothing really that affects the control of the device.

Pros: *The DLNA part allows equally credentialed units to "talk"
*Interface is easy to understand and manipulate
*Very intuitive in terms of setup and connectivity

Cons: *Search is a little cumbersome for a movie in a mass of them
*Sometimes a little flakey when others are on the network (PCs)
*Some ambiguity in DLNA certification (twist the standard)

Other Thoughts: This unit works much better than a many that I have tried in the past. The DLNA certification is probably the most important factor for this kind of device. DLNA is a standard that allows all DLNA machines to communicate on a basic level so as to promote "plug-and-play". Connecting a NAS with a media server on it allows the device to access terribytes of media like music, pictures, and movies on your TV. The front-end (user interface) is a little difficult to manage in that it scrolls line by line instead of jumping between folders, so getting to your movie is a little time consuming to navigate (but not too bad though)...* should not complain for having so many movies to look though though :-)
The unit looks on any devices (like computers or mass storage) with a DLNA media server on it. It will tell you what devices it finds so you can look though the shared files on them (organization of your files on the source is key here by the way for any media device so you can find them).

Pros: It plays mkv files, and several others very well.

Cons: I bought three of these a year ago, and only one works now. It does not properly negotiate sound in mkv files all the time.

Other Thoughts: The one unit still standing was barely used.

Pros: All i could ever want !!! Works like a charm.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Its not a con so i will just add that i am waiting on a firmware to enable it to decode more audio types on avi & mkv files.

Pros: plays pretty much anything you throw at it, compact, straight forward menus

Cons: - remote control has an annoying lag - just enough to make you press buttons twice when it's not needed...
- often times when my hard drive goes on standby this device would crash and/or would not wake up until unplugged/plugged again.

Other Thoughts: it's a very useful device to have around, i have mine hooked up to a home theater audio receiver. i download HD movies and watch them in full HD with DTS sound. it's impressive! once they fix the bugs i mentioned above this device would be perfect.

Pros: Has played just about everything I have tried on it,with the newest update I think it will now.This was well worth the money when I didn't have cable,have cable now but still use this a lot.

Cons: No buttons on the device,if you loose the remote,it is pretty useless.WD does sell replacements for $15 last time I checked.

Other Thoughts: Buy it,you won't regret it and update the firmware first thing.

Pros: easy install, simple interface,
pluy and play ^^

Cons: none

Pros: The number of file types that it recognizes.

Cons: Failure to respond to the remote, inability to bring out of sleep mode, WD support group.

Other Thoughts: The first one I received would not respond to the remote at all; and YES, I put in a second set of fresh, new batteries before contacting product support! WD replaced the first one with no problems. Now I've had the product for about 7 months and I am having the same issues; will not respond to the remote, in that I cannot get it to turn on, so I have to unplug and plug the power back in to get it to re-boot. Then when it is on, I cannot get it to turn off with the remote. In addition, most of the time it will not respond to the remote to bring it out of screensaver mode, where I once again am forced to unplug and plug the power. They keep issuing firmware updates that are supposed to address this issue, but obviously it ain't workin. The thing is still under warranty, so I am going to request thy replace it again. There are so many of these players out there now, I highly recommend doing some research before commiting to this product.

Pros: Very hackable with WDLXTV and variants. Currently has a Trendnet USB ethernet adapter attached to work with router and sharing via NFS. Plays nearly everything. HDMI video plus audio over one cable! Remote is well made. VERY Smooth rich color playback of most 1080p avi, MKV, mov.

Cons: No love for DTS unless hooked up to HDMI audio, does not really shut-off, and stays warm, without remote, device is hopeless, no lanyard loop are my only real complaints.
The following are just FYI....

Other Thoughts: despite the technical cons, it works great as advertised! No component (RGB) or VGA. I would get the ethernet enabled WDTV Live over this now that it has been released. ISO's must be unpacked. Will not play commercial DVD's with external DVD player. Cannot play uncompressed video well.

Pros: Easy, just stick a AVI or VOB file on a usb stick and attack it to the media player. I've had no problems playing any AVI or other movie files. I don't use it for music so I can't rate it for that.
No it doesn't do everything, but for around a hundred bucks you get a tiny unobtrusive machine, that works.

Cons: Doesn't always re-scale the VOB files to take full advantage of the TV screen.

Pros: Works exactly as the package advertises (but not as Newegg does). Very small. Good Price.

Cons: Will not decode audio over 2-channels!! If you download/rip your movies in 8-channel audio (like most bluray rips are) it WILL NOT play any audio. Video is still perfect, however.

Also, menu is somewhat sleek looking (which is good) but it is also somewhat slow in my opinion. Not quite the media player I expected and I'd still rather use Windows Media Center on a PC.

Other Thoughts: Decode 8-channel audio! At least 6-channel! Displaying thumbnails for files would be nice as well.

Pros: Small. 2 USB connectors, HDMI, good picture quality, wide codecs support.

Cons: Overheated on me once - made picture garbled. Cooled it down and everything was back to normal since then.

Other Thoughts: Feature that I'm missing on this puppy to make it perfect: ability to accept streaming from Windows7/Vista machines + network/WiFi support.

Pros: - Works exactly as expected. In particular, I was able to run 1080p movies off my 5400rpm USB external HDD, with no issues.
- Supports a ton of audio / video codecs, as advertised.
- Firmware upgradable, and not too difficult to do.
- GUI is not half bad.

Cons: - Firmware was ancient. I purchased this in Nov 2009 and the firmware was the original, from Dec 2008. A minor quibble.

Other Thoughts: A note on DTS support: As this is their 1st Gen product, it does NOT decode DTS through the HDMI cable to your TV. There is a newer WD TV which does decode DTS, but it's a little more money. So be wary of this, if DTS is important to you.

A quick workaround for DTS (and assuming the file is an MKV container) is adding an additional audio track to your file, with a supported codec like AC3 / MP3 / Vorbis. Adds a little to your file size, but it will get around this issue.

Pros: This is a cool little unit. Plays my mkv files no problem. It even takes old avi files and breaths new life into them. I had an upconvert DVD player with a USB interface. I would watch videos using that. But the same AVI files on this new WD box looks so much better!

Cons: I couldn't get the digital output to work on this device, although I admit i could have had it configured wrong. Also, about 7/8 of the way into a movie, the video just froze. Had to reset the device to get it to work again.

Other Thoughts: Despite the little bugs, everything has been pretty smooth on this little box. For its size, it sure packs a punch!

Just a note on the bugs I've seen pop up on this device. I have researched a bit and I believe that the issues I've been experiencing are due to having an older firmware version on the device, I think if i update all will be well.

Pros: I love this media player! It makes life so much easier. It's even cheaper now. It's worth the cash!

Cons: This won't play the audio bluray copies in the format they come in. I believe you have to motify the audio of the file to get it to play, but i haven't messed with it yet. Also, it does take awhile to load the hard drives you plug into it after it gets over 150GB's of storage.

Pros: Plays the movies I have no problem. I just add them to my 16G usb drive and they play flawlessly on this WD HD device. Easy menue to navigate, movies, music, pictures.

Cons: I see some people are having nothing but problems with this unit. Wonder if they updated the firmware? No cons for me. The unit I bought works fine, and mine was a refurb. I didn't buy mine from Newegg, I got mine form a popular internet auction place.

Other Thoughts: I gave this to my parents as a Thanksgiving day gift. Something for the home so we can all gather round the big screen when my wife and I visit. I decided to go with this unit and not the LIVE one for my parents, I wanted to keep it simple. They love it, I drop off some movies to them every so often and they can watch them when they please. Maybe one day I'll get them a portable hard drive and load all my saved movies to it so they have a movie collection too.

Pros: Small, Convenient, if it played 1080p there wouldn't be a single con about this device!

Cons: Read this review!!! I bought this after reading all the amazing reviews about it, how it does 1080p without stutter... well, I buy it, hook up my HDD to it, try the biggest 1080p file I have (18gb, x264) and it does NOT play it. Stutters like crazy, the sound cuts off a lot, etc.

I tried 3 other big 1080p files, none of them played. I tried smaller 1080p files, they did not play either!

I would NOT recommend this if you plan on playing 1080p, please please please read this review and take my advice. I dont know how these other people are saying they are able to play 1080p just fine, they must work for WD or something

Pros: Compact unit, no fan, so there's no noise.

Cons: Even though it's working up to specs, this is an extraordinarily lousy product!

(1):There is ZERO support for DVD menus, settings, and features. If there's commentary or if you want to select subtitles or watch additional content, FORGET IT. WD claims this is a copyright issue, but other products support menus and the rest just fine. What a waste!

(2): An HDTV-player product should allow you to play DRM-free BluRay movies or other home-made BluRay material properly. NOPE! It won't play 40% of my BluRay content at all, and the other 60% it either:

(1a): Reports that the primary DTS/Dolby audio track can't be played (even though I have an external amp that processes DTS and Dolby)

(1b): The playback has glitches, skips, infinite loops of the same 3 minutes, random jumping, etc. It's clear it's content parser is full of bugs which still haven't been fixed even a year later!

(2): Even given this limitation, it often mangles DVD or other video content.

More below.

Other Thoughts: - There's no chance this thing will ever support DVD menus and the like, and you must also abandon the idea of reliably playing BluRay content (though it will play single .m2ts files tolerably well).

- You'll have better luck if you spend the better part of a year converting all your content to MKV format with the ArcSoft converter software included, but it takes massive CPU effort and I/O time. And where are you going to store it all if you want to keep the original formats as well?

- I've had to disconnect/reconnect/shutdown/try again quite often to get the WDTV to recognize the USB storage device.

- Fast Forward and Rewind rarely work correctly.

- Firmware updates are rare and are long overdue (there's only been 1 in the better part of the year I've owned it). Many problems remain unfixed, and it seems clear they never will be.

- Bottom line: Only purchase this product for people you want to annoy.

Pros: ty neweeg

Cons: good service

Pros: Got this when it came out at local Best Buy and i was so happy. Almost all my videos played flawlessly and MKV's play so awesome.

Cons: Nothing, maybe fast forwarding

Other Thoughts: To people who are givign a low review because IT WONT PLAY your iso's.. well i dont think it says it does play them. or your IFO and Video_ts folder. it played video files. When you buy a car you don't expect it to give you carrots. So don't complain it doesn't have a feature which it did not advertise for.

Pros: works absolute perfect. I am using this to show customers the 1080p ability of their TV's as well as having a HDMI source in the service dept. I am thrilled how well this works.Best investment I have ever done.

Cons: sometimes it takes a little long to communicate via HDMI. Does not play wma9 files though.

Other Thoughts: plays most of the files out there including Divx coded movies.even plays Blueray container files (M2TS).

Pros: Work very good. does what i need it to do!!

Cons: none

Pros: I have installed 10 of these in retail locations as a advertising media distriibution to HD TVS. I coupled it with the WD 500G pocket drive. Using MP4HD uncompressed video the clarity is great.

Cons: You must update the firmware right out of the box. This is a must! Another thought is using Apple M4V disables the FF and REW ability. It is picky on ISO file playing.

Other Thoughts: Remote seems a little cheap. But if you're debating between the three big players WD, APPLE, or LaCie Black play this one wins in all catagories. Lowest price and custom tailor your drive size for 1/2 the money!

Pros: Plays every file i have put to it. I just love this. Movies, Pictures, Music, all at a touch of the remote. Cant say enough. You will love it to!

Cons: NONE !!!!!!!!

Other Thoughts: Check for new firmware update.

Pros: Product delivers! Make sure to upgrade the firmware and this unit will play almost anything you can throw at it. With my PS3 I have to reencode, not with this unit. ton's of outputs. Simple menu system is a no brainer and great for kids. Stop them from scratching DVD's and going through your collection! 2 usb ports work flawlessly. Recent firmware upgrades have really corrected some issue (HDD staying powered up even when unit powered off). Believe it's been said that can access hubs.

Cons: No ethernet... However this is now fixed with the WD TV Live model ($120). Menu system in "list" mode has giant lettering. Smaller font might allow bigger lists. However on a smaller tv I could see the issue. No sequential playback. Smaller video files end to the menu instead of the next file. My unit has a funny power connector, a slight wiggle and the power drops. This might be my unit only though.

Other Thoughts: Maximumpc reviewed the new WD TV Live and stated in one section "We're not sure how many people actually want to stream online radio to their TV, but the option is there." This could be true of an MP3 collection on a USB drive as well. Keep in mind if this unit is connected to a surround system then music would be played out the same setup (switch surround reciever to stereo/music), now you have your entire music collection at your finger tips on your main sound system. For LARGE constantly updating collections consider the WD TV Live, otherwise you'll find yourself dragging the USB HDD back and forth between this guy and your main pc. Consider the "mini" for a kids room, if they don't have an HDMI port on their tv why spend the extra? Also google WD TV hacks, they have firmware hacks already.

Pros: -Plays everything i throw at it.
-Very easy to use

Cons: -Very new technology, have to stay on top of the software updates online. Newest software works very well.
-Sould have had an network connection for network storage.

Other Thoughts: For everyone having lip sync issues with MKV format files please use the beta software 1.03.01, can be found easily online.

Pros: 2nd one i bought, although I bough the first one from Best buy. Works excellent.

Cons: None really besides that it gets hot and shouldn't be placed on top of another machine.

Other Thoughts: Works well with my 1tb hard drive, very clear with hdmi

Pros: Supports just about every format. Plays files I couldn't even get to work on my computer with codes.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Purchased from new egg as a refurbished item and saved $20 geat deal

Pros: Plays a lot of video file formats.
Plays files arranged in differenet ways of your like.
HDMI output
Small footprint

Cons: 1. Power off does not power off anything except the power light and the output. Everything inside is running hot, e.g. the Optical out put is still on. Very immature in the power design.
2. Does not play WMV and RMVB (RM as well) files, Lipsync problems on certain MKV files. I immediately upgraded BIOS to V.1.02.11 when I received it.
3. take a lot of time to read all files on a 1TB USB hard drives

Other Thoughts: As a new product, price is still high. Reasonable price will be around $50. The WMV, RMVB and MKV lipsync should be fixed asap.
Had not yet figured out how to use the playlist.

Pros: Excellent product. Plays regular avi file and the Hd Mkv file without a problem.

Cons: The remote is slow. It's a bit annoying.

Other Thoughts: After buying this product Western Digital released the Wdtc Live that supports DTS over hdmiand networking. I can't wait to get another toy from WD.

Pros: Simple to use. I can finally watch movies instead of fooling around w/ codecs or streaming to my 360. Now it's all plug and play! I get to enjoy movies again!

Cons: I should have waited for the network capable model that just came out for roughly $20 more.

Pros: Portable and works excellent. First I save each movie as an .ISO and place in a folder with same name. Next I use "My Movies 2" to get my thumbnails added to folder. A budget portable media center. If you want network capability they are about to release WD TV Live HD Media Player. Google it. That will be my next purchase. All my movies are from my DVDs. Have not tried a Blu-ray yet, will update when i do.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Remote takes awhile to get use to. No product will do everything. Read what it is capable of and utilize it. Alway keep it updated with firmware. I use this daily at home and travel with it. Can get about 100+ uncompressed DVD movies on a 500GB portable harddrive.

Pros: Where to begin! This is an awesome little device. It plays anything. It has a really nice menu and updating the firmware was a breeze. It has an optical audio out if you have a LCD with an optical audio in, or a audio/video receiver connector to a theater sound setup. DTS is not supported any other way. So the previous two posters are both correct. It is an easy work around using a little program called mkv2vob. It will convert the audio into AC3 leaving the video untouched. It has 2 USB ports. Will play large mkv files and h264 off a thumb drive.

Cons: Not any other than the DTS issue, but not really an issue with the workarounds.

Other Thoughts: I suggest formatting your 16gb or 32gb usb thumb drive in NTFS format if not using an external HHD. They are normally FAT32 and unless you reformat them you will not be able to place larger MKV or H264 files on them. And that's the reason we bought this right?

Pros: everything works well with this black box. and who ever said no DTS is not too Tech savy. all you have to do is use the optical port and you have DTS

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: APPLE TV, its not, thank goodness

Pros: My father was interested in a HTPC, but got this instead and loves it. Its perfect if you need to move it around a lot and plays almost anything.

Cons: No DTS :(

Pros: It plays almost all media formats, that is why I purchased it. I thought it would be similar to apple tv, but it is not. It is good in theroy, but it is nothing like my apple T.V.!!!

Cons: Slow and very archaic feeling when compared to apple tv. If you have never owned apple tv, i am sure it will do just fine.

Pros: Not to toot my own horn (other than a little), but I wrote THE first Newegg review for this baby last November. It's still rocking, and I'm still loving it. This device came along at the right time for me, and its been doing its job ever since. For what it does, for the price, it just can't be beat.

Cons: Doesn't support DTS or AAC, although it will still play very well in 2.0 if you select 'Stereo' for the audio setting. My receiver does DTS, so I can get the 5.1 there, but my receiver does not support AAC, so I have to convert most of my .mkv files to AC3 (I use mkv2vob) if I wanna get the 5.1 sound. Wish it supported AAC. Really, though, its not that big of a deal. Like I said, for the price....

Other Thoughts: Why the heck haven't I gotten another one already? If anyone has any questions, check out wdtvforum.com. Has all your answers. Peace out!

Pros: What a Godsend this machine is.

I have been looking for a way to offload my HD movies from my Canon HG10. These movies are recorded to an m2ts file using the AVCHD codec. Nearly every piece of software couldn't run it to speed on my computer, and converting these files to AVI or MPEG was painful and time-consuming. Along comes this device. I simply transfer my files off the camcorder to my 1.5TB HD, plug that drive into this device, and I'm watching all my movies in their original form flawlessly in HD.

Cons: For $100? None that I've seen.

Other Thoughts: I emailed Western Digital before I bought the machine and they told me that the player does not support AVCHD. But it plays mine fine. So I can't say definitively that it will or won't play other AVCHD files created from different cameras. This player is a helluva lot cheaper than a PS# to playback AVCHD.

Pros: Supports every format that I've tried. I've had this for more than a couple months and I'm still convinced this was the best money I've spent in a long time. I use this almost every day, sometimes several hours at once. It's great!

It's small and makes it easy to unplug and carry to a friend's house. Especially if you have a small supported flash drive.

If some are having issues out there, this is easily updatable. Make sure you have the latest firmware to get the best experience.

Cons: Was choppy on only one video, which was some m4v file, but other m4v videos play flawlessly. AND the latest beta (released 10/1/09) FIXED my issue.

Other Thoughts: Trying to make a useful review, I read through some of the others. Some state that theirs has died after a few months. I'm guessing they just had bad luck and got a bad device. The failure rate of these devices seem to be low according to other consumer reviews.

Some state this doesn't support NTFS. They must be from Mars. As long as the WD TV supports the drive, it supports FAT32, NTFS, and even HFS+.

Without a doubt, this is the biggest bang for your buck and this is a well supported device.

Pros: -Plays full 1080p HD
-Simple, Easy to use setup
-HDMI out
-plays DTS audio via optical out (see note below)

Cons: -Runs HOT!! (Even warm when not powered on!)
-Although this may just be the format, some videos playback choppy and have trouble seeking forward and reverse
-HDMI is not designed to output digital audio

Other Thoughts: I was initially going to give this poor reviews due to the lack of digital audio support through the HDMI port... DTS audio is WAY more common in a full HD video then ac3. But, as it turns out, there is a work around that doesn't involve wasting time converting all your videos. The optical audio out will play all dts encoded videos. So you will need both a fiber audio line and the HDMI connected, but it WILL PLAY DTS AUDIO!!!

Bottom line: This is a MUST HAVE for home theater enthusiasts.

Pros: Plays everything I throw at it. It is a very nice Unit. Well worth 100.

Cons: Runs a little hot, will even heat up the usb drive.

Pros: Plays every video format I've thrown at it - XVID, DiVX, x264 MKV, etc.

Cons: Doesn't play DTS audio. However, see below.

Other Thoughts: Popcorn Hour has a free audio conversion tool that solves the lack of DTS audio playback. The tool, "Audioconverter", will convert DTS to AC3. Very fast tool too...takes about 5 minutes or so for a typical movie.

Pros: Plays a lot of different media formats and plays them well.
Very simple and user friendly.
Works with any external USB hard drive or flash drive.
It'll be hard to find anything better for the price.

Cons: No DTS support, if you have a receiver with optical input that supports DTS you're okay since the device will pass through the DTS to a receiver. However if you do not have a receiver your DTS movies will have no audio at all.

Other Thoughts: Every now and then the device needs to be unplugged from the power adapter and restarted since you run into a small glitches or bugs, lucky WD has promised to correct those bugs with regular firmware upgraded, which are easy to download and install.

If you need this device to support DTS you may wanna hold off for a while as WD is working on a big brother to this device which will support DTS and network access.

Pros: So I have started collecting movies from both online and by ripping blu discs that only takes a to my hard drive for compression to MKV. I started off with 2 x 1TB hard drives..grand total! Hah. we are talking about 1080p blu-ray rips and 720p HDTV episodes recorded and compressed to MKV as well. I found out real quickly that this device was everything I could have dreamp of and more. and to think, I was orginally planning on using my xbox!!! Ahhahaha, aha. hah. the x360 plays 1 specific format of the mp4 codec. The WD TV HD? well, it plays........ absolutely anything in the worldthat your computer could play, it'sas simple as that@

Cons: Meh. hard to come up with a real true complaint from this $99 blackbox seemingly from 5 yearsin the future.
I guess it does kind of suck that each time you plug in a new external hard drive, it has to take the time to re-scan all of your old hrd dirves..... which of course, and since I have 2 seperate USB hubs plugged into each one of the 2 USB ports on this unit - that a total possibility of 14 external hard drives! WOW!!! well, I'm already @ 10 hard drives for 8.5TB of storage. so when the system does have to re-scan all the drives.. well, yea, it does take a while. the good news is that as long as you aren't adding new drives or changing drive configurations,.. this won't be an issue for you. because it remembers what's on each drive after each time you power off and on.

Other Thoughts: This device may slip under the radar for the general public, simply because the concept of using external hard drives as your primary source of media (replacing DVD/blu/HD-DVD drives all at once) sounds crazy. but to us tech doods who know what we're getting ourselves into already......this device is a GOdSEND!!!!!!!!!!!!! I used to have to burn BD-R 25gbdiscs, in order to wath a

Pros: Plays just about any movie file I throw at it. I especially like that it plays .mkv.

Cons: Does not play digital audio. Had to re-encode some .mkv films to AC3 in order to get sound. Gets warm and stays warm while plugged in.

Other Thoughts: Small, portable, and outputs through hdmi.

Pros: I love this little shiny black box, but I want so much more. Amazing swiss army knife of a gadget. HDMI and Optical Audio out work fantastically! Just get it. Excellent bang-for-buck. Multichannel Dolby audio plays perfectly! Seems to handle almost any file and scale it correctly. It even plays ripped blue ray - sweet. VOB files play in serial progression as expected.

Cons: Where's the deluxe model WD? I don't mind spending more cash but I want the best. Video quality of ripped movies not as good as my dvd player. The Interface is slow. If you are a video quality perfectionist you'll be disappointed.

Other Thoughts: Get some good decrypting software on the internet for ripping movies. Five eggs based on bang-for-buck and great utility. Upgrade driver from WD website prior to use.

Pros: great little play almost all formats

Cons: wish i brought it sooner

Pros: Plays an array of files. Burning VOB files to an ISO works, but lacks chapters.
Good audio playback with FLAC support

Cons: Powering off the media play wont turn off portable hard drives. It will use the power adapter of the media player and run the hard drive without anything on. I called WD and the support from overseas was about worthless as it comes. I really don't understand why you'd design it this way. The media player is off, but because the hard drive is on it gets hot. One morning I notice my external 500gig portable hard drive was on, and the Media player was HOT. So now I have to eject the drive then shut done the drive every time I shut it off...

Other Thoughts: Save your money they'll come out with something better soon.

Pros: Good price, good features. I knew when I bought this that it wasn't perfect, but for the price I decided to get it anyway. It has played every 720p x264 encoded video I have thrown at it. I use the optical audio to get ac3 and dts audio untouched to my receiver which works great since the receiver can decode the audio.

Cons: Somewhat buggy, seems to lack superb firmware development from wd.

Other Thoughts: I have a HFS+ formatted usb drive for use with >4GB files with my Mac. If I eject this drive, turn the device off, and try to turn the device back on, it doesn't want to turn on. So be sure to unplug any usb drives that have been ejected before trying to turn the wdtv back on.

If you have a little more to spend, an ION computer running XBMC on Ubuntu with the VDPAU drivers will devour anything 1080p so that is looking like the option to beat going forward.

Pros: WDTV displays almost all the vidoe formats I have.

Cons: 1. Can't correctly display some of OGG formatted media files. Must convert to mkv format to work

2. If you do not have an audio decoder, DTS encoded audio in MKV must be changed to AC3 using "AudioConverter.exe" (Google it) and you must hookup the sound output from WDTV using RCA cable

Other Thoughts: If you have a spare hard-disk sitting around, buy cheapy converter (like SATA to usb) instead of buying a usb external drive to store files. You can upgrade firmware from Western Digital or third party sites.

Pros: Works fine so far on mkv, avi (xvid/h.264) after applying firmware update from the manufacturer.

Cons: Video_TS folder playback with subtitles is a little clunky. Had to reboot a couple of times before it would recognize HDMI output resolution, had to set it to auto.

Other Thoughts: Would be nice if the remote was a little more responsive.

Pros: This device simply great! I have yet to install any firmware on it but so far it has played all my movies fine, except for a few audio problems with others. But that's probably just a firmware issue. I was even surprised at the quality of my videos. Some movies would be quite pixelated when watching on my computer (22" monitor). How ever when I watch it through this device on a 52" TV the quality was great! I highly recommend this to any movie goer!

Cons: Other than the audio not playing on some movies, there is nothing I have noticed. However this could simply be because I haven't installed the firmware yet.

Other Thoughts: n/a

Pros: Plays nearly all video, audio and picture formats, small in size, and good looks. 1080p output via hdmi looks great on my hdtv!

Cons: Dose not support all mkv audio formats. Iv got a few "Unsupported Audio" files. dose not turn off my WD My book 1tb hd, It dose however turn off my wd passport 250gb hd.

Other Thoughts: My unit has the latest firmware applied. I use this mainly to watch anime, and subbers tend to use a wide array of video and audio formats. I have more unsupported files than I would like (all are forms of mkv audio), but not a deal breaker. I plan on getting another for the bedroom.

Pros: Plays nearly every kind of video file.
Small size
2 USB inputs
HDMI outpit

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I purchased this unit because I had bought a Canon Hi-Def camcorder that recorded in 1080P onto SD cards. Using the WD Player, I can put the card into a USB reader and play my 1080P movies through the unit into my 1080P HDTV. Fabulous image quality. Buy one!

Pros: Plays virtually all video, audio and subtitle formats. If your a fansub/anime watcher this will definitely play your favorites.

Menu systems is simple and easy to use.

Cheap even at local retail stores.

Cons: Remote control is terribly small so watch out people with big hands. It might just be mine but he reception area for the remote seems to be terribly small and fluctuates in and out of working, I'll have to keep trying maybe the batteries in the box are dying on me already.

Subtitles while they will display you can forget all the fancy formats, colors, karaoke and multiple lines being translated at once on different areas of the screen. For now the WD displays white subtitles at he bottom of the screen only and will rapidly switch through translations if the fansuber translates signs in the background as well as the words being spoken. So it can be annoying.

Other Thoughts: Supposedly there is a WD TV 2 in development now. The current one is very good the simple addition of an Ethernet or WiFi connection on it so you can just stream from your desktop would make it great.

Please note that you HAVE TO get an eternal hard drive for this unit, so budget yourself accordingly.

Pros: This media player has played every format that I have thrown at it. No need for bulky DVD/Blu-ray players at all with this device. I've also talked a few friends into buying one and they love it. WD make products people want.
Awesome!

Cons: Gets a little warm while in use.

Other Thoughts: Can't wait to see if DD 5.1 firmware is released.

Pros: Does everything that a Home Theater PC does, & does it exceptionally well without the bulk & OS problems associated with maintaining a PC.

Light & mobile, making it very easy to transport. Bring it over to the relatives or to friends.

$100 for all this?!?! How much for a Blu Ray player? How much for each Blu Ray movie? How much for HD Cable & HD Dish?

The number of different file types supported by the WD TV is incredible & continues to increase.

Setting it up is stupid easy. My firend's 68-yr old mother had the thing up & running in less than 8 minutes.

Routine & beneficial firmware updates. This shows that WD continues to be commited to their product & their customers.

Cons: Cons?!?!

Having to listen & read asinine comments from stupid idi0ts such as Mr./Ms. N/A of 8/28/2009 12:20:13 PM complain about the placement of the rear USB port.

"This is very poor dessign by WD and really inexcusable..."

Really?

Did you know that the WD TV comes with 2 usb ports?!?!

Did you bother to look to see that USB1, as designated by the WD TV unit, can be found, fully unobstructed to your liking, on the left side of the unit?

What is inexcusable is that the rest of us have to listen to your poorly considered & unintelligent noise.

Other Thoughts: Western Digital has won a huge victory in creating a media player that successfully bridges the gap between media files that use to only run well on computers but not on TVs. The multi-faceted capabilities of the WD TV has turned competing devices such as the much hyped Apple TV into a joke.

Add to this the company's commitment to their product by way of their numerous firmware updates & support forums, & you have a very special product which does not come around often.

And if you think that the 1st generation of the WD TV was ahead of its time, wait until Western Digital releases the next gen unit, which will provide networking capabilities, if the pre-released photos & info is accurate.

Pros: Wow very simple device for those who are not very high tech. I got this for my brother who has hard time using calculators. ;p Anyway very small, handles 1080p mkv movies no problem. Plays everything and am very happy.

Cons: Wished the HDMI sent the 5.1 sound over it instead of having to use the optical out port for the 5.1 sound.
Does get very hot so I wish unit had a fan.
Annoyed that i just read that WD TV 2 is already in works and should be out soon. Wish it had some picture adjustment options for color, brightness, etc..

Other Thoughts: Very happy. With current set of features is awesome player for family members. Reading movies plays great. Very simple A++.

Pros: I hardly know where to begin to sing the praises of this product!
I love this thing! :o)
Everything about it has gone easily and worked flawlessly right out of the box. Updating to the newest driver was easy....hooking it up to the tv/USB source was a breeze (I currently use a WD MyBook 500GB external hard drive with it, but plan on picking up a Video-type flash drive soon)....it took less than 5 secs to recognize my USB source and load up a menu of available titles. (I made a "Videos" folder on the MyBook and put all my files in there)
Image and video playback is sharp and crisp and I've had no problems with audio synch at all.
Menus are simple to understand and navigate.
I hope the WD TV HD Media Player is nominated for a Customer Choice Award.

Cons: None that I've found yet, really. It will not play an .flv file but that's not a big deal to me---they're easily converted to .avi.
OK, so the remote is a little small and could get lost easily, but since all my remotes are kept religiously in one spot that also isn't a problem to me.

Other Thoughts: Note that this little gizmo does get warm when it's been in use for a couple of hours, so make sure you give it plenty of air space. High heat and electronics aren't a good combo.
I'm thinking of getting another one of these for the bedroom so that I can rip my movie collection to a 1TB MyBook for instant access to anything I'm in the mood to watch.

Pros: Does what it says it will. I am happy with the product at this point other than the con I listed I would give it 5 stars if not for the placement of it's USB PORT.

Cons: The USB port is very badly placed. It squeezed between the AC power jack and the HDMI port. You will need a very thin USB drive or need a USB extender cable when using thumb drives. This is very poor dessign by WD and really inexcusable considerng the nature of this product.

Other Thoughts: WD really should incorporate wireless connectivity with this.

Pros: The video quality has to be seen to be believed. H264 Two pass conversion is remarkable. Unlimited expandability.
Quality construction.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: [b]Very important to use an HDMI V1.3 Cable of 3 Feet for Top quality.[/b]

Pros: Superfast setup. Plug everything in, plug a hard drive in, start playing media off the HD. Thassit. I was on my couch watching something funny within five minutes of opening the box.
I've been randomly selecting media files and so far it's played everything.
Picture quality is great - I have an older, non-HD TV but with a huge screen, and everything looks as good as a regular TV broadcast.

Cons: The first AVI file I played, it took about ten seconds for video to appear (presumably hunting for the code and determining the aspect ratio). Also the aspect ratio was odd. But after changing the video settings a bit it was all great.

Other Thoughts: My first attempt at getting HD media onto my TV was a softmodded XBOX with XBMC. A week of hell, looking up solutions to arcane configuration issues, and still I was stuck at the last hurdle of getting the box to find my HD locally.
WD TV? Five minutes to setup, including moving the TV twice to get at the power bar, and I was watching my media about 60 seconds later.
I love this little bugger.

Pros: plays anything i throw at it. no need to burn disks of my media anymore. just copy to USB key and pop it in. i can't really express how fantastically satisfied i am with this purchase! no more watching movies on my computer because im too lazy to put them on a DVD

Cons: defaults to closed captioning for some reason. only takes a few clicks to get rid of but annoying enough to mention. no networking capabilities on this generation.

Other Thoughts: makes my huge stack of sharpie-labeled DVDs look ancient.

Pros: In real life it plays a suprising number of formats & codecs. Great user interface. Wide variety of selection methods, like by folder, by date, all. Can play 1 file at a time or all in folder. When set to play all if you use ENTER it does 1 title or hit PLAY for it to keep playing next file, like for TV series episodes.
I've only been talking about the video playing. It does all this with music (MP3, FLAC, etc.) and pictures too!
Comes with video conversion software if you have files that don't work. I haven't had to use it yet.

Cons: Text where selecting titles is a bit small to read from across the room. Wish there was a page-down/up for selections.
If that's the biggest beef, you can tell it's really nice.

Other Thoughts: We have been living on famous maker 400 DVD player that seems to fail too often. For a small portion of the replacement cost this gadget stores more and is more convenient to navigate. Caveat: This purpose requires you to rip your own DVD's via PC with 3rd party software, but that makes all of your content more portable. Don't need 3rd party software for MP3's & pictures.

Pros: Does a great job as a movie player, which is why I bought it. (Tired of my kids scratching DVDs). Can playback most video formats. It is small and portable, too.

Cons: I haven't done much with showing photos or listening to music, but what I've seen isn't anything special.

Other Thoughts: The WD Media Player is extremely flexible. If you are looking for a movie player that gives you a boatload of options for playback format, this player wins hands down. I play back in the DVD .vob format (lossless), so no worries about quality degradation. The interface isn't too flashy, but is acceptable.
To Shannon's comment about the ability to skip--It can be done by first pressing the fast-forward/rewind button, *then* pressing the skip forward/back button.

Pros: Will play most anything that it has access to. After applying B-RAD's enhanced WDLXTV firmware, the player will access your network through several USB-to-ethernet adapters. There are quite a few packages that have been created for the WDTV, samba and bittorrent to name a few. The device is a pretty good investment if you're restricted from playing your hi-def video on your 360 like me.

Cons: No DTS support. Will play video but no audio for DTS type mkv files. After converting the audio from DTS to ac3, the player works great! (Not to bad of a con but more of an annoyance.)
Remote is a little cheap, is solved after programming a universal remote.

Other Thoughts: I'm a little annoyed at not being able to skip forward in movies. If you stop a movie, it will prompt you to restart from that point again, but if you start from the beginning you have to fast forward through the movie. Maybe a later revision of firmware will allow a quick-skip like the 360 has. hmm. I hadn't used the stock firmware to try that, so maybe this is restricted to B-Rad's firmware...

I

Pros: Plays just about anything
Simple - Straightforward
Solid Menus and OS
1080p support
Digital Surround Sound Support
Solid alternative to a bulky and cumbersome HTPC

Cons: Drive remains in use when device is turned off
No chapter support [can "skip" in 10 minute increments]
Has trouble with certain containers

Other Thoughts: I long lusted after an HTPC but glad I waited and took a chance on this tiny device. After much research and effort trying to find the best spec for an HTPC [drives, fans video cards etc] this tiny wonder has come out and exceeded many expectations of even the expert HTPCer. Sure I wanted network support and even wired Ethernet to my home theater wall. I don't miss it. If I want something on demand I'll pay time warner. If I want something to archive I'll plan in advance and rip or download anyway. LOTR in 1080p with full Dolby support via optical??????.....my family room becomes some Eutopian Fantasy World!

Pros: -Reads every type of file you can think of
-Included firmware is good and there are alternative user created firmwares as well
-Great image/sound quality, my mpeg2 DVD rips look amazing

Cons: -Slow start up when indexing my 1tb drive
-Music navigation menus are a little clunky
-Can't read a DVD file structure, you must go through the folders and find the right .vob file yourself.

Other Thoughts: I got this to replace my HTPC (I would rather have a workstation than an HTPC). Very happy with the overall performance and quality.

Pros: Small
Lightweight
Portable
Quality Video Playback
File Compatability
Price

Cons: Wish it came with a HDMI cable, but hey...Newegg sells really good ones for a few bucks, so not much of a con.

Other Thoughts: As soon as you take this thing out of the box and plug it in, it's ready to start playing any video file you throw at this thing. The quality is amazing and its lightweight and portable design makes it great for traveling. This is a must buy!

Pros: Plug'n'play, very small and easy to use, no judder on 1080P 24hz signal.

Cons: Usb does not power off when you turn of the unit, remote is very small.

Other Thoughts: Although the remote is very small, I use it with a harmony so it doesnt really bother me.

Pros: Plays lots of different media

Cons: can't make a play list on WDTV

Other Thoughts: I had wanted this for a while and finally got it for Father's day. I bought the WD TV, a 1TB WD Book & HDMI cable from Newegg and got a great deal. I love it! I have loaded about 400GB of media on it so far and watch it every day. My whole family uses it. I read many review and was very excited about the concept but was not sure how it would work. I am not super techy but it is very easy to use.

Pros: If you guys haven't seen the WD TV up & close, it's really compact and small. The device plays an assortment of media types. It plays directly from the iPod if hooked up. It adds borders for those non-720p & non-1080p compliant MKV files, which is a great plus because it saves me lots time not worrying about resizing it to play it right. It does play DVD Video_TS files store in a ISO container

Cons: I'm not too worried about the WD TV not playing DTS audio. It's probably not Western Digital's fault because they probably can't get the license for it, but it hooking the device to a receiver will play DTS perfectly fine.

The one thing that bugs me is the fact that the remote control has a bit of a lag response to the WD TV. I would say about 2 second the most in lag from the moment you press a button on the remote to the time the WD TV receives the command or actually moves.

Other Thoughts: It's a great little device, I personally wouldn't change it one bit. Western Digital definitely hit this one on the spot.

Pros: Very Great product, I got it and have been using it for a week. Played 1080p videos, 720p and several Xvid's. They all worked perfectly on my sony bravia 3 engine. I highly recommend this vs. building a mini PC.

Cons: No DTS decoding.

Other Thoughts: Much cheap alternative to building a custom media PC.

Pros: First off, disregard the guy who complained about it not getting TV signals, or having a tuner. It is not a TV receiever. It is a DVP, Digital Video Player, DMP, Digial Misic Player, DPP, Digital Photo Player. In simple terms, because I know that you are out there, you can load all of your video, digital photo's, and music on to a USB hard drive, or USB memory stick, then plug it into the WDTV and turn it on. The WDTV will inventory the drive and give you a really cool interface on your TV screen to play it all. It supports optical audio out, and HDMI. It also sends audio over the HDMI, the Optical audio is for a digital audio source like DTS, or Dolby Surround.
I have a TB drive on it and an ocean of movies, music, and photo's.
Now for the other stuff. There is third party firmware support from wdtvc. com. With their firmware you can add wireless, or wired networking, and USB hub for multiple USB drive support, and much more.

Cons: I have tried other similar products with better hardware specs, but they were dogs and had no third party support to make up for the poor OEM firmware.

Other Thoughts: You will love this device once you put your first USB thumb drive, or usb hard drive on it and connect it to your widescreen HD TV. It will do 1080P HD, and I have gotten a 1080P download from bittorent and watched the entire movie with surround sound in 1080P.

Pros: Easy setup, including updating firmware. Plays any 1080p MKV file I throw at it, without any hiccups. Very good looking picture quality. Even xvid DVD rips upscale very well and look great on my 60" DLP. It's almost unbelievable. High-def content is where this thing really shines though.

Cons: I have a few gripes. I don't like the way this thing handles TV episodes. It doesn't group them together. In fact, there are no folders at all. This thing just finds any and all files on your hard drives(s) and groups them all together, regardless of folders.

Response of the remote is VERY slow. In fact, I find myself clicking it multiple times thinking that it isn't working. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the remote or the device itself.

Music isn't handles great either. The few MP3 albums I've tried, it didn't display the tracks in order, regardless if the ID3 tags.

This thing is very forgetful too. Sub-titles are ON by default. I'll turn the sub-titles off, stop the movie, restart the movie and the sub-titles will be ON again. It's actually quite annoying.

Other Thoughts: For what it is, it's worth every bit of the money. I hope Western Digital is working on a new version with network connectivity and a spot to internally mount a hard drive or two. Overall, much cheaper alternative to buying or building a HTPC.

Pros: I've owned one of these for almost a year. I gave my old one to a friend while he was on a visit and purchased another. It works really great. The one thing I did with the new one way update the firmware. It changed the way it list the movies and also added a couple of formats to include MP/4.

Cons: None

Pros: -Hassle free, simple as it gets media playback. Never have had a compatibility issue. Great for watching anything from Top Gear to a Blu-Ray rip right on my big screen.
-With newer firmware it is quite speedy to list all the media on a storage device when plugged in
-Small and compact

Cons: -Runs hot
-Remote is too small/no buttons on device

Other Thoughts: I've tried networked streaming solutions, but they have always, always bugged out on me. I prefer this device, as it is just dead simple, almost stupid proof. Just get a moderately big flash drive (16GB for me) and you have a very portable media hub.

As for cons, running hot isn't an issue for me since it just sits under my tv, but I imagine there might be some situation where this would bother someone. The remote being small and therefore easier to lose plus the lack of no buttons on the device if this happens almost made me take off a star, but it works so well that I just couldn't.

I've also had no stuttering at all with 1080p or 720p video. Not sure what other's situations might be, but it's silky smooth for me.

Also, jamesnmandy(below reviewer) did not write a review for this device, ignore him. This device has all the cables out the back, doesn't even have component or COAX, and offers digital out through HDMI. Not sure which device he reviewed, but it's not this

Pros: I don't own this--just trying to balance the jamesnmandy review that's obviously talking about a completely different product:
1. this has no component out.
2. this does have digital autio out.
3. this has no coax antenna connector.
4. this has no channels/tuner.
5. make sure you're reviewing the right product next time--this is not a TV.

Cons: Can't fully undo totally bogus review of this product by jamesnmandy.

Other Thoughts: How hard is it to look at what you're reviewing?

Pros: Automatically reads the files on the USB drive(s). Easy to connect and use. I encode to .mp4 (H.264) and the WD player reproduces everything wonderfully, the videos look as good as the original DVD image.

Cons: Even though the OPTIONS menu has AUDIO (which lists the audio stream you are using), the firmware does not allow you to select the secondary audio stream. I emailed WD and they told me they had no plans to update the firmware to allow it either. This is a very poor decision by WD and one that I wish I had known about prior to purchasing. I don't understand why they would have the OPTIONS-AUDIO button there, unless they were going to include this ability.

Other Thoughts: Update the firmware as soon as you get it. Email WD and ask about the secondary audio stream capability being added in the next firmware. Maybe they will get the point if enough people ask.

Pros: Supports almost all media files, full 1080p output, better GUI than most media players in the same category, and small form factor.

Cons: A little flaky reading some hard drives. Video regularly loses signal because of loose HDMI connection. Runs hot and will, sometimes, have to unplug it to cool it down before using again because of read errors.

Other Thoughts: For the most part, this is a great device. Plays almost every file I've thrown at it. Even seperate .srt subtitle files. Cheaper than buying a blu-ray player. I am disappointed with it's consistency reading hard drives, but Western Digital tends to make cheaply made products, so I shouldn't have been surprised when it occassionally goes out. So far, it's still working so I'm happy.

Pros: good price for my budget at that time....thats all

Cons: 1. so light you have to wall mount or velcro it down so the component cables dont drag it off whatever it sits on...and to make it worse the component cables have to come out of the side, if it was wider with the cables out the back i would have been happier

2. no digital audio out, i knew that when i got it, but i can get that with a cheap dvd player these days...no excuse in my opinion

3. the coax antenna connector in the back will pull right out easily, happened only on about the third time removing and reconnecting the antenna, cheaply made

4. after a few months of writing a glowing review here, the unit started locking up on certain channels, now it sometimes locks up completely and has to be power cycled to regain control....shoddy software/firmware or maybe overheating issue, either way, inexcusable for consumer electronics this simple in nature

5. overall junk, RMA not worth it, would not have another one if they gave it to me free, not paying shipping for more junk

Other Thoughts: junk, junk, junk, stay away, take it from someone who has had it now for months, not days, in the first weeks you will think everyone on here who gave it a poor review was dumb or didnt give it a chance...but when you do give it a chance it fails miserably

Pros: Price, Name brand, 1080p, Plays anything effortlessly.

Cons: The remote is a lil flakey, and very small. no component out but ill take hdmi over component, and you can always get an hdmi too component cable if you really need component.

Other Thoughts: Its smaller than it looks it is about 5 inches by 4 inches, and about an 1 1/2 inches tall. not a bad thing just saying its much smaller than i was expecting, nothing much else to say than it works great and does exactly what it is supposed to and can handle 1080p.

Pros: Small, stylish, it has played everything I've thrown at it thus far..INCLUDING .MKV with full audio!! For those griping it wont play the audio...UPDATE THE THING ALREADY! It's not hard! It adds more audio support for those files! Never hurts to read a bit ya know? The picture and audio quality so far are quite good! I have not a single complaint at all about this little black box! I highly recommend!!!!

Cons: none!

Other Thoughts: Before flaming a product, do your research. Sometimes the problems you may be having are not really a problem at all. The fact WD has been issuing updates for this product says a lot to me. They actually seem to care.

Pros: This is a ok device for watching movies through , if thats all you have to watch HD with.

Cons: The picture quality is sub par, I have a DVD player that up converts to HD and it is a much better picture that this puts out.

Pros: Simple, simple, simple. 1080p. Decent remote. Small in size.

Cons: No streaming capability.

Other Thoughts: Nobody will say this is the best solution in the world, but I doubt there is a more plug-and-play simple solution anywhere. I have been using this for months, and have no complaints at all. Sure streaming media to this would be great, but that was not my intention. I would highly recommend this as a much easier option if a media server seems like overkill and the PCH seems to pricey.

Pros: small, looks good, plays some movies at good quality.

Cons: over half of my MKV files play with NO AUDIO. i have read other reviews on here with the same exact problem, i just wish i had listen to them. SOME of them work, but most dont. Im assuming that you need a receiver hooked up for the audio to work(from what other people say) but that is just causing me to waste more money. All the DVDrip AVi files and stuff works fine though. I also wish the remote had some light on it but thats not that big of a deal.

Other Thoughts: if youre using this to play all your bluray and mkv movie files on your tv without a receiver, then don't bother with this, but if youre using it to play your music, dvdrips, avi files and all that, then this is perfect.

Pros: Plays tons... easy setup... output is really nice quality, small size.

Cons: picture slide show is a bit of a dud... it show pictures but not nothing fancy... music playlists could be easier to setup

Other Thoughts: All in all... I love it. Plays great and no more whirling computer fans in the background while we watch x264. Update your BIOS from the manuf. website and ENJOY!

Pros: Easy, works with just about any format, VERY small space footprint, strong modding/hacking/homebrew community.

Cons: No wireless?! Why?! This would literally be the perfect media player otherwise. Oh well, guess that can be the version 2.0 player.

Other Thoughts: The WD TV HD Media Player is, flat-out, the best media player that you can attach to your HDTV. For only a hundred bucks plus the cost of a drive, you have a unit that will play just about any media you throw at it. I've been playing 720p HD video files, and it really looks great. Probably the best feature of the device is that it is extremely easy to use. I bought one for some relatives (not quite as tech-savvy as me), and they were able to pick up on how it works without any trouble (much better than your average DVD player). I have many HTPC's, but after using this thing, I'm actually considering owning one myself!

Definitely recommend, especially if you have relatives that want to cut out the nonsense and just watch some movies! Oh, and a few people have said that it doesn't remember custom settings, like if you use HDMI it won't remember that; I have no idea what they're talking about, because that seemed to work without any trouble for me!

Pros: Plays x264 up 1080p
Great bang for the buck
Plays almost anything
Can't live without it.

When I first got this thing I was not that impressed; It would barely play the x264 files and the remote sucked. But after the firmware update all was great.

Cons: Remote sucks; ordered a Harmony 676
Menus are ok but could be better

Other Thoughts: I had the issue to where it would not auto detect the display (HDMI); It ended up being the HDMI cable; Seems to work better with the cheaper HDMI cable bought from WallMartfor $15 dollars; The cable that didn't work I think may be the newer 1.3 version bought from Sam's club, However that cable works fine with my Comcast cable box. So maybe stay away from the new cable and use the HDMI 1.2 version. Usually the heavier insulation cables are the newer version.

Best when used with Element WD external drive. This drive will shut down when not in use. I had another drive that has a power switch and I don't think that one turn off you have to switch it manually. So that may just be a feature on the WD Element; May be a "green" drive not sure.

Pros: Very simple, but still attractive interface. Buttons also very simple, you get what you need, and nothing more. This is perfect for the target demographic (you (a techie) in your extra room, or your parents/grandparents/etc). Plays every format without doing too many goofy "intelligent" things like sorting through your collections, etc.

Cons: No wireless networking. Seriously. Why? You can supposedly hack it via homebrew to get it to work, but what a pain for something so simple. Come on WD.

Other Thoughts: I bought this for some of my non-techie family members. 720p MKV at around 5Mbps works without any trouble. So did the pictures that I threw at it. Didn't have a lot of time to test, but the playback was great, supported everything, and in an attractive/easy-to-use package. At a hundred bucks or so, I think they need to either throw in some storage, or wireless networking. Otherwise, lets see this thing in the sub-eighty dollar range.

Pros: Plays everything I have. I changed the settings to thumbnail view on the videos so now I have the movie poster/dvd cover for every movie. This makes it a lot easier to navigate. HDMI works just as expected on my Panasonic G15. Using Tos-link (fiber-optic) audio out to the receiver as DTS audio is not sent through HDMI. QUIET!! - No more having to turn up the surround sound to ignore the jet engine fans coming from the XBOX 360. Plays EVERYTHING - I cannot stress this enough. 1080p video in MKV. Try playing that with another media player that costs $100.

Cons: Must use fiber-optic audio out to receiver for DTS audio. AC3 works fine through HDMI. Lack of network isn't that big of a deal. Remote is rather small, but works as expected. I would rather not have another gigantic remote when all I need to do is press up/down/left/right and play/pause/stop. You have to UNPLUG the power to the unit - I do this from the back of the box - when not using it as pressing the power button on the remote only puts it in "standby" mode. The system runs very very hot, but is otherwise silent.

Other Thoughts: The best money you can put into a home theatre system. I looked for several weeks at building a HTPC and other media center players before deciding on this one. Mainly due to the lower price point, and video playback compatibility.

Pros: It plays all media files that I have fed it.

Cons: 1. It forgets your custom settings every time that you turn it off. 2. It does not automatically detect the HDMI connection of my (nearly new) Panasonic 720P TV, meaning that I have to connect it via composite cable, then manually change the settings, then connect the HDMI cable...then repeat this process the next time that I want to view any photos/videos because it forgets the manual settings (see 'con 1' above). 3. It continues to power the hard drives or usb drives that are connected to it, even after you turn the device off; so your hard drive will be running continuously whilst connected to this thing, unless you disconnect the a/c adapter from the thing.

Other Thoughts: (I am running the latest firmware from April 2009.) I cannot, for the life of me, understand WHY the designers of this thing do not fix the simple operational flaws. The hardware is fine; the execution of the programming that runs it is pathetic.

Pros: small, easy to use, nice layout of graphics.
Picture quality is great!

Cons: If the drive used in the player is removed or turned off, the player does not remember where it was last stopped. The devide and player must be left plugged in but standby mode is fine.

Other Thoughts: I recommend it.

Pros: It works.
It's cheap!
Plug and go - don't even need to read the instructions.
amazing picture quality.
Fast indexing of HDs
Wide user base with awesome unofficial firmware can make this thing rock even more than it already does.

Cons: The Remote is the weak spot on this otherwise awesome product - it's cheezy, has NO BACKLIGHT (which is important in dark home theater conditions) and...
You're dead in the water if you lose it, it breaks, the dog eats it, etc.
All control is remote based.

Doesn't play WMV audio, picture only.
No built in networking - though firmware hack supposedly allows this.

Doesn't understand video_TS folders (won't see them as a full DVD)

Other Thoughts: This thing is sitting on my old VCR. I can't believe, looking at the two technologies, what a crazy world we live in. I'm piping HD content through this to a projector and amp and truly have a home cinema that rivals many commercial theaters.

The lack of networking is very minor. I can't imagine moving 8 to 16 GB files over a wireless network when 'sneaker-netting' is a hundred times faster.

Basically, this thing is a killer product. I debated building an HTPC, a popcorn hour, etc. For the price, this is the way to go.

Pros: This device can play almost anything that I have on my hard drives. HD movies look pretty good on TV. Great product for the bucks.

Cons: Some issues with playing iso files. When powering off the device, it doesn't turn off the connected USB hard drive. I don't use WD hard drives, I don't know if this has anything to do with that.

Pros: Very easy to setup and delivers as promised. Shipped quickly from Newegg.

Cons: The menu takes awhile to get used to. Could have some better options.

Pros: The player does everything it says as described and does it well. It has updatable firmware that is also semi-open source.

Cons: I returned the item though because it does everything as described. There is no DTS downmixing. It's my fault for not reading the specs carefully enough to see that it only does DTS pass-through. That is, it will only play DTS sound if you are connected to a receiver or TV that can decode it. Otherwise you're out of luck. WD could easily fix this if they wanted to by paying for DTS licensing, they have indicated though they do not want to.

Pros: Compact and stylish design, quality polished plastic shell
Image and sound quality are superb
Decodes almost everything including x.264 and Matroska - very important if you like high-definition
Upscales and downscales atomatically
Firmare upgrades are regular and make sense

Cons: Gets warm - it doesn't seem to affect the device though
Remote looks rather cheap
Still doesn't have official WAN adapter support

Other Thoughts: To all users: Upgrade the firmare regularly to the last available. WD improved the software a lot since the original - now it SHUTS DOWN the attached HDD, when off.
Available are some solid firmwares, that support WAN adapters.
Other thoughts: This is 100 dollar device, which delivers video and sound quality on par with 250 dollar ones. The plastic shell is not cheap grey chinese trash, so you can actually place it next to your 1000 dollar HDTV :). For the money, this is worth. Sometimes gets even cheaper with coupons, then it is a steal. I have a lot of electronics, and for the first time I felt like not wasting money when I bought this. Great product!!!