HD Media Player

[TomTom]

That's my newest toy and I love it. It is a very small device (smaller than my hand and ideal also to carry with you) and you can connect it via HDMI to your flat screen and feed it either with a usb stick or an external 3"5 inch harddrive. You can watch any format of movie you can think of with it. It supports everything from normal formats like avi and mpeg and DivX encoded files up to HD formats like MP4, WMV9 and (most important for me) mkv's. You can also copy DVD's and even Bluray discs on your USB stick or harddrive and use the media player as the playback device. I was so tired of having to reencode flics when my DVD player was not able to read them and this is now all over. I just copy the movie to the stick and put it in and done. It can't get much easier. There are also versions with WiFi to stream movies and built in hard drives out but I didn't need that so I went with the cheapest model (84 EUR only). You can also watch pics and listen to mp3's with it but the main purpouse is to play movies of any kind everywhere you like.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572

[Huggie Smiles]

Re: HD Media Player

tom, youre back!!


does it sort out the PAL/NTSC issue - when you play onto a TV screnn?

[TomTom]

Re: HD Media Player

mmmh...according to this info http://www.wdc.com/en/library/2579-001028.pdf, there are pal and ntsc devices out so I doubt it. But so far it played everything I feeded it with and I do not only have German flics.

[dusk]

Re: HD Media Player

I've had this baby for about 2 months now and I love it. I heard the latest model has built in ethernet so I'm slightly bummed cause I can't return this and get the new one.

[thydipptimon]

Re: HD Media Player

Hi Dear.

Congrats on your HD Media Player... good to know that u r getting full benefit of it ...

did u upgrade firmware of the player after buying it ?

[TomTom]

Re: HD Media Player

Yes I did because they shipped it with an older firmware version.

[dusk]

Re: HD Media Player

^^^ How'd you upgrade the firmware mate?

[poults]

Re: HD Media Player

Tom and Dusk, i have been doing some reading on the live version of this and it seems there as alot of issues with things like fast forwarding would skip minutes at a time rather than seconds, no menus on ISO's being played and subtitles were small on MKV files. Can you confirm if this has been sorted out via firmare updates or anything if it was an issue for you aswell? Cheers.

[TomTom]

Re: HD Media Player

I don't use ISO's so I can't tell. No problem with subtitles in MKV's here. Forwarding/rewinding is not as exact as a DVD player and you can expect a delay of a few seconds but it's nothing I see as a plotstopper. The HD Media player stores information about the last files you have played and when you choose an already played file, it gives you an option to continue where you left it and this information is accurate. So I am not using forward/rewind that often in general.

[TomTom]

Re: HD Media Player

^^^ How'd you upgrade the firmware mate?

Go to their website and choose the device you have...there is a firmware download option for all versions of the HD Media player. Then just follow the steps they have put together in their instructions:

1. Extract the three files (.BIN, .VER, and .FFF files) to the root (top level) of a portable USB drive.
2. Turn the WD TV on and connect your USB drive.
3. Use the remote control to select SETTINGS from the home screen.
4. Highlight the firmware upgrade icon, and press ENTER on the remote.
5. You will be prompted to perform the firmware upgrade. Select OK and press ENTER. This will restart the system.
6. After restarting, the system automatically enters firmware upgrade mode.
7. Once the update process is completed, the HD media player will restart again.

Worked for me like a charm.

[poults]

Re: HD Media Player

Thanks for that, i was leaning towards the WD unless anyone has any suggestions of a better player?