Author Topic: WD TV - what you reckon?  (Read 2467 times)

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Offline noss

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WD TV - what you reckon?
« on: Dec 10, 2008, 12:33PM »
guys what you think of this thing? $200 and plays up to 1080p off an external hard drive, can have 2 external hard drives hooked up at once..

currently i have an original xbox with xbmc on it, and a server sitting next to my entertainment unit to stream my music and videos from. the problem is the xbox being a 700mhz celeron cannot play high def and sometimes is a bit jumpy on good quality normal def videos.

the high def thing isnt much of a problem at the moment, but as time goes on i imagine it will make me grumble more and more.

the original plan was to setup a new machine as a htpc, something along the lines of an intel or amd dual core at around the 2.2 - 2.4ghz running ubuntu and the linux port of xbmc. setting up something like that would probably come in over $500 depending on what kind of case and everything i run with, but wanting to do it properly, it'd probably cost even more.


so yeh, this wd tv thing, tiny, portable and just needs usb drives.. what you guys think?

http://ht.com.au/part/W3766-WD-TV-Digital-AV-player/detail.hts
http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/XH1772

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RTaAFzxBe40
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=9kI_POrIqVs&feature=related


the problem with the WD TV for me is that it would require the additional outlay for larger external drives and my server would then become redundant. probably a power saving getting rid of the server and definitely a space saving, but i'm about to start looking at upgrading to 2 x 1TB drives to host my media on the server.. so about $400 of external drives if i go cheapest i can find.


with a htpc i could put at least a single terabyte drive into the htpc (the cases i'm looking at only allow for 1 drive) and then have the server still operating as per normal.



whats your thoughts and what would you do?

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Offline weasel

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #1 on: Dec 10, 2008, 04:56PM »
I've been looking at this thing too, same reason as you, to replace the xbox with xbmc, the only thing that gets me is it can't be connected up to a network i.e no streaming, which is how i have it at the moment - streaming through xbmc

the problem with that is that anytime you want to watch some shows or movies or want to listen to a new album you've ripped, you have to transfer it to one of the hdd's, which to me is a bit of a hassle, although it could just be that i've lived the sweet life of streaming for too long and now i'm lazy :P

what i'm doing is waiting for a few more players to come out, see whats on offer and see the benefits of new ones, the WD TV will still be available for a little while yet
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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #2 on: Dec 10, 2008, 05:42PM »
My PlayStation 3 does an excellent job at being a media centre.  8)
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Offline Budgie

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #3 on: Dec 10, 2008, 05:43PM »
So this has no networking ability?  No good then... it would need a wireless connection as well, to make it perfect.
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Offline noss

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #4 on: Dec 10, 2008, 08:33PM »
My PlayStation 3 does an excellent job at being a media centre.  8)

i have a ps3 as well, but i've been living the good life of having a logitech remote to control everything i have from the one unit, i dont like the idea of having a 2nd remote to use the ps3 lol.. but after i posted this i thought about it more and not spending any money is the smarter way to go.

So this has no networking ability?  No good then... it would need a wireless connection as well, to make it perfect.

no. no networking, there is another one on the market from netgear. http://www.netgear.com/Products/Entertainment/DigitalMediaPlayers/EVA8000.aspx but i dont like the interface on it at all.

the fact this one doesnt have networking is exactly why i'm not sure on it, but for someone like my ex who copied ALL my media onto a portable hard drive, for her its perfect.. i was just interested to see what you guys thought to overcome the no networking/if no networking is worth it.

but yeh.. for now i'll play with the ps3 :)

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Offline Sticky

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #5 on: Dec 10, 2008, 09:34PM »
Have you looked at a mediagate nosso?

The basic idea if you haven't, they basically stream data from your PC via a network connection, my mate has one, works fucken awesome.

MEDIAGATE Network Multimedia Player Model: MG-45

The MG-45 has a 10/100 Ethernet port so home PCs in the same subnet can be easily accessed.
The MG-45 has a USB2.0 slave port. It provides an alternative way to download digital contents from the PC. Contents in USB storage devices can be played directly.
The MG-45 can be configured in collaboration with web-based movie distributors as a set-top box or media gateway to access, play and/or download legal movies from the website directly without a home PC.

Features
- One 10/100 LAN port
- Supports USB2.0 slave
- 3.5-inch HDD, user-installable
- Supports MP1/2 MP@ML, MP4 ASP@L5, 4.x and 5.x
- Supports composite, S-video, component video outputs
- Supports Dolby digital, MP1 and MP2 Layers I, II and III (MP3)
- Supports stereo L/R, optical/coaxial digital audio, analog 5.1 channels
- Supports JPEG still picture
- Can access files on multiple sources from TV using a remote controller
◆ Network PCs
◆ Internal HDD
◆ Attached USB devices


Price $ 185


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Offline noss

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #6 on: Dec 11, 2008, 08:16AM »
nah havent heard of them sticko but i'll have a look.. the other one i was looking at that a friend has is a tivx.

played around with the ps3 last night using nero media home as the DLNA software on my server machine.. sure it plays fine and upscales and all that stuff but navigation wise, i really dont like it at all so far :(

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Offline pedro666

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #7 on: Dec 11, 2008, 01:34PM »
ya media gates , you can network them without a hdd, or stand alone with. the one youd be after is the hd version MG-45HD, about $300.  Plays media-files from remote fileserver via wireless and wired Ethernet , NTFS HDD storages can be connected at any time via USB port; I am not 100% on this but you may be able to add a usb tv tuner or external blueray/cd via usb.
http://203.185.232.2/dbs/images/products/8739.jpg
specs are similar

    * Supports HDMI.
    * 802.11g wireless connection
    * Time-sliced dual-band 11a/g  upon request
    * One 10/100 Ethernet port (No NDAS)
    * Supports FTP Server & Client
    * USB2.0 host port. Thus USB storage devices can be attached and the stored content can be played directly
    * USB2.0 slave port - an alternative way to download digital contents from the PC
    * Supports MPEG-2, MPEG-4, ISMA MPEG-4, MPEG4 and over MPEG-2 transport and streaming.
    * Can be configured with
          o Web-based movie distributor as a media gateway to access, play and/or legally download movies from the web
          o Downloading without a PC
          o Optimal OEM/ODM solution in high-performance DMA
    * Supports HD MP2, MP4
    * Supports MP1/2@HL (720p/1,080i), MP4@L5 (720p) and MP@ML (720p)
    * Supports composite, S-video, component video outputs
    * Supports stereo L/R, optical/coaxial digital audio, analogue 5.1 channels
    * Supports JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG still picture
    * File-surfing from multiple sources on TV using a remote controller

    * Antenna: 2.5 dBi
    * Power: DC 5V, 12V
    * Weight: 250g (Without a HDD)
    * Dimension: 57 x 150 x 185 mm
    * Operating Systems: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, MAC 9.0 higher Linux 2.4 higher
    * HDD Type: 3.5" SATA HDD
    * HDD File System: FAT32, NTFS
    * TV Type: PAL, NTSC
    * Supported Formats
          o Movie : MPEG 1, 2, 4 (MPG, MPEG, AVI, M2V, DAT, VOB, etc) , XviD (Except GMC, Qpel option applied)
          o Music : MP3, OGG Vorbis
          o Photo : JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG
    * Video Output:
          o Composite 1Ch : 1.0Vp-p (75Ω load)
          o Component Y : 1.0Vp-p (75Ω load) Pr : 0.70Vp-p (75Ω load) Pb : 0.70Vp-p (75Ω load)
          o S-Video Color Signal : 1.0Vp-p (75Ω load) Luminance Signal : 0.286Vp-p (75Ω load)

« Last Edit: Dec 11, 2008, 01:46PM by pedro666 »
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Offline noss

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #8 on: Dec 11, 2008, 01:59PM »
i think i'll just stick with xbmc on linux. it does everything i need and the interface is nice, has plenty of handy extras, does all formats without a quibble, you really cant go past it.

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Offline Budgie

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #9 on: Dec 11, 2008, 02:21PM »
Noss, the 'bestest' option would be an HTPC... with a high end graphics card and tough CPU so you can play Far Cry 2 at 1900x1200 on your high-def LCD TV :)

Also with two high-def tuners and 2 terrabytes of storage. Wired network connection.. etc

Use to record TV shows, stream media over the network, store it locally.. etc etc
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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #10 on: Dec 11, 2008, 06:30PM »
Noss, the 'bestest' option would be an HTPC... with a high end graphics card and tough CPU so you can play Far Cry 2 at 1900x1200 on your high-def LCD TV :)

Also with two high-def tuners and 2 terrabytes of storage. Wired network connection.. etc

Use to record TV shows, stream media over the network, store it locally.. etc etc
Or with that money he could buy a pair of 1TB external HDDs for the PS3, then pick up PlayTV when it releases early next year. Then have plenty left over. ;)
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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #11 on: Dec 11, 2008, 07:29PM »
True.  I don't own an consoles other than an N64... so I'm thinking from a different perspective.

First person shooters belong on the PC, which I guess is why I never bought another console after the 64.  Love FPS too much! :)
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Offline pedro666

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Re: WD TV - what you reckon?
« Reply #12 on: Dec 12, 2008, 02:26AM »
on a different attack , you can get upscaling 1080p dvd/ divx players with usb ports (i use the pioneer, go for around 150, sony has a bit cheaper one) grab a 16gb or 32gb usb sorted(had a 500gb drive attached but unnecessary) .
agreed on the fps budgie. etqw ,ro.
« Last Edit: Dec 12, 2008, 02:38AM by pedro666 »
the words "race car" spelled backward still spell "race car"? 




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