Home » News » Peripheral News » WD Introduces Ultra-Versatile HD Media Player » Comments

Comments for WD Introduces Ultra-Versatile HD Media Player

Comments

Please wait while we process your request

Please wait while we retrieve the user's information

Bio

Your bio is currently empty. Now is a great time to fill in your profile.

This profile is private.

This profile is only shared with friends.

This profile is under review.

We were unable to request friendship with this user.

We were unable to request friendship with this user. Are you logged in?

Your friendship request has been sent to this user.

We were unable to terminate friendship with this user.

We were unable to terminate friendship with this user. Are you logged in?

You are no longer friends with this user.

We were unable to ignore this user.

We were unable to ignore this user. Are you logged in?

This user is now ignored.

We were unable to stop ignoring this user.

We were unable to stop ignoring this user. Are you logged in?

This user is no longer ignored.

pluck_user_mp-abuse_too_long_err

Name withheld

JamesSmith

1:37 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore JamesSmith. Show Details Hide Details

Does this have any networking capabilities?

Score:

Name withheld

Darfuria

1:54 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Darfuria. Show Details Hide Details

No ethernet port though?

Score:

Name withheld

Darfuria

1:55 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Darfuria. Show Details Hide Details

Oh - rogue apostrophe in "hat's"

Score:

Name withheld

Luan Bach

2:02 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Luan Bach. Show Details Hide Details

Saw this over the weekend on the US sites. I was wondering how to get it from there, and now I'm very happy that WD is also releasing it over here.

Score:

Name withheld

Ed

2:20 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Ed. Show Details Hide Details

No networking capabilities, though hints were made that could come in future products. Essentially this is meant to be really simple but easy to use - and let me tell you, the interface is pretty slick as well - and the price reflects this. Format support will also be extended with future firmware updates, which can be done using a simple USB stick update procedure.

Score:

Name withheld

Darfuria

2:25 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Darfuria. Show Details Hide Details

Yes, but this product is quite blatantly going to appeal mostly to those who download DivX files, so the lack of an ethernet port is a really stupid move, in my opinion.

Score:

Name withheld

Gordon394

2:49 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Gordon394. Show Details Hide Details

@Darfuria - only helps if you have a very long Ethernet cable! Or your computer in the same room in which case you might as well just connect it directly...

I guess power over Ethernet could be used, but I don't see it as a big miss personally for what it is intended to do.

Score:

Name withheld

Ed

3:01 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Ed. Show Details Hide Details

@Darfuria

Yes, I appreciate that but it would add to the cost considerably. Also, the whole idea is that you have a portable hard drive that you use to store most of your media - as opposed to a NAS appliance - and with this you can just plug that in.

And besides which, there are loads of network media players to choose from. WD is pointedly trying something different.

Score:

Name withheld

Darfuria

3:04 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Darfuria. Show Details Hide Details

@Gordon - a lot of people have consoles near their TVs with ethernet cables connected to a router/switch, so I don't see why that's an issue.

Score:

Name withheld

Geoff Richards

3:39 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Geoff Richards. Show Details Hide Details

I think given that it is openly designed "to work with WD Passport drives" and other USB storage, the lack of ethernet is excused. Indeed, it's worth pointing out to anyone (like me) who didn't read the story closely: this device has NO LOCAL STORAGE. I just assumed it was like similar-looking media players which have internal hard drives.

Instead, you have to use either a USB stick, or an external USB hard drive. Shame the latter involves an extra box, an extra power socket, more cables etc, though I can acknowledge the flexibility this design brings in terms of plug & play, and portability ie swapping out data sources.

I'm told a review sample is winging its way to our labs as I type so watch out for the full TR review soon :)

Score:

Name withheld

Luan Bach

3:45 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Luan Bach. Show Details Hide Details

@Geoff, I'm using a portable WD drive with the Xbox 360 to play back my hd files. It works great and don't need a power cable. I'm looking at this WD device to playing back files as the xbox doesn't support mkv files.

Score:

Name withheld

Hugo

4:12 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Hugo. Show Details Hide Details

I'd be pleased even if the only advantage the WD offered was making less noise!

Score:

Name withheld

Tony

4:13 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Tony. Show Details Hide Details

I'm interested in this, any photo's of the UI?

Score:

Name withheld

Geoff Richards

7:01 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Geoff Richards. Show Details Hide Details

@Luan - fair point. I'm sure the 2.5" products can be powered over just USB (I was thinking of my 3.5" IcyBox at home tbh). As for MKV, that's one of the key advantages of this box over existing rivals. If it works well, I could replace my whole HTPC with one of these for £80 :)

@Tony - photos and video of the UI are on the WD product page: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572

Score:

Name withheld

digitalife

8:39 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore digitalife. Show Details Hide Details

Anyone know where you can buy this online???

Score:

Name withheld

sthair

10:30 PM on 3 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore sthair. Show Details Hide Details

Or you could just get a PopcornHour (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/). I have had an original A-100 for a nearly a year now and it's been great :-)

Ethernet via RJ45 and support for a USB wireless dongle if you want to add one.

Personally I use a Netgear Powerline HD to connect from my server upstairs to the mediabox downstairs.

I stuck an £80 400Gb Samsung HDD in for storage and Bob's your uncle.

One advantage of a networked device - over the wire firmware updates to keep your codec support up to date + any new functionality (open source helps there too).

Score:

Name withheld

Monkeyman

12:47 PM on 5 November, 2008

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore Monkeyman. Show Details Hide Details

Im new to all this but seems a the way forward for me ..... what sourt of sound will I get out of this ?

Score:

Please wait while we file your abuse report.

We're sorry. We were unable to report abuse at this time.

We limit the number of reactions an individual user can submit over a given period for quality reasons. You have currently reached that limit. Please try resubmitting your abuse report again later.

Comment is too long. Enter 500 characters or less.