WD TV HD Media Player

Stream media from PC to TV the easy way



WESTERN DIGITAL'S $129 mini HD Media Player offers a brilliantly easy way to show digital content from a PC on your TV screen, with no complicated cabling or networking protocols to deal with.

The small box connects directly to your HDTV via an HDMI connection, or to an analog TV set via composite A/V cables. (The latter yields unsatisfying picture quality, however.) The device also has an optical audio-out port, and, through HDMI, the device supports video content up to 1080p (high-definition) resolution. The WD TV box doesn't have built-in storage; instead, its two USB ports serve as a bridge between an external USB storage drive and your television. (You can use flash drives or hard drives, regardless of manufacturer.)

Tested over an HDMI connection, we found the WD TV's video quality to be sharp, bright, and detailed, particularly with 720p and 1080p content. We also liked the easy-to use onscreen interface. The device supports a variety of media files, though we found that with files using the more obscure formats, basic controls such as backward and forward scanning were often missing. (Western Digital includes ArcSoft video-conversion software if you'd like to convert these.) Controlling the WD TV is handled entirely through a bundled remote control.



The simplicity of the WD TV is what makes it a joy to use. You can definitely find more-elaborate and higher-tech methods of streaming content from a computer or network-attached-storage device, but for a relatively affordable and easy approach, it doesn't get any simpler than this. And with external hard drives quickly coming down in price, you can easily pair the WD TV with a huge-capacity drive and store staggering amounts of media content at low cost. —Les L. Shu

Computer Shopper March 2009