In an attempt to de-clutter our living room, and get rid of all those CDs & DVDs, I first bought an inexpensive Chinese Media Player. Technically it was poor, and the user interface appalling. No room for that in my life! Reading the reviews of the WD device I decided to invest....
The remote control is small (great), but effective, doing most things easily.
The device itself is also very small and neat with a shiny black finish matching my LG DVD player and TV. Small = good in my living room.
The two USB ports are important - the one at the rear cannot easily accomodate a fat memory stick if you have a fat HDMI cable inserted next to it - so the second side USB is good.
WD's approach of giving free code pdate is excellent - bugs fixed and functional improvements such as playing new media standards is good news - I do not want to be forced to keep buying new devices, and don't want to learn new user interfaces.
The WD's ability to display the album art of tracks is good, but it seems best to use an MP3 tag editor such as Windows Media Player to add these for Music. For Videos it seems you need just add a file with the cover graphics.
The WD appears to offer all the ususal access selection methods - and I particulalry like the folder option - it gives you full personal control of the media layout and access.
There has been criticism of the speed of the menu transitions, but it actually looks quite cool, the way it does it. Equally I fully undertand that when you add or change the contents it does need a few minutes to rebuild the database.
One neat feature is that you can connect the full HDMI input to your TV for the user interface, yet at the same time output RCA phono audio to a separate independent sound system.
I like this WD device. It is powerful and flexible enough to structure and manipulate your files in different ways for different effects or usage preferences. More importantly you can keep adding or changing the storage media - memory stick and/or hard disk.
My request of WD is to keep the code updates coming - they add real long term value
| Brand | Western Digital |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 10 x 12.55 x 4 cm; 303 Grams |
| Item model number | WDAVP00BE |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
| Operating System | Windows |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 303 g |