If you’re looking for more bang for your buck, then the Western Digital WD TV Live Network-ready WDBAAN0000NBK-NESN HD Media Player has some of the best features and capabilities on the market. The WD TV live is a very popular digital media player and is highly rated by owners for its ease of use and functionality. WD TV Live added some key updates to Western Digital’s previous release, WD TV. This player is network ready, offering up to 1080p TrueHD video playback and digital sound via the media player’s optical output or HDMI output. One of the biggest improvements was the menu system for selecting media.

Western Digital WD TV Live Network-Ready HD

The WD TV Live Digital Media Player is a media streamer that allows you to stream your video, music, and photos to your HDTV and play your audio through your home theater system. This player does not come with an internal hard drive, but must be connected to a USB mass storage device or network that contains your media files. The recommended storage drive is the Western Digital My Book Essential USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive (1 terabyte – 1 TB model), which will provide ample space for storing lots of movies, photos, and music. As it comes from the manufacturer, the WD Live HD is a wired network-ready media streamer. There is nothing to stop you from using wireless also with a USB wireless dongle. A popular wireless adapter for WD TV Live is the Linksys Range Plus compact wireless USB adapter that will allow you to connect to your existing home or business wireless network. Whether wired or wireless, this digital media player has its competition cut out for it. It is very similar to the Patriot Box Office HD and HDX1000 Network Media Tank, but it does not offer the feature of adding your own internal hard drive to the media player. If this is not a concern, then WD TV Live really is a fantastic media player. It offers the latest and greatest, including true 1080p high definition via HDMI and Dolby Digital and DTS encoders. Here are the products, on WD TV Live:

Includes HDMI 1.3 port, supports up to True HD 1080p
Connect external hard drives directly or connect to your network to view movies, photos and music
USB port for USB drives
Audio formats: MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Video file formats: AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/ TP/ M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9
Image formats: JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Connections: Video: HDMI v1.3 (up to 1080p), composite video out; Audio: S/PDIF Optical Digital Audio, Others: 10/100 Ethernet.
Remote control included.