How Not to Watch Web Video on the TV
Colin Dixon, Practicing Manager, Broadband Media
March 2, 2009
My nomination for bone-head product of the week goes to Western Digital for the WD TV HD Media Player. This little set-top box, which sells for $129.99, sits under your TV consuming one of your precious HDMI TV ports. You plug in any USB drive, although it’s targeted at Western Digitals own MyBook line, and you can immediately access any media on the drive through the TV.
Talk about a dead-end product. There is no network connectivity to the box at all, so I can’t access any web media or media on PCs or DVRs on my home network. It can’t access copy protected content, so forget your iTunes music or movies from Amazon Unbox. In fact, the only thing it can do is render some media in formats it understands.
I own a MyBook where I have tons of media and I don’t even want this product. Do the folks at WD seriously think people are going to disconnect their MyBook, pick up the power supply, schlep to the TV, reconnect it all and watch stuff? Then, when done, reverse the process to add more media? Oh, by the way WD, I can already access all the media on my MyBook at my TV. I have the drive connected to a laptop on my home network which has a DLNA server loaded. All I needed to do is fire up my PS3 and bingo, I’m cruising my media.
Seriously, folks, you probably already have a device under the TV that lets you do everything this box does. There’s no reason to pay WD $130 for such limited functionality.
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