Storage company Western Digital has launched a new version of its WD TV media player that plays your slide shows and home videos on the television.
The WD TV Live HD Media Player is the second generation of the device that launched a year ago. It can play full high-definition videos with a resolution of 1080p. The appeal of this device is that it's easy to use because it takes the computing and home networking out of the equation.
You can transfer data onto WD TV's external hard drive and then plug the device into a TV. Then you navigate and play movies, music, or slide shows with a remote control, while you're sitting on the couch. Last year, the device was not connected to the network -- a feature that made it easier to use and cheaper.
This year, the company has added networking to WD TV so that you can stream or transfer movies from across your network to the TV. It supports network-attached storage devices such as WD's MyBook World Edition and WD ShareSpace network drives. With the network connection, you can stream content from video site YouTube, photo site Flickr and the music site Pandora.
Last year's device was pretty slow. But WD says this one is more responsive. These types of devices, such as Seagate's recently launch Home Theater, cater to consumers who are storing more and more data, often without backing it up. Consumers have an average of 123 gigabytes of video, photos and music stored, according to market researcher Parks Associates. That number will grow to 1.3 terabytes by 2013. Consumers also want to interact with their media seamlessly, without remembering arcane technical commands.
But most of their content is sitting on computers in the den, and it's not that easy to move it to the living room TV for viewing. The WD TV Live HD media player connects to a network and can thus access data stored on that network. You can transfer content over the network to the TV, or you can use a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) cable to connect the device directly to the TV. The whole experience is meant to be seamless.
With the remote, you can view thumbnail-size pictures as you search for photos or videos. You can create custom slide shows, and view movies with fast forward, rewind, pause, zoom and pan features. With music, you can also fast forward, rewind, or shuffle your songs. The WD TV Live Media Player is available at select retailers and online at shopwd.com. It costs $149.99.