How it looks?
The WD TV Live is the most feature-rich and advanced media player from the vault of Western Digital. A small carton box is the first sign of the player being ultra compact and the player is the size of a small lunch box, while the media sources like the HDD or flash drives are to be connected externally. Even the remote is really petite and all the must-have cables have been provided (including composite AV, component and a USB cable) for the user to go live, but not HDMI — in case you want to go high-definition. The build quality is sturdy and the silver finish looks stylish.The remote has sheen black finish, which sets it apart from the rest. The main unit is a basic box with connectivity and has no buttons whatsoever, so please take care of that remote to even switch it on!
Features and connectivity of WD TV Live
The unit has composite, component and HDMI outputs. Two USB inputs, one at the rear panel and one on the side to enable quick and easy connectivity. Another great feature is the capability of the unit to copy files from one USB drive to the other when both of them are connected simultaneously. This makes the content exchange very easy in a group and possible without a computer. In fact, these players seem to be designed for the people who are simple end-users and absolute computer illiterates. It would have been great if the player would have been capable of playing ISO or RMVB based content as it is — with a menu.The power supply is pretty bulky and will need the right adaptor to hang tight in the power socket. Once again the digital audio connectivity is through the optical S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital interface) connection and not the coaxial digital — which is a better option. The LAN connectivity is what sets this box apart from the rest of the players in the family. Once on LAN the interactivity comes into play. You can surf through the websites like YouTube, Pandora, Rickr, Uve365 etc and you can convert the device to wireless by using USB wireless adaptor — this is really useful, as in most homes, the LAN cabling is not available near the entertainment hub. But there is a huge expense here if you want to stream the videos, as that needs an N protocol router (mere G router will transmit only the audio).
Connect the LAN cable to a switch and not just a router, so that you can access the content from other IP-based HDDs and other equipment on the network and internet too. The crux of the matter is that you must connect the WD TV Live to the net to extract the best of the features. On the other hand there is no connection for the faster eSATA drives and high speed giga ethernet connectivity, but none of the other consumer players generally have these features, so this is deep nit-picking.
