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WD TV - has anyone tried one yet?

Has anyone tried the WD TV HD Media Player yet?

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572&language=en

It supports FLAC files, and has an optical output. It has two USB jacks, so you just plug in an enternal hard drive (or two), and you've got access to all your media files. Those features, and the relatively inexpensive price tag ($130, I think), make me very interested in this. It also plays back video files and has HDMI and composite video connections. I sent an email this morning to WD to see if it supports 24/96 FLAC playback, as I couldn't find that info anywhere on their site.

Does anyone here have any experience with this? I did a search here for previous threads, but couldn't find anything. I would love to hear about anyone's prior experience before I try one out.

Thanks,
Jason
jasonsobel
frederick21's avatar
frederick21
49 posts
 
There's alot of talk about it on AVSForum.com

I have it solely for movies. It all is going to storage on hard drives at my house. I've found ISO files are playing fine for me.
jeanluc07
21 posts
 
Can it play Blu-ray ISO files? If yes, it would be fantastic for back-up you Blu-ray discs and play them.
frederick21's avatar
frederick21
49 posts
 
I've not backed up a Blu-ray disc. They don't get written in ISO like a regular DVD, I think. It's an MTS? file??? It will play them. They are quite large, though. They talk about all this on the AVS forums.
parasound63
162 posts
 
Any more feedback on using this for audio? This, and other devices like eGreat seem real popular with college kids and hackers. But is anyone using it for quality audio like FLAC?

Jason- did you get a response from WD?

-P
audiojedi
225 posts
 
Have not tried it but know people who are using these units with good success. Definitely going to pick one up in the near future for HD downloads of TV programs. Figure it's a much better way to go versus paying for cable if you don't have interest in live sporting events and the like.

At any rate, the reason that I bother to post is regarding the question about playing FLAC files. I have a friend who has one of these and apparently it does not play FLAC files gapless. This is no big deal for many studio recordings as there is already a small gap between every song but if you're into live music or have studio recordings where one song seamlessly goes into another without any gaps you will likely find this device annoying for that application.
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