If you are looking for more bang for your buck then the Western Digital WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player WDBABX0000NBK-NESN has some of the best features and capabilities on the market.  The WD TV live Plus is a very popular digital media player, and is highly rated by its owners for ease of use and functionality.  The latest player released by Western Digital on June 9, 2010, the WD TV Live added some key upgrades from the previous release from Western Digital, the WD TV Live.  This player is network ready, provides video playback up to 1080p TrueHD and digital sound though the media player optical output or the HDMI output.  Also, this digital media player has the ability to stream Netflix live to your high definition TV.  You can also stream content from Youtube, Pandora, and Flickr.  One of the biggest improvements was to the menu system for selecting your media. Follow this link, Western Digital WD TV Live , if you would like to see more on the previous Western Digital player.

Western Digital WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player

Price: $99.99 USD (On Sale as of 11/17/10)

The WD TV Live  digital media player is a media streamer that allows you to stream your video, music, and photos to your high definition TV and play your audio via your home theater system.    This usb video player does not come with an internal hard drive, but rather must be connected to a USB mass storage device or network containing your media files.   One of the recommended storage drives is the Western Digital WD Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive WDBAAU0010HBK-NESN which will provide ample room to store lots of movies, photos, and music.  As it comes from the manufacturer, the WD TV Live is a hard wired network ready media streamer.  There is nothing to prevent you from going wireless also with a USB wireless dongle.  A popular wireless adapter for the WD TV Live is the Linksys Range Plus Wireless USB Compact Adapter that will let you connect to your existing home or business wireless network and convert your WD TV Live into a wireless media player.  Either wired as a usb video player, or wireless, this digital media player has it’s competition cut out for it.  It is very similar to the Patriot Box Office Multimedia Player and the HD Digitech HDX-1000, but it doesn’t offer the feature of adding your own internal hard drive to the media player itself.  If this isn’t a concern then the WD TV Live Plus is really a fantastic media player.  It offers the latest and greatest including 1080p true high definition through HDMI and Dolby Digital and DTS Encoders.  Here are the goods, on the WD TV Live Plus HD:

• Includes HDMI 1.3 port, Supporting 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 Streamer (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
• Photo formats: JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
• Connections: Video: HDMI v1.3 (up to 1080p), Composite Video Out; Audio: S/PDIF Optical Digital Audio, Other: 10/100 Ethernet.
• Remote Control Included.