Business | Technology
Plug portable drive in to play movies on TV
New TV HD media player is simple to use, but it will not play some types of formats.
- By Scott Shuey, Chief Business Reporter
- Published: 23:46 December 5, 2008
Getting the movies you have downloaded to play on your TV has always been a bit of a hassle.
You could burn a DVD or set up a complicated and often expensive home network, but the end result was often people fighting for space around a computer monitor.
Western Digital's new TV HD media player aims to make moving your digital media to your television a lot easier.
This device operates just like a DVD player or VCR. You plug the media player directly into your TV, but instead of inserting disks or tapes, you plug in a portable hard drive or flash drive, which is then scanned for playable movies, pictures and music files.
You can even watch your High Definition home movies.
I really liked this system. Not only does the media player make it easy to watch (or listen) to your digital library on a TV, the system was easy to setup. Navigating through my files was quick and simple, and users can customise the look and feel of the browser. There is even a remote control.
There were only two problems with the system. The first is one that has plagued media players since the early '80s: format. WD's media player works fine with the MP3 and MP4 format, but it will not play files that are in AVI, WMV or Apple's Quicktime format. WD does include software that will convert your media to a useable format, but converting video can be a little time consuming.
There is also a problem with digital rights management (DRM) software. The media player simply will not play them, and the software provided cannot convert them to a useful format. But despite the issues with format, the system is a nice one. If nothing else, it allows you watch your videos and movies from a couch instead of a office chair.
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