To play that killer media collection, look into the WD TV Live, a set-top box by Western Digital.
While WD TV Live isn’t integrated with every streaming service on the market, it does connect to your entertainment staples, including Pandora, Spotify, Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube and most recently Vimeo, thanks to a firmware update released Thursday. Where WD TV Live does shine is in ease of use, WiFi connectivity and file compatibility.
Unlike the PlayStation media server I have set up, the Western Digital has yet to reject a video file I’ve thrown at it. It’ll take standard formats such as .movs and .avis but also the slightly more obscure Xvid-encoded files, playing them from computer, network or USB at 1080p. That’s a feature more important to me than VUDU compatibility.
The interface is easy to navigate, especially if you’re coming from a platform as clunky as PlayStation’s. And since the WD TV Live is compatible with WiFi — notably missing from its predecessor, the WD TV Live Hub — it works out of the box. My big complaint — and this extends to all video tech products I’ve come across so far — no HDMI cable is included. I say, if you want to demonstrate how clear and vivid the picture is, don’t make me jump through another hoop. I might actually settle for the lower quality that comes from using the included RCA cables. (OK, I didn’t, but still.)
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