Well it looks like it the WD (Western Digital) team is adding to its current line of hard drive based video players and just in time for the holidays. This particular flavor runs a 1TB hard drive with both component and hdmi outputs. Much like its predecessors, it does a full suite of codecs plus a few more. It can run YouTube, BlockBuster OnDemand, Pandora, Flickr, Facebook, Live365.com, Accumweather.com as well as a large amount of your favorite video files. This thing does not come light on the codec compatibility either, so here is the list: .AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG 1/2/4), .MPG/.MPEG, .VOB, .MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG 1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (AVC, MPEG 1/2/4, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9. So if you have ever downloaded any kind of video file that is available on the internet, you probably can play it on this thing. This thing also does 1080p and Dolby Digital Plus! It seems the only thing this player will not play is the the protected (purchased) movies and TV shows from the iTunes store. You will have to stick with iTunes, an iMac or Apple TV to play those. After all of that, it seems that they even threw in Adobe Flash Lite to help a “dying” Flash, since Apple doesn’t want to support Flash in any of its devices. I will say though, this product is a bit pricier than the Apple TV, but right in line with the Boxee Box. Is the other $100 worth it? Only time will tell, but I do know this holiday season will be filled with all sorts of STBs ready to play all of those video files we have collected over the years!
AVS Forum (Pictures, Unboxing)
via [Engadget]
