WD has announced a media player focused on locally-stored content playback.
The WD TV (not to be confused with the WD TV Live and WD TV Play) is focused on supporting a wide array of file formats with the aim of enabling playback of "virtually any" media stored on USB or networked drives.
In keeping with its local content focus, the WD TV also supports Miracast screen-casting from smartphones and tablets. It also supports selected streaming services such as YouTube, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Spotify and Vudu, but not Netflix or Amazon Instant Video.
WD TV
Network connection is via both wired (10/100 Ethernet) and wireless (802.11bgn) and AV connections include HDMI, optical audio and composite video. Two USB 2.0 ports allow content to be played from directly-attached USB storage.
The player is controlled via a bundled programmable I/R remote, or WD TV Remote ioS or Android apps.
Formats supported include:
- Video – AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (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, FLV (h.264)
- Photo – JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
- Audio – MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
- Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL
- Subtitle – SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI
Not supported are protected premium content such as movies or music from the iTunes Store, Movielink, Amazon Unbox, and Vongo.
WD TV Family
The WD TV is available now from WD’s Store or your favorite retailer for $99.99 MSRP.