Greetings, fellow Zatz Not Funny readers. Like many of you, I’ve been searching for that perfect media player that can handle any video format as well as stream content from the Internet.
I like having all my movies at my fingertips. No need to go looking for the disc. And my journey started when I built my first HTPC using Meedio as the interface. While the HTPC did what I needed it was not with out its faults. One it was loud and PC cases at the time just did not blend well in the media cabinet. I was on that never ending quest to make that HTPC quieter and smaller. Over the years I just grew tired of maintaining yet another PC in my house. Then I found the Popcorn Hour A-110. This has been great device that plays almost every video format known, is small and blends will into the home theater. While I’m fond of the A-110, it is not with out its faults and I’ve kept my eyes open for other solutions. During CES the Pop Box was put on display. Upon seeing the demos I fell in love with it. Just like the A-110 but only smaller and able to stream Netflix, interface with IMDB to get cover art and movie information. So I made my pre-order and waited, and waited and continue to wait. So in the mean time, I’m playing the field and am giving the Western Digital TV Live Plus (~$125) a try.
I’ve been looking at WD’s lineup for some time and finally decided to pick the newest rev up. It can stream 720p, 1080p video content and Netflix – the main things I am looking for. It also supports streaming popular media codecs and enclosures. Here’s the list supported file types:
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
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