WD are well regarded for their easy-to-use external hard drives. Their latest effort is a new streaming media box, the WD TV Live, for connecting the video and photos on your PC or laptop to your big screen TV.
The WD TV Live HD player offers network capability and full high defintion 1080p resolution, with the usual USB connectivity. The network function squares it with the likes of Netgear, who offer a similar media centre experience - and now Windows 7, whose video libaries (and ease of use) will no doubt help improve Microsoft's dominance in this area.
Being driveless, you'll need to attach your own external disk drive, although this won't stifle most people who prefer to use their own media hardware with such devices.
The WD TV Live superscedes a couple of older WD TV products, including the original WD TV product that came out late last year and WD TV mini, a smaller scale version that does not offer HD video nor network ethernet options.
The unit also includes access to YouTube and Flickr accounts.
Though the box won't allow you to see your usual YouTube subscriptions, it did a good job of upscaling videos to fit the large 42" monitor we previewed clips on. There's also an HDMI connection for HD video.
For partygoers, music can also be streamed while playing over a Flickr sideshow.
Western Digital have also managed to keep the price well down. At $199, the WD TV Live is good value, especially when you consider the dwinding price of external backup drives.
