The Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player is a great device that allows you to play contents from your computer on your television.
The product is basically an interface for your media.
It does not contain storage but has 2 USB ports that can connect to an external hard drive, USB Stick drive or any device like a card reader that can connect through USB.
The device will play many different types of video files including Xvid and h264 along with wmv 9 and mov files.
It can also display your images and play music. It does not play copyrighted music that you download from Itunes but you may be able to find a work around for this.
The device is about the same size as an External Hard Drive making it useful for taking it with you or small enough to store near your tv without the need to get rid of a current device you own.
It can connect with a hdmi port to provide full and fast 1080 p or it can connect to an older tv with RCA connections.
Note: The menu interface is relatively simple but maybe not great for the non tech savvy.
When you connect a drive to the device it will automatically scan and sort a menu of available files.
This is a nice device for those people that do not want to spend a lot of money or time setting up a media center. It allows you to play your files by connecting an external drive so no wiring or networking is necessary.
The only drawback is your grand parents probably won’t like dealing with the menu because it is closer to a game box then a standard dvd or vcr menu.
At just about $100 it is a decent buy and hopefully it will be patchable to provide more formats in the future.
You can purchase this device in the YouRepair Store