WD TV Live
Product pimping time!
I feel a little weird writing about this because it’s just so geeky, but I seriously think this is one of the best gadgets I’ve EVER bought. It’s a 12 cm wide, discrete black box, with both HDMI and component/phono output that you can connect to your HD/SD tv .. and it’s capable of playing a variety of formats from USB storage. You ripped your DVD’s and put them in the attic? No problem, this thing will play VOB’s. It’ll also play MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, H264, MKV, and a lot of other stuff. Furthermore, it can play music and show photos from same USB storage.
All in all, it’s an incredibly well-functioning little unit. It plays anything you throw at it (anything I’ve tried, anyway), and the user interface is brilliantly simple: basically there are four icons: photos, music, movies, settings. Those four menu items contain what you would expect, and there is a small remote included with the unit, meaning you can lean back in your sofa and watch your holiday snaps.
The price? Roughly 600DKK. ‘Tis a good replacement for the Mac Mini I had stolen earlier this year.