WD, the world's leader in external storage solutions,
today introduced a simple way for consumers to play their stored
digital content on their HDTV in Full-HD 1080p resolution. The WD TV™
Media Player connects to a user's TV or home theater and plays digital
movies, music and photos from WD's My Passport™ portable drive or other
USB mass storage device.
According to research firm IDC, nearly 334 million GB of photos and
more than 3.1 billion GB of video will be stored on consumer desktop
and laptop computers in 2008. The research firm expects that to
increase to 400 million GB and 5.8 billion GB, respectively, by 2010.
These large personal digital libraries are all but trapped on users'
computers. In order to play their content on their TV, consumers have
struggled with clumsy solutions such as copying onto multiple CDs and
DVDs or connecting their PCs to their TV via wires or complicated home
networking solutions. The WD TV HD Media Player enables consumers to
easily and elegantly access their high-definition content on the
biggest screen in the home.
Users leave the WD TV HD Media
Player connected to their TVs and simply plug in up to two My Passport
USB drives or other USB mass storage devices loaded with HD media.
Using the included remote control, they can navigate and play their
content with the media player's high-definition on-screen menu. With My
Passport drives now available in 500 GB capacities, users can build
large collections on multiple drives, all playable by WD TV.
Navigating content on USB drives is fast and easy with WD TV HD Media
Player's remote control and on-screen menu. Content can be viewed
either by filename or thumbnails of photos, album covers or movie cover
art. In addition, automatic media aggregation lets the viewer see all
their media by media type in one menu regardless of its location in
folders or drives.
"As leaders in external storage, we have
become the trusted brand for storing and backing up large media
collections for consumers around the world," said Jim Welsh, senior
vice president and general manager for WD's Branded Products and
Consumer Electronics Groups. "Our best-selling My Passport portable
drives help customers carry their media library with them anywhere but
until now, there has been no easy, affordable way to access and play
all that content in their living rooms. The WD TV HD Media Player
effectively unlocks all that content from the storage device and lets
people enjoy it on their biggest screen and best sound system."
Features of the WD TV HD Media Player include:
Designed for WD's My Passport portable drives, it also plays content
from WD My Book® family of drives and most popular USB drives, digital
cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized
as mass storage devices;
Full HD video playback and
navigation - up to 1080p - to experience the spectacular picture
quality of HD video and crystal clear sound clarity of digital audio;
Remote control to navigate through entertainment choices using the crisp, animated HD menus;
Dock and play convenience: just plug in a My Passport drive or other
USB storage device with HD content to play it on a TV or home
entertainment system;
Collect without limits by adding more USB drives for more accessible content;
Advanced navigation options such as thumbnail and list views; WD's
Media Library™ feature lets users view all media by media type in one
menu regardless of its location in folders or drives; ability to search
by genre, title, artist, filename and partial filename;
Photo viewing features to create custom slides shows; ability to zoom
and pan; search photos by filename, partial filename, most recently
viewed and date;
Movie viewing with ability to fast
forward, rewind, pause, zoom, and pan, view subtitles and search by
filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date;
Music playback with fast forward, rewind, pause, shuffle, repeat and
search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date;
Two USB ports on the player connects up to two USB mass storage devices
and access them simultaneously while the Media Library feature
aggregates the content on both drives into one list sorted by media
type;
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI®) port
connects to the highest quality HDTV or home theater; additional
composite (RCA) outputs ensure compatibility with virtually all
television sets;
Free ArcSoft MediaConverter™ 2.5
software to easily convert photo, video, and music files into formats
optimized for use on the WD TV HD Media Player;
Ultra-compact design that fits easily into a home entertainment center; and,
1-year limited warranty.
Pricing and Availability
The WD TV HD Media Player is available now at select retailers and WD's online store (www.shopwd.com). MSRP for WD TV HD Media Player is $129.99 USD. Local pricing not yet available.
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