Media players aren't really anything new, but 2009 has seen a surge in the popularity of these devices. This popularity may be partly due to the economy having people looking to be entertained at home, as well as with people having more digital media they want to enjoy in their living room and not on their computer.

The increased number of competitively priced media players also has to be considered a factor, as many new players have entered this corner of the market. Seagate and Western Digital, two heavy weights in the hard drive market, have both released more than one media player in the past year. Companies like this are not only able to put their vast resources in to developing a quality product, but they can also expect to sell more USB hard drives in the process.

This review is going to focus on Western Digital's WD TV media player, as shown in the promotional image above. This compact device features two USB ports to access your digital media stored on portable drives, as well as HDMI and composite audio/video connections for connecting to your home theater setup.

Before taking a closer look at the sample provided for review, let's look at some published data taken from the product page Newegg.com.

Features and Specifications:

» Brand: Western Digital
» Model: WDAVN00BN
» Color: Black
» Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI, Composite A/V

» Features:
   » Full HD 1080p video playback and navigation
   » Dock-and-play convenience
   » Collect without limits – no need to delete movies, just add more USB drives
   » Supported USB Device file systems: FAT-32, NTFS, HFS+ (no journaling)

» Supported Media Formats:
   » Video: MPEG 1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4. Xvid. AVC). H.264, MKV. MOV (MPEG4. H.264)
   » Image: JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
   » Audio: MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC. Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA

» Package Contents:
   » HD media player
   » Compact remote with batteries
   » Media converter software (Windows only)
   » Composite AV cable
   » AC adapter
   » Quick install guide