HDMI Media Players - feedback please

[Buddyboy]

I see advertised devices called HDMI media players. They are little boxes you plug into the HDMI port of your TV, and the device accepts inputs like USB memory sticks. So, as I understand it, I can drag and drop any file on to my memory stick, plug the stick into the HDMI media player and view the file, photos, whatever, on my TV directly. Seems great. Has anyone had any experience of these players? Are they as good as they seem? If they are good, what's the best brand?

[tonysmith1929]

HDMI players.

Yes, they seem to work Ok. I only bought a 'cheapo' 9£30.00 UK. Upscales dvds very well, plays SDcards from camera etc, memory sticks etc. May not upscale from these though. Mine only plays, not records....Best of luck

[admin]

The Wester Digital WDTV Live device is one that I frequently hear good things about, and it has a very wide range of support files.

[MilesAhead]

The Wester Digital WDTV Live device is one that I frequently hear good things about, and it has a very wide range of support files.

I bought the first generation WD player just before last Christmas. My suggestions would be, if you have a large .mkv file, like over 6 GB, use tsMuxer to convert to .m2ts. Use external .srt subs and a single AC3 audio track for best results(the newer version is supposed to automatically downmix DTS to AC3 but I don't have it to tell you. I use Popcorn MKV audio converter to convert to AC3 if it has DTS audio.) FF is likely to throw subs and/or audio out of sync. It does look good on my HDTV though. HD res. xvid and divx look fine.

I'm hoping eventually the box will come out for USB 3.0. With higher bandwidth I'm hoping they can get rid of some of the quirks. The nice thing about the WD player is it supports my BlacX USB 2.0 docking station. I can swap drives out without unplugging any cables or power cords.

The docking station with power switch is nice because you can shut the box off then just turn off the docking station, rather than doing the "disconnect usb" command. Turn the docking station on about 30 seconds before you turn the box on to avoid it shutting off thinking nothing is connected. Have the TV on first too of course.