Has anyone tried the Western Digital - WD TV HD Media Player for USB Storage Devices?
Apparently, it can play FLAC files, just hook your USB drive to this gadget, hook the gadget to your HDTV/stereo.

I would be nice to rip ALL my albums to FLAC once, and put them on a terabyte drive or two, and play them on the home stereo AWAY from the PC!

Yippee! (hopefully)

WD TV HD Media Player for USB Storage Devices

WD TV HD Media Player for USB Storage Devices (at Best Buy)


Also, if it plays FLAC, shouldn't it be added to the sourceforge FLAC website hardware list?

I just bought one, but i still don't have it.

They appear to play FLAC just fine.

http://wdtv.wetpaint.com/?t=anon

I too just ordered one. Hopefully it will replace my AppleTV device. I have way too many HD movies wrapped in the MKV container and it is a pain having to convert the files (or simply change their container from MKV to VOB) for playback on my AppleTV or PS3. I would like to play these files straight from my USB hard drive. I have a spare 320GB USB2.0 WD HD that isn't getting any use right now so I could use that.

My only complaint is that the device can't have media streamed to it, you must use a USB2.0 connection. I would like to be able to stream content to it as there are some videos that the download (yes, they are legal) doesn't finish until late at night. I don't feel like getting out of the bed at that time so I would like to just stream the content as I would not want to have to copy it to the USB2.0 hard drive. Oh well.

Maybe check out xbmc for apple tv



ya that is a huge bit of missing functionality for what seems to be a pretty slick device

I've been considering whether to invest in an apple tv to replace some aging xbox (original, not 360) xbmc boxes, but the apple tv itself has some limitations which make a stopgap solution until a true 1080p device with xbmc support comes along.

yep, sorry about that but I'm behind on updating it. there's a bunch of new stuff to add, especially after ces.

For anyone interested, reading about this device on AVS Forums, it does NOT play all h264 MKV files. Most will work, but the ones that have problems are 1080p files with reference frames above 4. A user there has seemed to find a limit for h264 encoded MKV files here. I know this isn't related to FLAC playback, but if people are going to buy this thinking it'll play all h264 files, then this information is important.

I ordered a WD TV for playing my 2000+ FLACs from a portable hard drive. It just arrived today, and I must say I'm very impressed so far. Hooked the optical out to the stereo, video to the TV, and it all works perfectly, great sound, album art, tags display, minimum of fuss to set up, very neat and small. I could be wrong of course, but it seems like the perfect media player, for FLACs anyway. Can't wait to try out it's video capabilities...

The next version of the WDTV just came out "WDTV Live" - faster hardware, new linux kernel, and now built-in 100MBit ethernet.

http://b-rad.cc/

I'm considering replacing my XBOX runing XBMC with this $150 scilent ninja. Everything works great except:
- playing .dts files containing DTS streams (ignores these files)
- playing .wav files containing DTS streams (white noise out the speakers)
- playing .flac files with 6-channels (gracfully exists)

If any of these 3 problems were addressed (in increasing order of preference) I'd turf my xbox today. DTS and AC3 audio from video files works fine. I love how the device is all digital - no D-to-A conversion, just leaves that to your reciever.

Anyone have similar expirience?

I have the new unit and I love it. Even plays ISO files that contain rips of DVD movies.
DTS is much better in the new unit. As for 6 channel FLAC, I can't say.