Western Digital, WD TV Mini Media Player

Pros:

+ very small and minimalist design, akin to the Apple TV. It's square and flat. Measures 3.6 x 3.6 x 0.8 tall.

+ plays RMVB @ 1024x576x24, 1024x576x30, or 800x600x30

+ $20 cheaper than WDTV

+ great support for various music formats, including the lesser known FLAC (free loss-less audio codec), OGG, and APE

+ retains the look and feel of the WD TV interface (mostly)

Cons:

no HDMI output

no MKV support

1 USB port

The $20 price difference does not make this an attractive buy when compared to its fully-featured big brother, the popular Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player. The only reason you might buy this instead of the much better WDTV is for RMVB support, but the trade-off simply does not add up.

A "wide variety of file formats" is a subjective term here. WD added RMVB support, but took away MKV, one of the player's biggest selling points. RMVB is only useful if you intend to watch a lot of internet-downloaded shows from mainland China/Hong Kong, as the low CPU requirements for this format makes it a popular choice for encoders there. For hi-def encodes, MKV is the format of choice.

For audio, the only new format is APE, which is very rare and unlikely to be of use to the vast majority of users. You also lose AIFF support with the Mini, but that is unimportant.

It's advertised by WD as being "small enough to take with you", but the WDTV was already compact enough to transport. The Mini flew in under the radar, just like the WD TV originally did, but it's a puzzling new addition to the product line considering the existence of the superior WD TV and the anticipated release of the WDTV's successor.

WDTV owners have been clamoring for network support for a long time, and I'm surprised WD went and devoted resources to making this new, under-powered (and un-asked for) product instead of putting all their efforts into bringing the WDTV 2 to market earlier (officially called the WD TV Live Network-ready HD Media Player).

If you need a player right now and don't need RM/RMVB support, I recommend the WDTV instead of saving the $20 here. If you can wait 2 months for the release of the WDTV 2, then wait. It will have network support (wired) and DTS-downmix (so you don't need a separate audio receiver), 2 very big and important additions requested by users. If WDTV 2 retains RMVB, it will be the best of both worlds.

UPDATE: 10/30/2009. The WDTV Live is out now. It's networked and WiFi enabled (via third party USB dongle). If you need RMVB playback and networking, you may wish to consider the excellent (if homely) ASUS O!Play TV HD Media Player (Black)

Pros:

-Easy to use for people just want to play and enjoy contents. It is pretty much as easy to use as your TV. This is designed for general consumers than the techies.

-Play SD movies and RMVB materials really well. It will play the dvd menu and the entire movie if you select the VIDEO_TS folder. No need to manually play each VOB file and no need to create iso file either. I have not encountered any issues playing movies or RMVB files since I received this player two months ago. Subtitles and language tracks all played properly. This is also the only WD player that will play RMVB.

-Good video quality. When connected to my 40" LCD TV, video quality from 1080i output seems to be very good for both movie and RMVB materials. I do not see perceivable differences between the mini and my oppo dvd player in daily viewing. Quality from composite output is fine for what you would expect of such signal.

-Energy efficient. Consumes 5 watts when powering an external usb drive. 4 watts if a flash drive is used. It also cuts power to the attached player-powered usb drive when off. This player does not get hot even while powering a usb drive.

Cons:

-Video cables come with the player are short. You have to position the player close to TV and that limits the placement flexibility. These cables are proprietary design so you can not easily swap them out with regualr cables.

-No support for 1080p output. No hdmi so you have to run video and audio cables separately to your tv/receives.

This player has served me well for what I seeks. With the current going price this may be a good choice for people looking to enjoy their SD collections now and wait for better HD players and contents couple years down the road.

Buy Western Digital, WD TV Mini Media Player Now

Simply put: This is the best and simplest media player ever!!!

I just transfer any movie, video clip, music, etc., to my usb drive and plug that into the media player.

I have not been this happy about a purchase in a while.

Read Best Reviews of Western Digital, WD TV Mini Media Player Here

Connections: USB, composite, component, optical audio. Remote control included. Will not play contents from iTunes® Store, Cinema Now, Movielink®, Amazon Unbox(tm), and Vongo®

Pros:

Almost half the size of the regular WDTV. Nice to bring in the car. Nice for travel.

has an additional RM / RMVB support (Real Media)

100-240V, 50-60hz. Again, a nice traveling companion.

Cons:

no HDMI

no 1080p

Compare it with the regular size Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player before doing a purchase.

Want Western Digital, WD TV Mini Media Player Discount?

DVDs get damaged too easily, and I am tired of having to replace costly DVDs because of a few scratches. So, I use Handbrake and Nero to convert all of my DVDs into MP4 files that I store on my hard drive, and can watch in iTunes, or transfer to my iPod Touch. My whole collection on one hard drive. Sweet!

What I am missing is a way to conveniently play my MP4 video library on the TV in my living room. While I have a video adapter for my Mac that will allow me to play video on my TV, the TV is too far away from my computer for me to conveniently stretch cables across the house in order to connect it.

I have held off from buying a WD Player up to now because they were priced too high and came with many features I don't need or want.

All I want is a simple media player, that I can attach a USB drive to, and play movies on my TV. I don't have an HDTV, and none of my content is HD. So, all I really need is composite connections. I don't need networking, or anything else. I also don't want to PAY for those features.

So, when I saw the WD Mini-Player on sale at Amazon for $49, I was very excited! This seemed to be EXACTLY what I was looking for!

Unfortunately, after the unit arrived and I hooked it up, I discovered that it doesn't play ANY of my MP4 files. Apparently it will only play SIMPLE MP4s (Level 2 or below... I.E. 5 year old obsolete compression technology). It will NOT play level 10 MP4 files (AVC/H.264).

I tried updating the firmware to no avail. I then called WD, and they confirmed that AVC/H.264 encoded MP4 files are not supported on the mini, and won't be any time soon. They suggested that I buy the more expensive model of WD Media Player that DOES support it.

Ridiculous! H.264 has been the de facto video file standard for most of the computer industry for over 4 years now! It is the standard video format preferred by all Apple devices; iTunes, iPods, and iPhones all work best with this format. (iPods and iPhones will ONLY play MP4 files with AVC/H.264 encoding.) MP4 (AVC/H.264) is also the preferred video format on the Sony PSP. Handbrake, and Nero both produce MP4 files with AVC/H.264 encoding, and consequently, my whole video library is encoded in this format.

MP4 video format with AVC/H.264 encoding (AKA, MP4 Level 10) was designed to replace AVI, MPG, and MP4 level 2 (Simple encoding), and has compression algorithms that offer roughly double the quality of a similarly sized AVI, MPG, or simple MP4 (Level 2) does. The only reason some people are still using AVI, MPG, and simple MP4 (DIVX, XVID) is that they apparently don't realize the benefits that the newer encoding technology provides (Better video quality, smaller file size).

WD must recognize this, because their more expensive players all support this format. So why did they remove it from the list of supported formats on the Mini???

Well, the result of this brainless exclusion of the most widely used, industry standard video format is that this device is totally useless to me. So, back to Amazon it goes.

It's quite a shame too, because I had planned to give these to all my friends and family for Christmas!

Don't the Product Managers at WD know ANYTHING about the industry they are making products for?