First off before I start I am sorry I cannot compare picture quality of the wd with other machines. I didn’t realize the wd did not have component connections when I went to set it up at a friends place. But I did test on normal video out.

Ok now lets begin the first thing that strike me about this wd machine is how god damn small it is. So small that is so cute.
Updated the machine with the latest firmware using the usb key. Fast detect of the usb key and installation was straight forward lasting less than 5 minutes.

Went through the menu systems.. quick access using the tiny remote.

Ok I brought along my trusty dvico 6500a as the hard drive machine.. Plug it in to the usb port of the wd machine.. WD took like 10minutes to detect it , could it be because of the one terabyte worth of media files in my dvico?? Will test it on a passport drive when I get it later for him.

After detection went through the menu system again to look for files to play. OK this is what I don’t like of the wd machine.. the files selection is totally fugly . irritating by itself. If your movies folder have more than 300 files , god speed with you to find the files u want to watch.. don’t know what wd was thinking when designing this. U have a maximum of 12 huge icons per page(I guess u can put pictures for each files, but I don’t know how, and if u have 1000 files it will be crazy just to put a photo for each files) scrolling each icon will show u the name of the file.. u want more just keep on scrolling up or down .. and a new page will appear.. trust me its very irritating..but lukily its fast not like the hdx1000 which has a delay (but hdx1000 files system show names which is nice)

I don’t know whether its me (didn’t read manual) or just wd plain stupidity. The greatest peeve I have on this machine is the search function. Its non existence, WTF man … I click the search button on the remote to find my favourite scenes (like battlestar galactic season 3 episode exodus part 2, the scene where galactica jump into the skies above) and the bloody thing doesn’t do anything. Just a bloody stop sign appears. Don’t tell me I need to fast forward 16x to find a scene thats 1 hour ahead. Could it be I need to use a wd external drive??

Picture quality test  from normal video out.  I will try to do PQ on hdmi next time, but for now this little wd machine has quite outstanding PQ.  I couldn’t test "v for vendetta" as the wd machine cannot play any 1080p vc1 files. But the rest of the 1080p play with without a hitch so far. Again because of the stupid wd search function not working I cannot test more into the film or critical intense scenes for stuttering. Only the start of each movie.  Only one tp files had problem playing.

(will try to update with more info the next time)

So to sum it up WD hdtv is highly recommended machine for the price range. Of course u get what u paid for, like missing convenience and missing extra functions like the big boys.  But i am sure most people can live without those.

Like
Small casing
Cheap cheap cheap
PQ up to par with the big boys (normal video out review)

Dislike
File menu listing
No dts downmix
No search function
No bookmark

click for pictures:
This post has been edited by lance: Jan 15 2009, 09:47 AM

For any playback skipping, you can perform a 10 minutes chapter skip by first performing FF (>>) or RR (<<) then pressing  >| or |< respectively to make the skips.
In my opinion, playback in VOB (NTSC) or MKV 720p are very stable with both Dolby Digital and DTS supported flawlessly. I am in the midst of zapping my existing Hi quality DVD collections into HDD and storing it for future home video server project. Now my mark is about 300 titles... aiming for 1000 titles within this coming June 09.

As for 1080p "green pixelation" problem, we can quickly get rid of it by simply pause/resume or FF (>>) then resume normal playback. The "green pixelation" will disappear instantly. Good luck@!

I shall wait for the final release firmware.

not taking any risk.