C/Net Preview: The New Western Digital TV Live

[sholling]

C/Net is reporting that the new 2011/2012 WDTV Live is out and has more online content and support for Dolby TrueHD. The WDTV Live has always supported a ton of formats for local playback but the older versions couldn't pass-through lossless Blu-Ray formats and could not play 24bit FLAC files without down-sampling to 16bit. The review suggests that some level of BD lossless audio is now supported but they didn't test it and there is still isn't any word on 24bit FLACs. I loved the old ones but won't be testing this one because I'm very happy with my Netgear NeoTV550 and my Roku 2 but for those looking for a $88 solution it might be worth looking into.

WD TV Live Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

The reason you'd buy this over the Roku, though, is if you have a large library of digital files. The laundry list of supported types misses very little and includes notables such as FLAC, AAC, MKV, DivX, and even ISOs. The small Dolby TrueHD logo on the top suggests that the device will also play Blu-ray "rips" with full-quality sound (although we didn't test this).

 

[sholling]

those looking for a $88 solution it might be worth looking into.

Typo ---> $100