WD’s Elements Play media streamers bring internal HDDs at a presumably good price….
Western Digital has quietly revealed the Elements Play on their site, which combines pared-down playback features of the WD TV series with up to 2TB of internal storage right out of the box. It’s about time, considering competitor LaCie has offered integrated drives in its LaCinema line for more than a year, though we wish WD would have included the Netflix streaming capabilities of the WD TV Live Plus here or any streaming at all, for that matter.
If an unconnected box with 1080p playback via HDMI and fabulous codec support (including Monkey’s Audio!) is appealing to you though, then this latest offering might be worth your while — especially if it’s priced in line with its “value conscious” featureset, a fact we haven’t been able to verify. To be competitive, it’ll have to cost below LaCie’s LaCinema Classic HD, which throws in UPnP / DLNA server support on top of similar features for as little as $229.
Product Overview:
Full-HD 1080p resolution – Experience spectacular Full-HD video picture quality and crystal-clear digital audio. The HDMI port lets you connect to the highest qualityHDTV or home theater.
Plenty of room for your media collection – The built-in high capacity hard drive offers room for tons of media. If you need more space, plug USB drives into the available ports.
Supports a wide variety of file formats – Most popular formats are supported
including RMVB, H264, and MKV.
Camera compatible – Connect your digital camera or camcorder and play or
transfer content from your camera to the drive.
Easy, intuitive user interface – Simple, intuitive and beautiful, the user interface provides the following navigation options:
1. DVD navigation with complete menu navigation, chapter listings, special
features, and subtitles.
2. Photo slideshow with unique transitions and music on your HDTV.
3. Supports photo thumbnails, video cover art and music album art.
4.Music playlist support for PLS, M3U, WPL file types.
5. Preview your video during navigation.
6. Multi-language subtitle support for video playback.
Automatic play – Set the player to play a selected media file automatically when the unit is turned on. Perfect for living art on your HD TV or for digital signage.
Composite video connection – Composite (RCA) outputs ensure compatibility with virtually all television sets.
Digital optical audio – High fidelity audio or pass-through digital audio signal to your AV receiver for surround sound experience. Supports SPDIF and Dolby Digital native playback.
Audio/Video Interface:
1. HDMI 1.4 interface for digital audio and high-definition video
2. Composite interface (RCA yellow/white/red) for analog AV connection
3. Toslink (optical) audio for high-fidelity digital audio
4.Video output resolution includes 480i and 576i (composite interface), or 480p,576p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (HDMI interface)
5. Stereo or multi-channel digital surround (pass through only) audio output.
Additional Features:
1. Real Media (RMVB) playback
2. Plug-and-play convenience
3. Popular media format support
4. Metadata support
5. Thumbnail support
6. Aggregated music/photo/video view
7. Composite and component video outputs
8. Toslink (optical) audio output
9. Supported USB device file systems: FAT32, NTFS, HFS+ (no journaling)
Source :engadget.com
