Western Digital just announced an update to their WD TV line of media players that extends your options from a hard drive to the net. The WD TV Live Plus is basically an updated version of the WD TV Live media player, which will feature everything the original WD TV Live originally offered (Full HD 1080p video playback, network support and streaming, composite and HDMI video connections) but adds full DVD-like navigation and access to Netflix.
Asus has just unveiled the latest network media player to fall under their O!Play line, the HD2, during the CeBIT show in Germany. It’s basically a relatively flexible media player that will let you play multimedia files straight off a storage source—that’s either connected via any of its ports and slots or through the network—straight to a TV.
Remember the Sony Dash? The $200 tabletop do-it-all (almost-all, at least) with a 7-inch screen and a Wi-fi connection that was announced back in January? It’s about to get a pretty significant upgrade that should make that $200 price tag (for a digital clock-slash-media viewer-slash-internet viewer) a little bit more worth it. Sony has just announced that they’ll be adding a custom Netflix app to the Dash that’ll give it the ability to stream in TV shows and movies via a Wi-fi connection. The video streaming app will come at no extra cost (thankfully keeping the price at $200) and should be available when the Dash goes on store shelves this April.
Netgear’s CES lineup involves the usual network devices–media servers, 3G routers, and Powerline AV plugs–sprinkled with interesting features. Really, you never thought you needed so much networking equipment, but these things do make living in a digital world easier (but that’s just us. We’re a bunch of nerds). The lineup is headlined by the Digital Entertainer Express EVA9100, a media receiver that streams content from multiple sources (including the internet) to an HDTV. Seen as a stripped-down version of the company’s existing streamer (the Digital Entertainer Elite EVA9150), but without an internal hard drive and Wi-fi connection to keep the price down to $230.
Networking company D-Link is all set to show off a couple of new networked media hubs at CES. The main draw should be the Boxee Box, a rather interestingly-designed (a cube that looks like it’s sinking? That’s interesting, right? We’re definitely interested.) kit that ports Boxee’s media streaming-slash-social network interface straight into your home entertainment system.
