I would have bought for $70 like it was originally posted. Western Digital sells it for $99 on their site but adds shipping charges. Seems like newegg should be cheaper than it is. I miss the old newegg...
I got an appleTV for $150 and hacked the baconnaise out of it. It's a whole unix machine that plays youtube, streams shows (boxees), DVDs (nitoTV), act as a NAS (SAMBA), web surfer (coach surfer browser), play any damned format (XBMC) and you can even subscribe to iTunes and rent /buy content. All this over wireless or wired Ethernet. I didn't bother with the iTunes crap. Hacking it is dead easy.
The only drawbacks are that it doesn't play 1080p and doesn't support some audio stuff I don't know about. It only has a 40GB hdd it's a PIA to install bigger HDD. You can get the 160GB model for $190 but 160GB is still weak. The networking is good enough that built in drive don't matter for me. All my content plays from my server.
What??? Toooo expensive. I bought this long time ago $75 at staples. At this price, you can buy Asus O!Play $98 much better with ethernet connection at ZZF.
Guys save your money, there's a whole slew of better players now in this price range. I'll provide a research link at the end of the post.
Budget players that get great reviews relative to their budget prices (all have network capability):
- Asus O!Play - Brite-view CinemaTube (i'm considering this one, plays Hulu, netflix, Youtube but you must use Playon software) - Egreat EG-M34A - Xtreamer (<-- may be the best of this bunch ???) - Western Digital 2 is expected to be at least "decent".
You said in THIS price range. I got my WDTV 6 months ago for $75 @ Staples. Most of these players price around $150 (that is 2x the price) except for the $100 asus.
Asus can only have wire network (which is good) but not as flexible as WDTV when hack can accept a wire/wireless dongle which are cheap.
shows up at $99 for me. Is there a coupon?
I would have bought for $70 like it was originally posted. Western Digital sells it for $99 on their site but adds shipping charges. Seems like newegg should be cheaper than it is. I miss the old newegg...
I might hold off on this (even if it is a great player) because the new one (with ethernet) is coming out:
http://www.engadget.com/tag/WdTv-2/
I got an appleTV for $150 and hacked the baconnaise out of it. It's a whole unix machine that plays youtube, streams shows (boxees), DVDs (nitoTV), act as a NAS (SAMBA), web surfer (coach surfer browser), play any damned format (XBMC) and you can even subscribe to iTunes and rent /buy content. All this over wireless or wired Ethernet. I didn't bother with the iTunes crap. Hacking it is dead easy.
The only drawbacks are that it doesn't play 1080p and doesn't support some audio stuff I don't know about. It only has a 40GB hdd it's a PIA to install bigger HDD. You can get the 160GB model for $190 but 160GB is still weak. The networking is good enough that built in drive don't matter for me. All my content plays from my server.
burp it. I'll take that for a buck-fitty any day.
What??? Toooo expensive. I bought this long time ago $75 at staples. At this price, you can buy Asus O!Play $98 much better with ethernet connection at ZZF.
Its a price error again. Its support to be $90
Guys save your money, there's a whole slew of better players now in this price range. I'll provide a research link at the end of the post.
Budget players that get great reviews relative to their budget prices (all have network capability):
- Asus O!Play
- Brite-view CinemaTube (i'm considering this one, plays Hulu, netflix, Youtube but you must use Playon software)
- Egreat EG-M34A
- Xtreamer (<-- may be the best of this bunch ???)
- Western Digital 2 is expected to be at least "decent".
Research them all here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=39
Best of the bunch
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/home-entertainment/bd4f/
You said in THIS price range. I got my WDTV 6 months ago for $75 @ Staples. Most of these players price around $150 (that is 2x the price) except for the $100 asus.
Asus can only have wire network (which is good) but not as flexible as WDTV when hack can accept a wire/wireless dongle which are cheap.