Western Digital has just released a smaller and cheaper version of their WD TV multimedia player, called, appropriately, the WD TV Mini.
Like the original, the WD TV Mini supports a wide variety of audio and video codecs, with the addition of RealMedia Variable Bitrate (.rmvb) video, which was added due to consumer demand from the Asian market.
However, the WD TV Mini isn’t a replacement for the original WD TV — to bring it in at a lower price point, the WD TV Mini only has component and composite video output; does not support the Matroska (MKV) file format and foregoes the HDMI port completely.
The reason for this is that the WD TV Mini only supports video playback resolutions of up to 1,024 x 576-pixels for the RMVB format. Although the resolution is considered “high-definition,” it is not a full 1,920 x 1,080-pixel high-definition video player.
On the upside, the WD TV Mini fully supports the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) which means that a user can connect any digital camera to the USB port and have it automatically recognised by the WD TV Mini.
The WD TV Mini is priced at RM339 and is available immediately.