Digital Video Player News: Western Digital

Updates from Western Digital on its WD TV Live products:

Customers will now be able to connect with their friends and family through Facebook® - including uploading photos and videos, sharing their status, viewing their wall and getting the latest updates from their NewsFeed - among other entertainment choices, all from their HDTV. Meanwhile, WD TV Live Plus media player customers in the U.S. can now instantly rent or purchase the newest movie releases the same day they become available on DVD and Blu-ray Disc™ through the Blockbuster® OnDemand service.

In addition, new features for the WD TV Live and WD TV Live Plus media players include:

• Deezer™: a personalized on-demand music service for listening to 7 million tracks anytime, anywhere and one of the most popular Internet and mobile music offerings in Europe;
• Flingo®: free Internet television from leading studios, TV networks, and video websites;
• AccuWeather.com®: a worldwide weather forecasting service; and,
• USB wireless keyboard support: use any popular wireless keyboard with USB dongle to easily update Facebook status and conduct YouTube® searches.
  
  
  
  
  

WD TV Live - Best Selling Networked Digital Video Player

I had an interesting call with Western Digital yesterday regarding their WD TV Live Plus product, one that we categorize as a Networked Digital Video Player. They indicate that recent sales numbers actually have them leading this category for the U.S. market. They note that they're even beating the vaunted Roku Digital Video Player.

After years of hand-wringing about how (or if) digital media adapters would sell (which they really didn't until it was determined that streamed video was the one type of content that would spur their sales), Western Digital's role in consumer storage gives them an excellent brand at which to approach this market. If you look at the consumer segments that demonstrate the need for a stand-alone digital video player - lots of current consumption of online video, willingness to condider additional equipment to accomodate video streaming to the television, etc. - current network-attached storage users are a great fit. Our own data (see chart) shows just how much more NAS owners are interacting with online video.


In other connected TV news, Accedo Broadband has announced that it is in the TV apps business. Although the company has a legacy of developing gaming applications, it has expaded to include video and other digital media. They will be showing this at the upcoming IBC in Amsterdam.