Stream pictures, music and videos on your TV

By Peter Zschunke Nov 13, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - Most modern HD television screens don't live up to their potential if they just show TV programmes. Enter a series of new network players that stream data such as vacation pictures onto a television.

WD TV Live from Western Digital promises simple and affordable entry into this world of steaming. Already available for a year, a new wireless version is now available.

Measuring 10 X 12.6 centimetres and priced at 100 euros (138 dollars), unpacking the gadget is a cinch, aside from the omission of an HDMI cable - essentially for connecting to a television. That costs 15 euros.

Once you're over that hurdle, plug it in and you're ready to go. The connection is set up via remote control. It's simplest to connect it to an existing wi-fi network, just by entering the network's password. Allow some time to upgrade firmware and then you can start streaming.

It's easiest to access multimedia data from a hard drive already linked to the wi-fi network. A variety of manufacturers, including Western Digital, have items like that for sale, with prices as low as 90 euros for 1 terabyte of storage space. Alternately, you can attach an external hard drive to the box with a USB cable.

TV Live recognizes all standard data formats. For photos, that means jpg, png, tiff, bmp and gif. However, the Photoshop format psd and the RAW format used by digital cameras are not included. When it comes to music, the device transmits formats such as MP3, WAV, AAC and Ogg Vorbis. Videos have to be in the MPEG-4, avi, mov or H.264 formats to stream.

Use the remote control to look through the accessed hard drive to decide which files to display. Photos can be set up as a slideshow.

Once you've got through your entire private photo collection, you can turn to the internet for more options. There's an option to look through Flickr, where you can search by keyword for a variety of images, or go to a person's private site. Other online options for display include YouTube, web radio broadcasters, Facebook or RSS feeds of current news.

A network attached storage unit offers the advantage of letting the data be available from remote locations. Western Digital has planned for that with both a web-based program and apps for the iPad and iPhone.

It's a little tricky to get access, but that shows you that not just anyone can view your personal files. However, there are some improvements needed. One test showed that data was not pulled only from public folders, but also from private ones.