I recently started creating backups of my home Blu-Ray library without any method to play these backups on my home theater. My media playback device of choice, the XBox 360, is unable to play any video files that are within an MKV container. I had played around with MP4 containers as an alternative but the Windows Networking component of the XBox 360 limited the file sizes to the FAT32 limit of 4GB, which is too small to host an entire 1080p movie and I was unwilling to split the backup into multiple files.

The available alternatives out there didn’t seem technically feasible as most D-Link and Linksys offerings are merely Windows Media Center Extenders with “support for MPEG-4/ASP” (read: DivX) but no support for MPEG-4/AVC or MPEG-4/VC1. The option of setting up another HTPC for my home theater wouldn’t be financially viable because at a base price of about $399 I might as well invest in a Blu-Ray burner to watch my backups.

Enter the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player…

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