Just ordered one. Thanks OP! I have been wanting to have a home theater PC but this seems like a less expensive and easier option. No big deal to shuttle the hard drive back and forth from the PC when adding new content to it.

I noticed that it has to UBS ports. I'll have my WD Passport 500GB drive attached to it most of the time, but does anybody know if you can plub a flash drive into it?

why would you want to buy this? You have to buy a external USB drive, isn't that a lot of cables hanging around?

This is prefect media player for someone like me who doesn't want a big and bulky pc/laptop with wireless keyboard/mouse around living room. It plays all the format(my collection of DVD backup, AVC from HD camcorder, family album,mp3)and only use 7w instead streaming from pc and waste electricity.

I'm interested in one of these things-

but i did read that it cannot play FLAC gapless. i'm surfing around on the WD forums and elsewhere to see if they plan to add gapless suport in a future firmware. non-gapless playback is rough on live and concept albums....

that's the only thing holding me back from placing the order-
that and also the fact i'm already using the 2 HDMI ports on the back of my TV
so i need to find a way to connect it. i can't pull any new RGB cables and haven't seen good reviews on HDMI splitters and not sure i want to spend $40 on a HDMI distro center!

Note from Dell's website: Usually Ships 3-5 Weeks

Edit: I ordered one and the estimated shipping date is 1/28/09.

f2000sa said:Browsed a long thread on avsforum, and could not find a definite answer. I would like to know whether the recent firmware update enable it to play blu-ray iso images ripped by anydvd. If not, which format did you rip your HD-DVD or Blu-ray?

90% sure it does not play ISO's. You'd have to rip the disc's to their file state. It will play the .ts files.

Quick question, after reading the description, I'm a little confused as to whether or not this device actually converts your .avi, divx, Dvd files on the USB to HD quality on the TV.

Or is it just used as a bridge between the USB and TV which has the ability to play HD quality movies if you have one downloaded on your USB.....?

kre0380 said:I read on some forums that the max hard drive size you can hook up to this is 320GB. Is that true?

No it's not. I have a 1TB drive hooked up to mine. It works fine. Because it has an external power supply it also gives me the option of turning the HD off when I want. Overall, I'm very pleased with this unit and I would recommend it to anyone.

I am not sure what I am missing. What I currently do is I connect my external hard drive to the dvd player with USB/DivX(I have this oneText) . Whats the difference?

Does it play .rmvb?