Been eyeballing a Home Theater PC solution lately? If all you need is the basics of playing back some video and audio, Western Digital has an affordable solution with its new WD TV HD Media Player.

Western Digital’s new external HD Media Player, when coupled with a ‘My Passport’ external hard drive or ‘any’ other external USB storage device, gives the user the ability to playback video, audio, and view photos from the connected storage device up to full High Definition 1080p resolution.

The WD TV allows two USB storage devices to be connected at one time, so expanding your storage capacity can be as simple as just adding a second external drive rather than going through the process of copying all your files from the old drive to the new one, a process which can take some time with large amounts of data.

The device will automatically sort your media files for video, audio, and photos, appropriately for easy navigation with all the standard expected controls. Taking from the Western Digital Site itself, we have the following descriptions:

Advanced navigation: Thumbnail and list views – Browse your content by filename or by thumbnails of photos, album covers and movie cover art.

Search – Search by genre, title, artist, filename and partial filename.

Photo viewing: Create custom slide shows with a variety of transitions and background music Zoom and pan Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date

Movie viewing: Fast forward, rewind, pause, zoom, and pan View subtitles Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date

Music playback: Fast forward, rewind, pause, shuffle, repeat Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date.

The WD TV has HDMI and composite video connections for compatibility with older television sets that do not have HDMI available. The package also includes ArcSoft MediaConverter 2.5 – an easy-to-use application that allows the user to convert photos, videos, and music files, into formats that are more optimized for the WD TV HD Media player.

NOTE: This the above does not mean that all your media needs to be converted before you can play it back with the built in media player, the WD TV device supports all of the most common file types without any conversion needed. File types supported according to Western Digital are as follows:

Music - MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA

Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG

Video - MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264)

Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL

Package Contents include the WD TV device itself, a stand for WD ’My Passport drives’, A remote control, ArcSoft MediaConverter software, Composite AV cables, AC adapter, and installation guide. The WD TV looks to be a simplistic, affordable solution, for those that do not require the full functionality of a full blown Home Theater PC – or for those that lack the knowledge of building one themselves or do not wish to spend a lot of money just to have access to functions they are most familiar with.

Expected pricing is to be around US$125.00. According to the Western Digital page for the WD TV device, it should will be available through all major retailers – a list is available on their site here.

MySpace this week announced that instead of taking down copyright-infringed videos that its users upload, it would instead launch a new technology to take advantage of piracy, and profit.

Using technology from a company called Auditude, MySpace plans to serve up targeted ads for the videos. Currently, there are a handful of videos being served to MySpace from MTV Networks, and many of them are being uploaded by users without permission. When this happens, MySpace takes the videos offline and serves up a warning to the offending user.

YouTube began doing much of the same thing a while back. For the longest time, YouTube hosted many music videos and clips from other films — all copyrighted but without proper permission from studios. Then, YouTube implemented what it calls finger printing technology and today, most of the offending videos are no longer available.

MySpace said Auditude’s technology uses finger-printing technology too, to scan millions of videos and identify those that are copyrighted. MySpace representatives said that this will allow profitable ads to be served, instead of removing videos people already want to see.

Start uploading all those pirated videos!

With the netbook market getting more crowded, Asus is planning a little competitive in 2009 in an effort to gain market share.

According to the company’s president, Jerry Shen, the new pricing comes to light based on Asus’ financial position and expected forecasts. Asustek announced revenues of US$2.39 billion for the third quarter this year, while net profit after taxing was US$193 million, an increase of 13 percent on quart, but a drop of 14.2 percent for the entire year.

Asus shipped nearly 11 million of its own-brand motherboards in the first half of this year, nearly six million in the third quarter alone – however, it expects shipments in the last quarter top drop by at least 10 percent to 5.4 million units. The company set a goal of 5 million units for 2008, and they are more than likely going to surpass it – not by a huge margin, but they are expected to beat it.

According to reports from Jonney Shih, Chairman at Asus, the company has forecasted an internal shipment goal for 2009 of 20 million notebooks and netbooks. It appears Asustek feels the market demand for 2009 is quite uncertain and it might have difficulty meeting these expectations. For the record, this internal goal is not a finalized figure.

Shen is expecting annual notebook shipments to grow in 2009, and be higher than the industry’s 10-20 percent, while motherboard shipments will be less than 10 percent. Asus aims to grab a 30 percent share in the notebook market for 2009 and so is planning to offer Eee PCs price at US$200.

Shen also claimed that 7 and 8.9-inch Eee PCs will be phased out in favor of 10-inch products.

Talk of Circuit City troubles has been doing the rounds for the last few weeks, however, recent evidence of store closures and threats of delisting from the New York Stock exchange now add a bit of credibility to the rumours.

On October 31st, news broke on Gizmodo that Sony had recalled their en-route shipment to the retail chain amongst fears that it would be unable to pay for the shipments. The same day, CNet reported that the New York Stock Exchange had notified Circuit City that it were at risk of being delisted, primarily due to the fact that their stock price had remained under the required $1.00 per share price for more than thirty days. While both stories certainly painted a troubling picture, neither had shown any immediate affect on the store level.

Just this evening, The Consumerist received reports that an official memo had been passed through that detailed the closure of 155 Circuit City stores across the nation, which would be a part of a complete withdrawal from twelve regions. Reports from insiders began to flood into The Consumerist confirming the news, along with an official scan of a notice of closure as evidence.

Per the information given to and reported by The Consumerist, stores affected by the close will be taken over by liquidators as soon as Tuesday, with an evaluation of the value of on-hand stock taking place shortly after. Discounts are expected to be applied to most products available, and a sell-off is then expected to take place by current sales associates. Circuit City credit cards, gift cards, and warranties will no longer apply to purchases at stores under liquidation. Consumers currently having their equipment serviced by Circuit City are encouraged to get in touch with their local store to verify arrangements of transfer, or to get their product back.

Tom’s Games contacted several stores in the Chicago area, each of which gave different answers regarding the news. Among the six stores contacted, five had already set their phone systems to report that the store was closed well over an hour early. The early notice was, however, bypassed with an entry request for the operator, with the employees hinting that the notices were set to avoid calls after receiving the news.

While we were unable to get any significant information on any upcoming events from standard level employees, we did speak with one manager who notified us that information regarding the locations closed and plans for liquidation should be available as soon as Monday, or Tuesday at the latest. We were also advised that corporate has instructed employees of all levels, including management, not to discuss the matter. According to our contact, a toll-free number will be available early in the week with an official statement.

This is certainly an unfortunate event, especially for Circuit City staff that now face unemployment. Bargain shoppers may be disappointed to see their local stores close just before “Black Friday”, however depending on liquidation valuation, one could possibly benefit from other exceptional deals from mass inventory sell-offs.

Related Links

Gizmodo: Sony Trucks Literally Turn Around to Stop Circuit City Shipments
The Consumerist: UPDATED: Breaking: Circuit City Closing 155 Stores
CNet: Circuit City gets delisting notice from NYSE