Leading storage Company Western Digital claims to have sold close to one million of their WD TV Live streaming media players during the past 12 months in Australia, this is significantly more than the combined sales of Smart TV’s from both Samsung LG and Sony.
Now the storage Company is looking for content deals with the Company open to discussions with Telstra and Blockbuster with a view to delivering both movies and TV shows via their TV device.
Speaking at the launch of a new Wi Fi version of their TV player yesterday the Company said that the $149 device was proving extremely popular in Australia and that for only $100 extra users can attach a 1TB drive that allows content to be accessed over a network as well as via a tablet.
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Damien Hodge the Business Development Manager for WD said that the Company was now focusing on delivering additional content and download services on the new WD media streamer that comes with access to a variety of Web services, such as YouTube, Flickr and Facebook.
Hodges admitted that the Company had been slack in not chasing down content despite a promise 12 months ago at the launch of the original WD TV device that local content would be a priority for the US Company.
When questioned about the volume of sales and whether GFK tracked the device as a media player or storage devices Hodges said “GFK do not track these devices. Their reports are garbage. They don’t track JB Hi Fi or Officeworks and this is where we sell a lot of these product” he said.
He added “We are now looking at content seriously and we are open to talking to Telstra about their new Unified Application that delivers access to movies and TV content. We are also open to discussions with Blockbuster. We are currently talking to TV Companies about access to TV programmes” he said.
Featuring a brand new interface the new streamer delivers support for 7.1 Dolby True HD sound tracks as well as games such as Chess and Black Jack Royale.
The new HD Wireless TV device is sleeker than the original device; it also comes with Wi-Fi integrated directly into the box.
US Smart TV users have access to Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, and Hulu Plus as standard, with the new WD TV the Company is now offering users access to applications such as Spotify, Pandora, Blockbuster On Demand, and TuneIn Radio.
In Australia none of these services are available with the exception of Facebook and You Tube.
