Customer Ratings & Reviews

I was absolutely tired of burning DVD's and taking so much time up that when I learned about this device I actually rushed on line and ordered one and was delighted it was available locally so I could pick it up in person. Did so 30 minutes after the on line order was placed by me. Once home I opened and plugged it in and immediately it took to updating its firmware once an internet connection was established and then it shut down and restarted and updated software and configuring details and again shut down and restarted itself. Then I was off and running. I dont really use any of the available services much apart from daily motion and youtube a few times but its easy and Facebook is a snap to log onto to see your home page. The real pleasure comes from knowing this little device plays almost any file type you can throw at it via flash drive or external hard drive and an HDMI cable connection. No more DVD burning and time wasting and expense of disks and most of all no more having to lend the disks to friends and colleagues and learn after how other people treat disks (hint : ever rent a disk and see how someones dog appears to have chewed it?). I love this device and never have to worry about where I left off when stopping movies or shows cause it asks if you want to resume each and every time. Can locate details via wireless about shows you watch and even tells the weather once you tell it where you live. Streams from a wireless connection if you choose too. Hundred bucks and well worth it!!

I am a huge WD fan when it comes to external hard drives so I'm extremely disappointed with this machine. This could have been a great little add on to TVs that don't have USB ports or internet capabilities. Its interface is nice and easy to use but overall I found the WD Live to be terrible! Its most annoying trait is the tremendous lag in speed and response. For example, when hitting the power button or the left and right buttons, nothing happens for a good 1-2 minutes. Naturally you hit the buttons again because it seems like the receiver didn't get the signal... then suddenly it'll shut off or speed through the menu all at once, making you select the wrong folders or applications. It's so frustrating because it takes forever to turn on! If you have a hard drive plugged in with several files, it will take 5-20 minutes to make those files available. Even when accessing Netflix or Hulu, it takes much longer than it should, and lately the audio has decided to randomly turn itself off and there's no way to get it back on unless you unplug the device and reset it. Now I watch my Netflix and Hulu shows on my Apple TV because it's SO much quicker and reliable. Unfortunately the Apple TV does not have USB ports. I have yet to use the Roku but I'm really considering switching over to that.

In short, I have experienced no problems with this device. It resides upstairs in my music room through at least two walls and one floor from my wireless router, and never skips a beat streaming from the internet or my My Book Live NAS. I also have it hooked up via USB to a local external drive which contains about 2 terabytes of music and movies(primarily music). The picture and sound quality are very good. Being an audio nut, I have the audio optical digital output routed to an outboard DAC(Emotiva XDA-2) and then through either an Emotiva preamp, or a Pioneer Elite 7.1 receiver. The Pioneer is connected via HT passthrough on the Emotiva preamp and the preamp is driving a pair of Emotiva XPA-1 500 w/ch monoblocks to KEF towers. This setup sounds amazing. I have almost zero complaints with this product. Everything works as advertised. My only nit to pick concerns the build of the Media Library. When I add music files to my drive which is connected via USB directly to the device, it must rebuild the Media Library when re-connected to account for the new files. This rebuild can take some time - especially with 2 terabytes of data! While it is rebuilding, response is very slow and can seem to hang at times. There is a workaround however. Simply go to settings/system and turn off the media library function. All of your files can still be accessed through the Folders tab on the home menu. When you turn in for the night, simply turn the media library function on, leave the unit on and go to sleep! It will rebuild the media library during the night and be ready when you wake up. For this reason I batch my music downloads(I usually download my HD music files from HDTracks to my PC and then transfer from the PC to the media drive). Don't want to have to do a rebuild for 1 or 2 files!! Having said all this, I really feel this is a small nit to pick. It makes sense that if you are accessing files from the drive while it is in a rebuild, it is going to slow things down considerably. I simply view my media library rebuilds as a periodic maintenance task, like defragging my hard drive. In fact, even if I haven't added any files, I will periodically reset/rebuild the media library just to ensure all pointers are set correctly. I also periodically as a proactive measure reboot the device - even if there are no apparent issues. All in all, I am more than pleased with this product. It ties all of my media together in a centralized node, and through Slingbox and the included Slingplayer app I am even able to watch live TV/DVR from the satellite receiver downstairs in HD. I highly recommend this product.

This is a great device for anyone looking for an all in one HD media player. I owned one of the 1st Gen WD HD players and found that it would not support some of the newer HD audio/video formats (especially DTS audio). I upgraded to this and couldn't find a media file that it would not play. The feature alowing you to add or remove movies from a streaming Netflix que was a big bonus (seing as I could not do this with the streaming functions on my TV or Blu-Ray player). The interface is great and super easy to use with the abilty to setup playlists, customize backgrounds, rate media and much more.

Originally I bought a smart tv, but I couldn't get the videos to loop on the tv. So I returned the tv and got the Wd player and a regular, non smart, tv. The Wd player loops the videos for me. Saved me money doing it this way. The Wd player is simple to use and small enough that it's easy to hide.

Overall I primarily purchased this to connect a HDD and play family making movies on our plasma tv. It works great and plays a ton of formats. The quality of the video and sound is great through the HDMI. I can also access movies, music and pics via DLNA on MAC and PC. Set up Set up is easy. I use an eithernet connection but I've used the wireless connection a couple of itmes without issue. Apps I used the Netflix, Youtube, and Pandora apps. They work as advertised. The rest have no interest in me. Negatives It can be a little slow to bootup (5 seconds #. Sometimes some of the items on the screen cannot be seen #i.e. my pandora accounts), you'll just seen an empty box.

I've owned this little unit for about 1-year and some. I'm REALLY, REALLY happy with it. It really gets it's use in my custom 7.1 AV center. I have mine hooked up via HDMI to my Onkyo TX-NR609 AV Receiver. I have (2x) 2TB Seagate external HDDs hooked up to it via the USB 2.0 ports, playing the highest-quality MKV and AVI files like a charm (that's the only type I use). I particularly like that it plays all MKV and AVI files I toss at it. The remote fits perfect in your hand, even if it's small. The (OSD) on-screen display menu is very easy to use and not an eyesore, either. The unit feels like it's made of quality material, not cheaply made. This unit far surpasses any other media player I've tried (and I've tried a few). In the settings, I've set all the video quality/graphic output to the highest quality and I've kept the firmware updated to the latest versions. This little guy is a phenomenal buy and a must have. Best money I've spent in a long time! The only gripe (and I'm not even sure I'd call it that) is that there is a 2TB cap on this device, meaning, if you have an external hard drive greater than 2TB that you wish to use with this, it will not read it. It's no biggie, though, being there's 2-USB ports on the device, so you can essentially plug-in 2x 2TB hard drives, as I did.

Awesome media player. I had bought the roku2xs and it would not play iso, mkv, or avi off hard drive, constantly lost wifi and remote sync. I returned it and bouth this. It is way better than previous wd lives. The remote has a better feel, the menu is better and set up was a breeze. I did have to do about three firmware updates before use. I have been very happy with it so far.

After hearing Rokus can be slow, we 1st purchased a Sony streaming player. It would constantly drop signal & freeze programs (due to Sony's requirement of all apps to stream thru there system which can't handle the volume). We then, returned our Sony for the WD live box. The WD has been awesome! It offers all the apps you need - Hulu plus, Netflix, Vudu, facebook, pandora, youtube and dozens more...we didn't have Vudu in the beginning, but there was a recent update which added this and a few others. No problem with speed & has never dropped signal to freeze a program or anything. Even plays some video files from our USB that we couldn't on our laptop.

$100 is great price point. Small size makes it easily concealed, but its just fine sitting out in the open. I purchased this to back-up our movie collection (BluRay & DVD) as the kids can be a bit rough with the discs. This way, no discs need to be touched and we have a simple way to consolidate our media library. I use a 2 TB Western Digital HDD with this and also have it hard-wired with home internet. I have not connected it directly to our PC, so I cannot comment on compatibility with a direct computer connection. Pros: - Great picture; 1080p output is crisp w/ HDMI output - Audio - I use HDMI cable for shows/movies that are ripped in stereo (I have the HDMI connected to the TV); I also have an optical cable hooked to my receiver for surround sound, which we utilize when watching backed-up BluRay movies. ***IMPORTANT NOTE: the WD player does not seem to be able to play surround sound from files ripped with "Dolby/DTS" settings... the file needs to be ripped with true 5.1 channel in order to pass through correctly for surround output with the optical. This may be different if you use the HDMI connection into a receiver that is hooked to surround system, but for my configuration, those are the settings that work. - When you highlight a particular selection, it plays the movie in a small PIP window, which can be helpful if you have not labelled your files in a clean fashion; can help sorting through home movies too - Device can do YouTube, Pandora, Netflix, etc; it used to have Blockbuster, but they removed the app this past summer Cons: - Menu navigation will prove to be difficult for those who have limited technical know-how; it is set up as a directory structure (like in a computer), rather than icons, straight up categories, etc). It suits me well, but I would imagine the average-joe user may have some trouble. That crowd would probably be served better by something like the Apple TV - Surround pass-through; as mentioned above, perhaps it is just my equipment or my configuration, but I had to be specific in how i backed up my movies and how the sound was ripped - if your electricity shuts off, the device will turn on once power returns; the device can get hot, seems like a risk to the device if you are away for a few days and the power shuts off/on Overall a great device. They dropped the ball on menu navigation and file recognition... could use some work there, but otherwise, the device works well and does exactly what it is supposed to do

If you already have Apple TV or a similar little black box for playing Netflix, etc. etc. then you are going to wish you had gotten this one instead. Not only does it let you play all of the standard streaming services through your TV but this little unit has one extra feature that sets it head and shoulders above the rest - a USB input. This means that you can connect a hard drive, thumb drive, etc. to it and view your ripped movies or photos or music from it. I have a 1TB pocket sized HD that is full of movies that I have connected to this box. It means that the kids can watch any of our DVD collection from the little HD without the need for finding the DVDs and putting them in a DVD player. Basically, anything that sends out an audio or video signal and connects with a USB port can be played through this box. I also use the box for streaming my SlingBox to my TVs in my office at work. That saves one extra cable TV bill. It is an all-around excellent device and the longer you have it the more uses you will find for it. I am delighted with it.

I found the WD TV Live to be very easy to insatall and reasonably user friendly. I was surprized at the number of features and functions that are included with it, e.g. photo/file sharing, videos, radio, and many services. One thing that I wanted but did not get with it was the ability to stream my laptop directly through the TV. This would allow viewing/listening to videos and music stored on the laptop hard drive through my surround system. Unfortunately, this is not a feature of the TV Live. Maybe on another model, but I haven't discovered it yet.. All-in-All I am very happy with this product and would recommend it as a low cost way to access movies and music on demand at a very reasonable price.

I have searched for a device like this for years. My whole family loves it! Very easy to use, plays pretty much all popular formats, pulls up movie information from online, etc. HDMI connection, clock / temperature readings. For the money, this device is awesome!

This player is all that I hoped it would be and the picture quality is AMAZING. It reads all the files like a breeze. However, I am considering returning it as the lip sync is quite horrible. I am as it is very sensitive to lip sync (even for cable etc..I adjust my receiver)....and this one makes me go all the way to 180 milliseconds...and then also not stable. It is such a pity....I really love this thing. I will wait for few days to see if any firmware upgrade will solve.

I bought this to play movie files from my NAS hard drive to my TV. It plays every movie file format I've thrown at it. No problem streaming HD movies. It has an audio feature that allows you to alter the movie sound by fractions of a second to sync out of sync movies (don't use very often, but comes in handy for those occasional off track movies). Has standard services, netflix, hulu, etc. I bought a second one for my other TV. I have yet to find anything that come close to the WD Live. Wish it was a little cheaper.

It was very easy to install. I connected to a 25" TV which is not too great. Works well on newer TVs but the edges are cut off on the 25. The wireless works great. I stream movies/tv shows from my linux samba share perfectly. I just wish it had that ability to specify IP address for the SAMBA/CIFS server. Updates happen often and usually add some good features. The remote is good but not great. The spread of the IR is not too good so if you are sitting off to the side (45 degree angle) from the TV it does not always receive the signal.

Purchased the WD TV Live as a replacement for my Apple TV v1 as I wanted to subscribe to Netflix, have access to my personal video and music libraries via network and USB drive, and did not wish to patch the device as I needed to do with the ATV. Works as intended, though I have not spent much time with all the services (paid or otherwise). Setup was comparable to the ATV and the ability to link to my desktop hard drive placed it ahead of the Roku. Nice piece of engineering.

Purchased this item to run our video menu boards in our concessions. Set up was very easy and the quality is great.

This device is a great buy for the money. Sure using the remote control to enter Netflix titles is kind of a pain but it is so easy to setup, I think that makes up for it. Good wireless card and easy to use the USB port for additional content. I use this device for AV demonstrations and it has a great full 1080P HD picture. I have also used the composite cables for display and that looks very good too. Great deal for the price - If I didnt have a PS3 I would own one of these.

I bought this to play media files off a network drive and save my PS3. This plays whatever I've thrown at it, with whatever sound the file has - stereo, 5.1, etc. The remote is functional, but it seems to have a narrow field of responsiveness, and has a slight delay. This would be perfect if it could stream Amazon Instant Video. Hopefully they will include it soon.