Western Digital - WD TV Live Media Player

I've been waiting for years for an easy way to bring all of my music, photos, and videos to my TV and stereo at a reasonable price. I also hoped to be able to get Hulu and Netflix, but those weren't deal breakers for me. I finally took the plunge and I bought this unit, along with a network accessible storage (NAS) box. I pushed all of my pictures, music, and video from my PC to my new NAS, fired up the media server built into the NAS and then turned on the WD TV Live. The ui for the unit is simple and intuitive. I was able to easily see and connect to the media server. The problem was that the connection was unreliable. Sometimes things would play fine, but other times they would play for a minute and then drop out. The unit would say 'no media found in folder' even though it saw it before. I'd have to restart the WD TV Live and hope it would work the next time. I installed a few open-source media servers on my NAS, but they didn't work any better. I finally installed a commercial media server ($40) and it's been rock-solid ever since. I still don't know whether the problem was with the WD TV Live or the servers, but I've seen enough posts about flaky connectivity to think it's at least partially the WD TV Live. These connection issues are the only reason for my low 'performance' rating. I did try connecting an external hard drive to it and I didn't have any of the connectivity problems. . I do wish the UI were a bit more configurable, with the ability to toggle easily from thumbnail lists to text lists and back, some different skins, the ability to specify the size of the cover art in playback mode, different screensavers, etc., but the default is certainly usable and reasonably slick. I then turned my attention towards Hulu and Netflix. They don't have support built-in, at least not yet (I hope a firmware update will address that) but I was able to set up another commercial media server ($30 on sale) on my PC to do Hulu, Netfilx, Amazon, CBS, ESPN and some others Bottom line - hardware's great, but software's only so-so. It's a solid product that does what it's supposed to do. I'd definitely recommend it, but you may need some patience if you're trying to get it to connect to a media server.

First off, this is exactly what I've been waiting for a long time. I had my PC connected to my HDTV & surround sound and was getting "good" results. The problem was that the maximum resolution my 1080p HDTV would display content was 1440x900 since I was running it through a splitter connected to my monitor. The best I could get out of audio was stereo since it was only analog. I also didn't like to have to get up to change a show on my PC because I didn't have remote access. Not anymore. The WD TV Live has so far played every file I have thrown at it. I've played everything from standard def files to 720p & 1080p mkv. files and it works flawlessly. Everything is automatically upconverted to your TVs native resolution, so that's a plus. This device also supports Dolby Digital 5.1 and supports DTS(2.1 only). The Youtube support is pretty nice and if you are playing an HD/HQ video on Youtube it will automatically select the best quality version. If you have PlayOn on your computer, you can use Hulu on it as well! Now the issues I have...the remote is one. First off it looks and feels like something you expect to get with a $20 DVD player. It's also not extremely responsive but for the most part it does the job. The other problem is a big one though. The WD TV Live's big upgrade over the older model was suppose to be its networking capabilities. When it works, it works great. No need to transport an HDD back and forth because just as long as you "share" your external HDD to your network, the WD TV Live will read directly from it...that is if the unit wants to see your network. I've been running into the issue that whenever turn off the unit and turn it back on, it won't connect to my network. This is really annoying because I have to do stupid random stuff to get it to work again. So as of right now, I'm just going to keep it on all the time until this gets a firmware upgrade. I have no doubt there will be a firmware upgrade because it's an extremely popular device. If they fix that I'll give this thing a 5/5 because the remote issues aren't enough to set back from all the positives. And if you are experiencing networking issues please know that the option is always there to connect your external HDD for the time being. For the price this little gadget can not be beat.

I bought this media streamer to stream videos from a WIndows Home Server over my wireless-N network and to my LCD Tv. Overall it does a pretty good job, but like every new product that hits the market, it comes with it's fair share of bugs and from what I understand, WD are very slow to address and release fixes via firmware updates. Right now if you buy this product (as of Jan 2010) you'll get a firmware that does not play MP4 files properly. Any Mp4 files whether played over a wired or wireless LAN, will stutter during playback and also result in audio sync issues. WD are aware of the problem but have to date have not released a fix for it. If you go to WD's community website (google "wd live tv community") you'll see a lot of unhappy customers who have had problems with this player and have had little to none help from WD. Saying that, if you're not playing MP4 files then the streamer is pretty good, with good quality and smooth playback with video and the ability to recognize your shared network drives and stream with ease from them. The only other thing I found out is that there is a bug preventing displaying cover art when browsing network folders, again this is supposed to be addressed in a future firmware update, if that ever happens.. The menu system is clunky at best and I there are other competing products with better interfaces but overall this is an easy, cheap solution to getting various media from your computer, external hard drive of USB flash drives, direct to your Tv. If you can wait until March 2010 Syabase are going to release their new "PopBox" player for the same price that does the same, includes Netflix streaming, and has a much better interface.

Before I bought this unit I was using my XBOX 360 with Windows 7 Media Center as my primary media player. My televsion is the Samsung LN55B640 (120Hz). First thing I noticed is how smooth the image is now, regardless if the movie is streaming on the network or on a local USB drive (HD or SD). I have been able to play all my MKV (up to 10000 bitrate), MP4 (up to 10000 bitrate) and AVI files with various audio (AC3, AAC etc). Streaming works great on a wireless N network (Netgear WNDR3300 Router). Sharing via Windows Media Player (DLNA) or shared folders works perfectly. Access to YouTube is there. If you have an account you can see your own videos and some favorites but little else. You can't see your subscriptions (as far I can see). You can search, see top rated, most recent etc etc. The Pandora support is great and looks good enough to have on your Tv at a party (after disabling the screensaver on the unit). My favorite feature is being able to add a USB HDD to the WDTV Live and then be able to access the HDD from any PC on the network (provided your WDTV live is connected to your local network and powered on). I don't have unplug it, load all the content and then plug it back into the WDTV Live. The WDTV Live essentially shows up as a PC on your network automatically (Windows 7 and Mac OSX). The interface is minimalist, looks good and very easy to use. You can set it up based on what you like. I have set up items to show as a list (easier to view folder/files with long names) and then the preview thumbnail. So when viewing say 20 episodes and not sure which one you left off at, you don't need to start each one and see. It essentially shows you a preview automatically while you scroll. NICE! The unit is TINY! The remote is very small which some people will like. I prefer a larger remote. I bought this primarly to enjoy movies in various formats on my TV AND needed something that could access content on the network. I am loving it so far. This purchase was an absolute no-brainer. I also noticed there's a HUGE WDTV community and regular updates to the WDTV product lines. It's a matter of time before there are enhancements to the WDTV Live.

This thing has played everything I have thrown at it. MKV, AVI, MPEG, VOB, M2TS, MP3, FLAC. I am using the HDMI 1080P output and the AC3 output to my receiver. You can access the attached USB drive over your network and add and delete data off the USB drive. That is great for adding data without having to unplug the drive and power cord to take to another room, but the data copy speed is slow. In windows 7 it shows about 5-6Mbs. Over USB being 60-70Mbs. I have not been able to get the network interface to accept a static IP address, it always says it is not a valid IP. This device has stopped playing MP3 files off this USB hard disk two times and I have had to unplug the WD TV LIVE to get it backup up and going. But this could be due to the mp3 being small and maybe there is some cashing going on and the USB drive goes to sleep when there is not activity. The drive has to have at least 2GB of free space to index the drive. I have no idea why because the index files left behind on the drive only take up about 14MB of space and that is indexing about 800GB of media data. Also when playing MP3 file is does not show the track time correctly. For example, it will say the track is 55sec and the track is really 4 minutes +. This thing is awesome!! I thank the pros way over power the cons!! Most of them will probably be addressed in the next firmware update. I have been waiting about three month for this thing to come out. It only took about 20 minutes to get hook up and to get on my network. It has played every file I have thrown at it. The Pandora is awesome and does not ask if you are still lessoning like the web GUI does and has not taken any time off my 40 hours a month. I am using a Sata Dock on mine and it seems to work fine. I also programmed this into my harmony universal remote. There was no code for the live so I used the WD TV code and it works great. It even response faster to the harmony then it does the OEM remote. I mainly got this so my daughter does not have to touch DVDs. All the movies are in one place and no scratched media. Ok Ok and I wanted one

I used my XBOX 360 as a media server, but with the popularity of MKV files, I was tired of encoding my files to work with the 360. So I gave the WD HD Live a try. Wow, what a great product. Plays MP3, AVI, MP4, MKV, displays JPG's, it does it all. I have a SAMBA share setup, which the WD HD recognized with no problem. I stream my iTunes library with no issues. Since MKV files are large, I tend to copy them to the attached external HD, to speed up performance. My one complaint is that there doesn't seem to be any visualization during music playback, like I am used to with the XBOX 360 media player. I also can't seem to build a playlist from within the UI of the WD TV like I can with the XBOX 360. Oh and the included component cable is kind of cheesy. It's got the standard RGB connectors at one end a mini connector at the other end. Problem is, the cable is only like 12 inches long. I ended up using the HDMI cable, but I have an older TV in my basement and it doesn't have HDMI. The component connector is at the bottom of the TV, and the cable won't reach from the back where the connect is, to the top of the TV or my AV rack. Overall this is a great product, especially considering the price. The interface is a little boring, but it plays just every file format I have tried thus far, so hard to beat that!

We bought this to play back the terabytes of video and audio to the bed room tv. Currently we have been doing the same with a Xbox 360 in conjunction with Playon and TVversity with decent success in the living room. The issue with the 360 is in its inability to play videos that have 6 channel audio or some other file formats without having a slew of apps to convert the files to a 2 channel supported video. With the WD live box I have yet to find a video that it hasn’t been able to play...be it 6 channel or 2 channel or anything from quicktime to divX. One thing I do wish for is the ability to hide folders or customize what is available within the GUI. It is a lil slow on searching the directories but that could be due to having 4.5 TB of files. I have also found that it seems to be a bit smoother on accessing files by accessing them as a shared drive vs. finding them through the XP media player. This may not be a issue for those out there running Windows 7. I’ve been too lazy to test this theory and will update this once I have. One other thing that really put a smile on my face was the ability to use Playon to access the directories of Netflix and HULU to have them directly on the plasma. As most know Netflix requires you to queue them from a computer to access from a device. With this set up you can queue and access them without going to a computer. Overall I think this appliance is great! It could use some more abilities in the customization of the GUI but over all I am very happy. I'm about to get another to replace the 360 in the living room resulting in no more file conversions and swapping out my 2 channel medial for 6 as in full Blue ray rips.

First off the product is fantastic once its up and running. It's a real technological feat that such a small box can decode MKV HD video streaming from a computer and to output such a clear picture! The issue was being able to get it to do that. Taking the device out of the box and hooking it up, I was surprised to find that I was having some issues with the WDtv Live finding the shared folders and instead giving me a pointless username/password screen (which I would like highlight the pointless part). So after a little bit of looking around I found that Windows 7 was giving all sort of problems with the device. Looking to Western Digital first, they told me that all I needed to do was to add the WDtv to the approved Media Devices in the control panel. But for me and plenty of other people online, this isn't enough. To be able to simply stream video from your computer to your WDtv, may end up being a test of patience and knowledge Samba of permissions. In the end I was forced to modify my computer's registry in order for anything to work. The long and short of it. If you have Windows 7 and you are looking to buy this, make sure they have fixed the issues by the time of purchase.