Did not see a thread, so here goes. What functions you would realistically like to see in this. Can we limit this to what probably involves firmware changes only?
Hopefully our friends here from WD can help us out :)

I only have a couple:

Previous & Next keys skip chapters, not files (or warn there are no chapters, or selectable between the two).

Remember which folder I was in when I powered off, or give us a Favorites class for folders. "All" gets pretty messy.

DTS-HD passthrough.

Ability to turn off the default displays when starting (or resuming) a video (audio, progress bar).


Have at it.

Ability to create music play lists on the fly.
DVD menus. :)

multichannel flac in mkv files.

why? this will allow you to take multichannel pcm, truehd, dts ma, dd+, and repackage to flac (using your pc). flac is an open source lossless codec (no license issues). then you only need to support one codec to get full quality hd audio.

the player should be able to decode multichannel flac and either send it out hdmi as multichannel lpcm....or downmix it to stereo ... or downmix to 5.1 dd.

this will put full quality hd audio on any hdmi recever that can support multichannel lpcm (almost all of them vs. only the ones that support bitstreaming hd codecs).

this will also allow the player to take the same lossless audio and convert to 5.1 for optical or convert to stereo for older avr support, or direct connection to tvs ... or some other that cannot handle 8 channel lpcm on hdmi.

if the player can decode and downmix multichannel flac then there is no need for a core ac3 or dts track and the files can be smaller (better for streaming and disc space).

USB Hub, DVD and BD drive support - as part of the official firmware.

Ability to play flv (and realmedia) files from hard drive.

A shorter menu structure. Network drives and local USB drives should not need to be segregated, for example.

Ability to download vidcasts (and podcasts) from iTunes. They already play fine, but you have to manually download them and then put them on a hard drive or network share for the WDTV.

More content providers like dailymotion; maybe provide a way to set them up the same way youtube is already set up.

bt client.

Ability to change the current playlist from a computer. So that you could set up the video that will play after the current video finishes, without having to navigate through the WDTV's menu system. Or change what songs will play next for music.

Video mixing and transitions (on the fly): mostly for music videos. I have no idea if the WDTV Live is powerful enough to do Video Jockey type tasks, but that would be ideal. It would also need to be controlled by computer, or some type of Video Jockey playlist.

User editable menu system so I can just bookmark my TV, Movie, Music network shares etc. and have that the default screen upon startup. I don't want to have to navigate all the other crap hanging off of my network.

(à la XBMC)

network share to work! and firmware upgrades prompt!

Remove the display of the audio format infromation that is shown for a few seconds every time a video starts.

This is no good popping up every time a music video starts - and my WDTV1 does not do this.

It could be left under the Options=>Audio icon menu if anyone really needed this information.

Other than that my WDTV Live is top notch.

Regards,

Lt. Dang

Better power management, this thing is warm as long as its plugged in.

Given the number of people on here whose samba shares either show up inconsistently or not at all, I'd really like to see that become more stable. Alternatively, add NFS.

A) Better handling of HDMI handshake...
I can't get WDTV Live to work with my HDTV.
BD player and laptop connected via HDMI work with no problems so this would seem like a WDTV problem.

B) Playing stuff straight from archives (.rar for sure) just like XBMC does it.

C) This is a long shot but for hardware an eSATA port would be awesome just like Asus's O!Play. This would make this into one nice compact NAS controller. According to b-rad and the chip specs there is SATA i/o support but, alas, no actual port.

....

Z) If my dream of having an eSATA port ever comes true it better be paired up with a GigE port as well. I can see this for the next version of WDTV ... like WDTV3 (or is it WDTV Live 2)?

1. Better networking code - currently completely broken SAMBA support
2. Support for film info, fanart, etc ala XBMC

agreed ^^ I don't know who WDC outsourced the coding project to - dump them stat!

good hardware + wonky code = fail


also add gapless audio support :D

Chapter advance on the remote instead of the annoying next video.

Simultaneous HDMI and Composite OR Component and Composite video outputs.

I just need DTS-MA pass-through(bitstream). If they r not giving that in 30 days, I am gonna return this and get popcorn C-200.

Display music tracks in order, no matter which view you use.

DVD menu support (not that I need it, but it seems like everybody else does)

REPLAYGAIN & GAPLESS PLAYBACK OF AUDIO TRACKS!! How hard can it be to do this?

NFS network support.

Everything else is working pretty darn good for me. :o

network share to work! and firmware upgrades prompt!

I came here to post this. Pissed off that I spent $130 on a Pandora player, the only thing that works exactly the way I'd expect.

Skip to time, such as 01:20:00 or even percent into the movie.

Remove the display of the audio format infromation that is shown for a few seconds every time a video starts.

This is no good popping up every time a music video starts - and my WDTV1 does not do this.

It could be left under the Options=>Audio icon menu if anyone really needed this information.

Other than that my WDTV Live is top notch.

Regards,

Lt. Dang

I SECOND THIS REQUEST and hope WD fixes this immediately! No only the audio info but even the movie info ....

Complete the HDMI handshake before commencing playback. The first couple of notes of songs are getting cut off. This didn't happen with my original WDTV (on the same receiver with the same HDMI port and cable). Happens even if I hit NEXT to skip a track.

What about the ability to plug in a usb keyboard so that we won't have to take 5 minutes just to type and search something in youtube. And a usb mouse support as well would be nice if the WDTV guys can put in a browser app in there. There may or may not be a hardware limitation but hell I don't know ;)

I wish mine worked worth a damn, does that count?

Ability to TURN OFF functions so they don't show up (Like 'Media Servers' or YouTube or Pandora) in the relevant folder. I'm also not really happy about having all the shares and computers on my network displayed, everything I have is on a single share on a single computer, so everything else is garbage.

Also, dump the network discovery and implement a basic prompt with smb:// to connect network drives. Saves a heap of hassle of instructions if you can just say 'find the computer name, enter smb://name/share' and have it like a 'virtual' USB device.

It would be nice to have remote viewing/control ala VNC. I don't know how to control, though, but maybe obvious keys could map to remote buttons (direction keys, enter). Maybe keys like P for play, S for stop etc.

Hi all....

Here's what i think would be very helpful:

If we could switch between audio channels (tracks) when watching a movie with multiple audio tracks, w/o going to Options (on WDTV Live remote control) it would be very nice!!! In other words, if you could make a shortcuts on the direction buttons for audio channels, so we can change audio tracks with direction (up/down) buttons.... see below...

http://s15.radikal.ru/i189/0911/48/56ece29ce6e4.png

What do you think?

Thanks in advance!!!!

Would like to see the ability ti skip chapters on DVDs. Perhaps playing the VIDEO_TS.IFO file could make this possible and maybe it would play DVD's seamessly for DVD's broken into multiple VOB files instead of stopping for a second to load the next VOB in a directory.

I wish i can manaully assign which computers to see and manaully connect shares such as such as hidden shares - \\severname\movies$

Netflix support would be great

Accept Videos from Windows 7 Media Player (v12) 'Play To' function.

Currently works for MP3 audios, but videos are sent to the device, it plays the sound track but fails to display the video.

DVD/BD Menu, DTS-HD MA passthrough, Mutichannel PCM support.

Id like to see more network support.... in that I have my router upstairs a 100ft cable running downstairs to my closet with a switch that provides internet to my, tv, blu ray, etc.... when I connect to the switch it will not work (cannot obtain IP)... when connected to the router directly it does... I called WD last night and the fellow said that it "MIGHT" get fixed on the next firmware update... but I did not get the impression from him that he knew what he was talking about.

Step 2 in the network setup states to connect to your router or SWITCH.. then I find on the web the compatible list of devices none of which include a switch???

The whole thing perplexes me.. in that my samsung tv can connect thru the switch to the web just fine... and its not being marketed as a home NETWORK media player.

Support for BBC iPlayer please (in the UK). Was watching iPlayer on my friend's PS3 the other day and it's a fantastic feature.

-Proper HDMI resolution switching. For instance, when I start a 1080p/24 file the WDTV Live shows that it is sending 1080p/60 so I have to go in and manually change the resolution to 1080p/24.
-DTS MA pass through.
-DVD and BD ISO menus support.

Netflix support would be great

Here here! Netflix would make this thing amazing.

Skip to time, such as 01:20:00 or even percent into the movie.

That would be great. Trying to fast forward at 16x on a single movie mkv file is painful. At least offer faster fast forward speeds of 32x and 200x.

Yes. Make that another vote for a time skipping feature. Say 10% of the movie for each skip using the side arrow keys or maybe a progressively larger time skip as you hold the arrow down longer. My old media player has these features and I find them invaluable.

Does WDTV Live support Audio Delay Adjustment?

Move the subs a little bit down. They are too high i think...

- Netflix support

- faster FF more than 16X

- support file shortcuts on network share (that is knows how to get and play the file from its real location). Currently shortcuts are ignored.

- password protection for certain network folders, that is from the UI I can set certain folders by their name to require a password to be entered. Think of it as parental control.

DTS WAV file support please.

- Netflix support

- faster FF more than 16X

- support file shortcuts on network share (that is knows how to get and play the file from its real location). Currently shortcuts are ignored.

- password protection for certain network folders, that is from the UI I can set certain folders by their name to require a password to be entered. Think of it as parental control.

you could always put the pron on a removable thumbdrive. :D

Yes. Make that another vote for a time skipping feature. Say 10% of the movie for each skip using the side arrow keys or maybe a progressively larger time skip as you hold the arrow down longer. My old media player has these features and I find them invaluable.

There is already this feature.
During playback press FF then NEXT to jump forward by 10 minutes.
During playback press REV then PREV to jump backward by 10 minutes.

You are wasting your time requesting features from WD.

You are "knocking on the deaf man's door" as we say in my country.

You should know better by now... Only new features WD HD TV1 got was thumbnails and flac in mkv... Really dissapointing... You 'll probably be lucky if they fix the current bugs...

You are wasting your time requesting features from WD.

You are "knocking on the deaf man's door" as we say in my country.

You should know better by now... Only new features WD HD TV1 got was thumbnails and flac in mkv... Really dissapointing... You 'll probably be lucky if they fix the current bugs...

You wish I think. :)

Hi all....

Here's what i think would be very helpful:

If we could switch between audio channels (tracks) when watching a movie with multiple audio tracks, w/o going to Options (on WDTV Live remote control) it would be very nice!!! In other words, if you could make a shortcuts on the direction buttons for audio channels, so we can change audio tracks with direction (up/down) buttons.... see below...

http://s15.radikal.ru/i189/0911/48/56ece29ce6e4.png

What do you think?

Thanks in advance!!!!

nice idea ,

I wish an option to preview files from the middle or 5-10 minutes after , this will really be helpful in finding anime episodes

You are wasting your time requesting features from WD.

You are "knocking on the deaf man's door" as we say in my country.

You should know better by now... Only new features WD HD TV1 got was thumbnails and flac in mkv... Really dissapointing... You 'll probably be lucky if they fix the current bugs...

+1

"Everyone" can see that!

You are wasting your time requesting features from WD.
And you are not wasting your time by posting such thoughtful insight?

We can't complain that the box doesn't have what we want if we don't LET SOMEONE KNOW now can we?

And you are not wasting your time by posting such thoughtful insight?

We can't complain that the box doesn't have what we want if we don't LET SOMEONE KNOW now can we?

True... but I also believe that User Voice was created for that! And for months and months there is no news from WD there... everything is frozen in "started", "under review" and "planned"!

I'd prefer them to fix all bugs first like

- remove transparency from srt subs outline
- make mp3s not mute the first frames of a song on skip
- etc.

before adding anything new! Once this is done:

If we could switch between audio channels (tracks) when watching a movie with multiple audio tracks, w/o going to Options (on WDTV Live remote control) it would be very nice!!!
Up to cycle through audio, down to cycle through subs.

maybe it would play DVD's seamessly for DVD's broken into multiple VOB files instead of stopping for a second to load the next VOB in a directory.
Or maybe you could put them in a VIDEO_TS folder to get seamless playback as mentioned several times.

Better Power Management.

The device is constantly on even when it is turned off. Instead of just blacking the video out, actually have the option to turn the unit off.

Better Power Management.

The device is constantly on even when it is turned off. Instead of just blacking the video out, actually have the option to turn the unit off.

meh. This one has been done to death. The current draw on this thing is miniscule. There's many others things needing fixing ahead of this one.

Better Power Management.

The device is constantly on even when it is turned off. Instead of just blacking the video out, actually have the option to turn the unit off.

Then the remote would not work to turn it back on. ALL devices that use a remote go into some sort of powered standby mode.

Three big things for me keeping this from being the best device out there.

1) 480i over component. Composite video is crap.
2) When using network shares, only show video format files when Video is selected. It's the thing that kills WAF... If I'm going to watch a video, I don't care what JPGs are in the folder.
3) The ability to hide media servers. It doesn't do any good to show me my DirecTV receivers and all the other PCs in my house if I can't watch videos on them.

Would like to see the ability to turn on/off all on-screen status overlays. That includes what audio format/track is playing when a video starts up, and the play/pause/timeline display. When I press "play" or start play out of pause, all that stuff should disappear instantly instead of lngering there for five seconds as it does now. Most DVD players can do at least that as a setup option. It's already a layer on top of the video that's playing, can't be too hard to work the firmware to let us turn it off if we want to.

Also support for the DV camcorder flavor of .AVI. I can't believe it doesn't support at least that. It also won't play the .MOV video files out of my Panasonic still camera, even though they're nothing proprietary.

Sure about that? What codecs are used in those AVIs and MOVs?

Sure about that? What codecs are used in those AVIs and MOVs?

According to WD's specs, the AVI formats it supports are Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4. It doesn't support the DV format used in consumer or professional camcorders. Doing a quick Google search, I'm not the only left out by that omission.

My Panasonic DMZ-TZ50 digital camera does SD and HD video in .MOV format, as Quicktime MJPEG's. According to the specs, .MOV is supported only in MPEG4, h.264 format. So that's why those don't play either.

There's nothing defective about those files, I drag them into Sony Vegas all the time, in their native format, for playback and editing. Quicktime (the free version) plays the Panasonic digital camera files just fine.

When browsing, I would like to see it display a short text file if the file is named the same as the video file - like it does with a .jpg for the thumbnail, only with a .txt.

Basically like the info that pops up on most satellite receivers when viewing the guide.

I know it may sound lame, but I have dumped my dvds to files and I don't immediately know what the movie is about given only the title - thumbnails are nice, but kinda small to read ( for my older eyes anyway).

Anyway, I like it so far.

I would like less navigating to my source media which are network shares upon start up. So perhaps when the device powers up it could go directly Videos/Network Shares/Computer Name/Share Name instead of always having to navigate there. Also I would like the ability to filter out other network devices that the WDTV Live player sees such as other computers that are on the network etc etc..

network share to work! and firmware upgrades prompt!

I concur! this is ashame, the most important feature doesn't work, and not being fixed. I'm wondering how did they even pass QA??? /fire QA manager :)

all im doing now is turn on the wd tv, check network share, nothing happens, turn off and watch TV instead.

Better FF/REW ! The current functions sucks at the moment.

In avi its glacially slow, and in dvd's its almost too fast.

As has been suggested elsewhere, allow the arrow keys to control skipping minutes forward and backward (preferably in any playable medium) depending on if the info bar is visible, like so perhaps:

Ie:

If you are just playing the video (and the info bar is NOT visible) the arrow keys skip this way:

RIGHT ARROW: Jumps forward 10 seconds
LEFT ARROW: Jumps back 10 seconds

UP ARROW: Jumps forward 30 seconds
DOWN ARROW: Jumps back 30 seconds.

IF you are showing the info bar - either from having pressed the ENTER key or, via the PAUSE key the arrow keys skip this way:

RIGHT ARROW: Jumps forward 10 minutes
LEFT ARROW: Jumps back 10 minutes

UP ARROW: Jumps forward 30 minutes
DOWN ARROW: Jumps back 30 minutes

Time amounts (ie 10 seconds etc) could be set via the options (and possibly even that the keys are used for time skipping, since some people seem to want it for other things)

According to WD's specs, the AVI formats it supports are Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4. It doesn't support the DV format used in consumer or professional camcorders. Doing a quick Google search, I'm not the only left out by that omission.


I am one of those too, it is a chip flaw (or designed flaw?), supposedly Sigma , Realtek cannot "read" DV avi. There is a billion camcorders that recorded and still record that codec and those players omit that. One is still forced render something to something. Also DV avi is 100% legal stuff. Home videos, corporate videos......sad, but anyway, I'm glad that those players are here at all as a BD killers or things that explain that not only overpriced BD's are here to play back HD videos.

I'd rather say it's a design flaw on part of the camcorder manufacturers who try to tie customers to their brand by using proprietary video codecs instead of free onces like xvid and co.

I'd rather say it's a design flaw on part of the camcorder manufacturers who try to tie them to your brand by using proprietary video codecs instead of free onces like xvid and co.

Absolutely agree.

When browsing, I would like to see it display a short text file if the file is named the same as the video file - like it does with a .jpg for the thumbnail, only with a .txt.


Yeah, why not, add support for .nfo files.

It would be great if the Op or someone else can come up with a summary of all the wishes (or the most wanted ones). May be have a poll or something.

Ability to play karaoke mp3+g files. vlc, GOM, other media players for windows play those. It would be nice if this was a feature in wdtv live. I don't think its that complicated to add this feature.

The concept is there and what this little thing has the potential to do is amazing. The decoding, encoding and ability to transcode so many different codecs is amazing from something this small, but what are the detailed limitations of the codecs? There is not enough detailed information from WD on what this can actually do and it would be nice to have a roadmap of what IS being addressed and what NEVER will be addressed. There are a lot of bugs in this and it feels like a beta project. I actually feel swindled because it seems like WD is doing a public beta test without acknowledging it. Here is what I think should be done and this actually sums up a lot of other users comments and their issues they would like addressed:

1: Networking - This is suppose to be able to work with UPnP and network shares. Get the networking addressed IMMEDIATELY. There are a ton of people out there that can not use this feature and this is why they bought it. BTW, have the ability to add the domain I specify from my DHCP server instead of WORKGROUP.

2: DVD\BD Menus and Chapters from ISO, VOB, MKV - Hell, it should already work with ISO and VOB since it is a direct rip...

3: DTS-HD MA passthrough and Mutichannel PCM support - HD video but not the audio. Makes sense.

4: Proper HDMI handshake - As many have put it already, if it can detect the video, play the video, then it should be able to send the proper handshake for resolution and Hz.

5: Current menu system - If I go under Video, then media servers, I am not looking for audio, pictures etc.....Simplify the entire process and do not choose video, music, pictures, etc. I hate backing out to go to another menu on the same share I was already at! Just have the option for Media Server, Network Share, USB, ALL Devices and use the menu structure off of those devices and not the one built in. I hate to say it but talk to MS about the Library capability in Win 7 and integrate that into this....This would solve all the menu issues that way I can choose what shares with what folders from what devices. I can have a favorites Library or All Shares Library.

6: A favorites section - I would love it if I could have a favorites section that saves my favorite network share locations, media servers etc. Refer to #6!

7: Password Protection - I should be able to password protect individual folders for access BEFORE accessing the share.

8: Hide Folders / Media Devices - Lets face it, directv's ability to program a UPnP enabled box successfully...well, sucks. You can't even view the encrypted files so I don't want to see it. Use a built in PW system that hides everything and unhides everything with a password.

I doubt if more than 1 of these items actually gets addressed throughout the life of this product. One can hope, because If WD gets on the ball and actually listens to users and does not only fix the bugs but adds even more capability, wow. Notice fix the bugs came before more capability!

Remove the display of the audio format infromation that is shown for a few seconds every time a video starts.

This is no good popping up every time a music video starts - and my WDTV1 does not do this.

It could be left under the Options=>Audio icon menu if anyone really needed this information.

Other than that my WDTV Live is top notch.

Regards,

Lt. Dang

Could not agree more - just upgraded from WDTV v1 and this is REALLY annoying - reason enough to regret the upgrade for me as I use it as a video jukebox!!!!