Western Digital - WD TV Live Media Player (WDTV2)

bcsarge · 10-10-09, 08:26 PM

To the person that streamed successfully with their Macbook.
How are you sharing your files?

Currently I have file sharing set up on my Macbook with is connected wirelessly to my Airport. The WD Live is connected to the Airport. I can access the drive and move files to it from my Mac, but no luck on accessing my Mac to play video on the WD Live.

Any suggestions?

awmR · 10-10-09, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbal

Under the settings menu/network, are you able to connect to your files? I started there. Can you see your computer name in the list that appears there? All my computers were list on this screen and when I clicked on one of the computers it asked me for a login/password.

Speedbal

Speedbal - thanks for the quick response.

under "network Settings" - I don't see any other machines on my network.

Where would i see them? "wireless favorites"?

all of the entries in there just say "(EMPTY)"

Goba · 10-10-09, 08:42 PM

How about the 1080p 24Hz? Do it work perfect for 23,976fps movies?

How about the subs? Are they perfect? There are more options like position, colour, "on the fly" sync?

Glad to see that the player can read 1080p 16 reframes... they could have thought about that before releasing WD TV 1 for it to read at least more than 5 reframes!

speedbal · 10-10-09, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by awmR

Speedbal - thanks for the quick response.

under "network Settings" - I don't see any other machines on my network.

Where would i see them? "wireless favorites"?

all of the entries in there just say "(EMPTY)"

I mispoke earlier when I said under the network menu (sorry). Can you see your other computers under the "file management" item in the settings menu? That is where I saw the list of my computers on my network. That is where it asked me for my l/p info.

speedbal

speedbal · 10-10-09, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcsarge

To the person that streamed successfully with their Macbook.
How are you sharing your files?

Currently I have file sharing set up on my Macbook with is connected wirelessly to my Airport. The WD Live is connected to the Airport. I can access the drive and move files to it from my Mac, but no luck on accessing my Mac to play video on the WD Live.

Any suggestions?

In the video menu are you using the "Media servers" entry or the "network shares" entry? While I haven't tried anything from my mac yet, I can access my files with the network shares option, it doesn't let me do anything on the media servers entry (for a windows computer). If I get time I will see if I can stream from my imac (however, no promises since the kids want to watch a movie on this thing now).

speedbal

awmR · 10-10-09, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbal

I mispoke earlier when I said under the network menu (sorry). Can you see your other computers under the "file management" item in the settings menu? That is where I saw the list of my computers on my network. That is where it asked me for my l/p info.

speedbal

speedbal -

under file management, i only see the 2 usb drives that i have plugged in directly to the wd tv.

is there something i have to set up on my mac first?

i should mention that when i first connected my ethernet cable to the wd tv, it never asked me "wired or wireless", as the wd tv user guide said it would.

but i have to assume that i'm connected since you tube and all that work, and i can run the network test and it checks out ok

delphiguru · 10-10-09, 09:07 PM

WDTV2 can play video direct from Youtube ? ( good quality ? )

and...

when i turn off WD2 from remote control , USB is always active ? ( bug hardware... of WD1 )

ScottWD · 10-10-09, 09:09 PM

http://twitpic.com/l1ual - Enable SMB file sharing on your Mac

speedbal · 10-10-09, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by awmR

speedbal -

under file management, i only see the 2 usb drives that i have plugged in directly to the wd tv.

is there something i have to set up on my mac first?

i should mention that when i first connected my ethernet cable to the wd tv, it never asked me "wired or wireless", as the wd tv user guide said it would.

but i have to assume that i'm connected since you tube and all that work, and i can run the network test and it checks out ok

I have my mac with windows file sharing enabled.....

see here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...5/en/8201.html

speedbal · 10-10-09, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottWD

http://twitpic.com/l1ual - Enable SMB file sharing on your Mac

Damn.... you beat me to it...

How's it going Scott? This device is working great for me.... GOOD WORK at WD!!!

speedbal · 10-10-09, 09:20 PM

Those of you looking for an unboxing video.... here is one on youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzcvQqP0buk

(not me by the way, I was looking to see if anyone did a video on the interface)

speedbal

ScottWD · 10-10-09, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbal

Damn.... you beat me to it...

How's it going Scott? This device is working great for me.... GOOD WORK at WD!!!

Heya speedbal, glad you like it. We've been busy with all these new products for the holidays. Stay tuned for all the news and launch details!

-ScottWD

awmR · 10-10-09, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedbal

Damn.... you beat me to it...

How's it going Scott? This device is working great for me.... GOOD WORK at WD!!!

ok - i'm almost there - you guys are a huge help

so now i can see my public folder on the wd tv.

all of my media is in itunes, which pulls from an attached drive to my mac via firewire

i thought i could just put an alias for the parent folder of all my itunes content into my public folder - but all i see in my public folder is my drop box.

any ideas?

again - much thanks for this

speedbal · 10-10-09, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottWD

Heya speedbal, glad you like it. We've been busy with all these new products for the holidays. Stay tuned for all the news and launch details!

-ScottWD

All of these products...... there is more?????? Hmm... wondering if I should have waited to see what is in store.

The announcement details eminent?

ScottWD · 10-10-09, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by awmR

ok - i'm almost there - you guys are a huge help

so now i can see my public folder on the wd tv.

all of my media is in itunes, which pulls from an attached drive to my mac via firewire

i thought i could just put an alias for the parent folder of all my itunes content into my public folder - but all i see in my public folder is my drop box.

any ideas?

again - much thanks for this

Open File Sharing > drag your Mac HDD or whatever folder you want over > make sure the everyone group has at least Read Only.

awmR · 10-10-09, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottWD

Open File Sharing > drag your Mac HDD or whatever folder you want over > make sure the everyone group has at least Read Only.

perfect.

thanks so much - to both of you.

you just saved me the trouble of explaining to my wife that i just dropped $140 on something i'm too stupid to use.

loving this device by the way - pandora was a great addition.

time to move the old wd tv up to the bedroom

thanks again!

drcos · 10-10-09, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nube

You're positive it's passing both HD audio formats via HDMI? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With audio out set to digital:
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and 7.1 come through on HDMI as TrueHD (Dolby City Redux is 7.1, Dolby Countdown is 5.1, DDPlus bumper is 7.1. My Yamaha sees them as TrueHD and DDPlus.
DTS-MA is apparently being output as DTS core (5.1 @ 768k) on both the DTSMA trailer and ST:TOS episodes from S1 and S2.
No output for AAC (Apple trailers).

With audio out set to stereo:
Dolby TrueHD and DDPlus are still being passed through as multichannel (5.1/7.1).
DTSMA is output as stereo PCM.
AAC is output as stereo PCM.

Firmware is 1.01.00, up to date according to 'update device'

Now if I can figure out how to get the DDPlus off of my HD-DVDs...

srauly · 10-10-09, 10:25 PM

I wanted to follow up with some things I learned since my last "first impressions" post. At that time, I was ready to box it up and return it. I had already bought an Acer AspireRevo with the intention of installing XBMC on it (I'm a long time XBox w/XBMC user). I may still end up going that route, but I did want to provide some updates on my prior criticisms of the WDTV Live...

Quote:

Originally Posted by srauly

My Blu-ray rip .ISO didn't start off at the beginning. This could be a problem with my rip software, but I don't think so.

Derelict_Drvr suggested that perhaps my .ISO rip was the problem here, and I'm willing to accept this theory. I haven't been able to play the .ISO at all on my Acer AspireRevo running XBMC and I'm not sure what Windows apps can play .ISO files (I've tried PowerDVD 8 and Media Center Classic Home Cinema - any other ideas?), so I have no way to confirm this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by srauly

Where are the previous/next chapter buttons? I see a PREV and NEXT button on the remote, but it doesn't navigate through chapters. Rather, it moves to the previous/next movie in my list.

One or more people pointed out that if I went into FF mode, I could then use the "Next" button to jump 10 minutes. That's more counterintuitive than I'd like, but I'm also a long-time TiVo user, so it's not that different than what they do. In any case, it gets the job done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by srauly

The grid display of movies is awful. The thumbnails are way too tiny. I want a list view, with a long list of movie titles on one side and a large boxart or fanart image of the highlighted movie. Can't seem to do that.

No one recommended it, but I did discover that there are two other view modes (list mode and preview mode). Ideally, I'd like a list mode with boxart or fanart (or even just decent-sized thumbnails). Is such a thing possible?

Quote:

Originally Posted by srauly

I've got a user/password set up on my share. So I enter that info. OK. But every time I select Video/Network Shares, it brings up the user/password prompt (pre-filled with what I used previously). Why is it bothering me with that?

Based on what I've seen so far, this UI has a very poor WAF. Strike that. The UI scores poorly on my own acceptance factor.[/quote]Thanks to blackssr for the tip about setting "auto log in". One problem solved.

When all is said and done, the UI is still horrible IMO. But I mainly use my XBox w/XBMC to play back my ripped movies, and I could probably get by with the WDTV Live's awful UI for that purpose. The small size, low price, and high-bitrate content compatibility are certainly compelling.

speedbal · 10-10-09, 11:03 PM

Here is a video of the interface..... Let me apologize in advance.... it is not very good quality and it does shake some (it was done from an Iphone).

It will at least give you an idea of the interface (very similar to original wdtv).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQdSLOhrVMc

once again... I apologize for the the quality... maybe someone with a better camera can do a better job

speedbal

bigjsouth · 10-10-09, 11:52 PM

@ speedbal

Thanks for the video! Wheres the thumbnail mode? IMG_0722.jpg As seen in this attachment WDTV 1.

joshjoshlol · 10-11-09, 12:14 AM

i'm wondering if the WDTV team included tag hiding in .ssa/.ass subtitles. can anybody mux this subtitle file into an mkv along with any old video and see if the tags within {} braces are hidden/displayed on the WDTV Live?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6z0mp7

i've put in a variety of tags, such as bold, italic, place movement, translator comment, etc. greatly appreciated if anybody could test it.

speedbal · 10-11-09, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigjsouth

@ speedbal

Thanks for the video! Wheres the thumbnail mode? Attachment 154960 As seen in this attachment WDTV 1.

Still there.......

speedbal

zoro · 10-11-09, 12:30 AM

did every one cancel their amazon orders? I am waiting just to confirm, if jr send me the right unit lol

Derelict_Drvr · 10-11-09, 01:20 AM

@zoro-

I haven't canceled mine yet. I am waiting to see if Provantage sends me the one I ordered from them. If Amazon has not at least told me when the unit is coming in by then, it's all over but the crying for them. It is going to cost me an extra $20, but WTF. At least I am going to get one by Christmas.

zoro · 10-11-09, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derelict_Drvr

@zoro-

I haven't canceled mine yet. I am waiting to see if Provantage sends me the one I ordered from them. If Amazon has not at least told me when the unit is coming in by then, it's all over but the crying for them. It is going to cost me an extra $20, but WTF. At least I am going to get one by Christmas.

Well, i have one from best buy too! I will pick up tomorrow i guess and then return.

techflaws · 10-11-09, 03:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derelict_Drvr

Why?

DVD Menus? So you can select the 7th Family Guy episode instead of having to skip all the way though? And no, I'm not re-reripping my originals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by srauly

When all is said and done, the UI is still horrible IMO. But I mainly use my XBox w/XBMC to play back my ripped movies, and I could probably get by with the WDTV Live's awful UI for that purpose.

Actuall, I think the WD TV UI is the most attractive of all standalone players so far, right next to XBMC. Far better than the Asus O!Play GUI for example.

iboum · 10-11-09, 03:43 AM

The WDTV interface is lots better than any of the Realtek players so far. If it also plays back the bird scene, and copes with Dolby TrueHD / DTS MA, then we have a very interesting proposition on our hands.

Could someone who has one please open up the top, remove the stickers from the tops of the chips, lift up the heatsink (if poss) and photograph the inside in detail? Please?!

Based on posts here, the WDTV Live appears to be considerably more powerful than any previous player.

vaust · 10-11-09, 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iboum

The WDTV interface is lots better than any of the Realtek players so far. If it also plays back the bird scene, and copes with Dolby TrueHD / DTS MA, then we have a very interesting proposition on our hands.

Could someone who has one please open up the top, remove the stickers from the tops of the chips, lift up the heatsink (if poss) and photograph the inside in detail? Please?!

Based on posts here, the WDTV Live appears to be considerably more powerful than any previous player.

or scott here could just give us the information thus saving the hassle or possibly breaking brand spanking new wdtv

daskino · 10-11-09, 03:57 AM

have not heard of a SIgma SMP8635 chip that could handle a 16 ref frame movie yet, Could the WDTV2 be packing a Sigma 8655 SoC chip?

hijack · 10-11-09, 04:52 AM

Scott can you post the list of the storage devices compatible with WT tv Live? Are WD Share Space units compatible threw streaming and are we able to play all the Wdtv Live supported formats using WD Share Space? Thanks in advance.

10-10-09, 08:26 PM	#331 \| Link	<a href='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adclick.php?n=a4ac4393' target='_blank'><img src='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adview.php?what=zone:30&n=a4ac4393' border='0' alt=''></a>
bcsarge New Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 1	Network Streaming To the person that streamed successfully with their Macbook. How are you sharing your files? Currently I have file sharing set up on my Macbook with is connected wirelessly to my Airport. The WD Live is connected to the Airport. I can access the drive and move files to it from my Mac, but no luck on accessing my Mac to play video on the WD Live. Any suggestions?

10-10-09, 09:07 PM	#337 \| Link
delphiguru New Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 13	WDTV2 can play video direct from Youtube ? ( good quality ? ) and... when i turn off WD2 from remote control , USB is always active ? ( bug hardware... of WD1 ) Last edited by delphiguru; 10-10-09 at 09:17 PM..

10-11-09, 01:20 AM	#354 \| Link
Derelict_Drvr Senior Member Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 382	@zoro- I haven't canceled mine yet. I am waiting to see if Provantage sends me the one I ordered from them. If Amazon has not at least told me when the unit is coming in by then, it's all over but the crying for them. It is going to cost me an extra $20, but WTF. At least I am going to get one by Christmas. __________________ Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting '...holy sh*t ....what a ride!'

10-11-09, 03:43 AM	#357 \| Link
iboum Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 81	The WDTV interface is lots better than any of the Realtek players so far. If it also plays back the bird scene, and copes with Dolby TrueHD / DTS MA, then we have a very interesting proposition on our hands. Could someone who has one please open up the top, remove the stickers from the tops of the chips, lift up the heatsink (if poss) and photograph the inside in detail? Please?! Based on posts here, the WDTV Live appears to be considerably more powerful than any previous player. __________________ iboum.com [Media Player Comparison Grid] [Mini HTPC Comparison Grid]

10-11-09, 04:52 AM	#360 \| Link	<a href='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adclick.php?n=a591f81a' target='_blank'><img src='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adview.php?what=zone:36&n=a591f81a' border='0' alt=''></a>
hijack Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 28	Scott can you post the list of the storage devices compatible with WT tv Live? Are WD Share Space units compatible threw streaming and are we able to play all the Wdtv Live supported formats using WD Share Space? Thanks in advance.

10-10-09, 08:42 PM	#333 \| Link
Goba Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 81	How about the 1080p 24Hz? Do it work perfect for 23,976fps movies? How about the subs? Are they perfect? There are more options like position, colour, "on the fly" sync? Glad to see that the player can read 1080p 16 reframes... they could have thought about that before releasing WD TV 1 for it to read at least more than 5 reframes!

10-10-09, 09:09 PM	#338 \| Link
ScottWD Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 37	http://twitpic.com/l1ual - Enable SMB file sharing on your Mac

10-10-09, 09:20 PM	#341 \| Link
speedbal Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 48	Those of you looking for an unboxing video.... here is one on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzcvQqP0buk (not me by the way, I was looking to see if anyone did a video on the interface) speedbal

10-10-09, 11:03 PM	#349 \| Link
speedbal Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 48	Here is a video of the interface..... Let me apologize in advance.... it is not very good quality and it does shake some (it was done from an Iphone). It will at least give you an idea of the interface (very similar to original wdtv). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQdSLOhrVMc once again... I apologize for the the quality... maybe someone with a better camera can do a better job speedbal

10-10-09, 11:52 PM	#350 \| Link
bigjsouth Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 152 Classified Rating: 100% (1)	@ speedbal Thanks for the video! Wheres the thumbnail mode? IMG_0722.jpg As seen in this attachment WDTV 1.

10-11-09, 12:14 AM	#351 \| Link
joshjoshlol Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 222	i'm wondering if the WDTV team included tag hiding in .ssa/.ass subtitles. can anybody mux this subtitle file into an mkv along with any old video and see if the tags within {} braces are hidden/displayed on the WDTV Live? http://www.sendspace.com/file/6z0mp7 i've put in a variety of tags, such as bold, italic, place movement, translator comment, etc. greatly appreciated if anybody could test it.

10-11-09, 12:30 AM	#353 \| Link
zoro AVS Special Member AVS CLUB MEMBER Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 8,618	did every one cancel their amazon orders? I am waiting just to confirm, if jr send me the right unit lol

10-11-09, 03:57 AM	#359 \| Link
daskino Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 70	have not heard of a SIgma SMP8635 chip that could handle a 16 ref frame movie yet, Could the WDTV2 be packing a Sigma 8655 SoC chip?