*Official* WD TV Live Streaming Media Player Thread - Page 9

I hope the next WDTV model supports:

USB 3.0
10/100/1000 network
eSATA
DTS-HD/MA
Blu-ray menu support

+1

And all for $100, right?

Nope. I'd gladly pay more for those features.

So would I. I'd rather they keep the quality up than compete for a spot on a shelf at walmart.

The PCHs have -/+ 30sec skip with left/right button. They have the best implementation since the A-110 model came out, one press skips 30sec when you release the button, if you keep pressing it starts adding 30sec increments and when you reach the desired value, you release the button and it skips.

You can add time skipping function and configure the skip duration in WDTV2 (and choose which remote control buttons do the skipping function) using a specific Brad's firmware, which supports WDext and a plugin called MediaNavigation. But it's rather difficult to setup.
http://wiki.wdlxtv.com/Difference_between_BaseFW (1.02.21 based)
http://forum.wdlxtv.com/viewforum.php?f=48

Too bad WD didn't copy this kind of plugin in the new Live (they copied other plugins/ideas like LED on/off and nfs support from Brad's firmware).

Sigma always hardcodes everything (to prevent firmware copying), and this makes simple changes a nightmare for anyone who wants to try.
For example in this case you want 30sec skip, and you get 10min skip (and with 2 button press! FF+NEXT!).
This kind of stuff should be in a .txt file for us who want to be able to change them.

Thanks, good to know.

Hey thanks for the rant! However, you must have not read very carefully what I wrote, since I said the exact same thing (that the Hub indeed does have a gbit port)
I have an HTPC w/ a gbit NIC, connected to the same switch as the WD Hub. The HTPC is connected to two USB external drives, the Hub, the internal drive. Transfer speed to the Hub on my gbit network from my desktop PC max is maybe 120 . To my Htpc's USB2.0 drives, it's up to 4 X faster . Whatever the specs say, the Hub is not doing anywhere near gbit thruput.
Oh and , please read:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3990/w...e-hub-review/4

Yeah, I know... I pounced too hard. Sorry, it wasn't really intended to be aimed directly at *YOU* per se, just the "concept."

What I'm railing against is the misguided idea that someone reads that something has a GIG port and infers that it means that they should be able to actually move data to or from that device at *any* specific rate.

That's just not a valid interpretation of spec.

I mean, at WHAT RATE would it need to move data for people to be satisfied that it is a "Gig port?" 150 meg? 300 meg? 600 meg?

Sometimes (rarely, but sometimes, nonetheless) I get 110-120 megabits per second from my Hub... so it's definitely more than it'd get with a 10/100-only port...

I'm also a participant on a number of NAS forums, and it *ROYALLY* peeves me when people say "This thing says it has a GIG PORT! It doesn't! All I get is 700 meg!!!"

As if there's such a thing as a 700-meg ethernet port. People are too Black & White. By God, if it says it has a Gig port, I'd better be able to move 1000 megabits per second in and out!

As if.

So I've made it my personal crusade to make sure people don't confuse two COMPLETELY different aspects of networking.

There's the INTERFACE capability, and then there's the THROUGHPUT capability.

Sorry... Hell, I guess I'm touchy this week! Again, not peeved at you...just me trying to keep things straight!

Have you noticed the plethora of USB to GigE "dongles" out there these days?

There's people all over Product Reviews that complain that they're only getting 200 megabits / second through that.

That is PHENOMENAL! But these folks don't understand that USB ITSELF is the limit, not some deliberate misinformation campaign...

Same is true for the Hub.

The Hub is PROCESSOR bound; but that doesn't mean it's not actually a gig-ethernet port.

Hell, if the Hub could push thru a steady 200meg, I'd be pleased as punch!

Anyways, thread drifting here...back to topic at hand.
Noticed that they have fixed (on the WDLive (Gen3), not the Hub yet) the bug where if you used random photos as your screen saver, the audio just stops when the screensaver started.

Indeed they did. Now if they can just let me point that Random Screensaver location to NAS storage like the Hub can do, that'd be great.

I agree, but unfortunately don't think the consumer does. $99 is probably a limit for really high sales. They seem to have struck a nice balance with this new product, especially for people who already have a NAS or a spare usb drive.

My gut feeling is that WD is going to sell a lot of these.

philip

In a round about way that was kind of what I was thinking. As you note, they have struck a nice balance for the Live-S at the $99 price point. If they are committed to that price point for the Live-S then I would rather they leave the feature set alone and just iron out the bugs rather than try to do what Netgear did with the NTV550 and suffer similar results.

But on the other hand they have a $200 price point established for the Live Hub which now makes it way over-priced for what it does. In light of the Live-S, the Live Hub desperately needs a major refresh or it will quickly die as a product. They have plenty of price room here to distinguish the Hub at the higher end with features like DTS-MA and BD menus. But then maybe with the Live-S, their plan is to let the Hub die. We'll see.

Has anyone been able to get the preset "WD Live Overview" and "WD TV Live Key Features" RSS feeds to work? I assume these are videos. If I select them I get a "loading" icon for a while and then no text on the screen. If I press Play then I get the "loading" icon over a blank screen forever until I hit "Back".

I watched it last week... It's ONE video; the same video is used in several places... and it was a pretty darn-good quality video. Pretty sure it was HD.

A few minutes ago, we threw the switch and made our new Customer Issue Reporting system public.

WD TV Live Streaming Issue Reporting

I encourage all of you who are having issues with the WD TV Live Streaming to submit them there. Equally important, if you see an issue posted by someone else, and you are also experiencing the same problem -- upvote it!

We will be using this system to help prioritize issues reported by our users. It is our goal to try and address the issues that are most important to you.

Please be sure to include the details listed on the sidebar, as this will speed up our investigation of your issues.

PS: We also have an Issue Reporting board for WD TV Live Hub

The included drive in the HUB makes it a very appealing product for people without a NAS. It also allows for a nice neat look without hanging a zillion external things onto it. The first thing they should do is include wireless built in and no dongle.

To get DTS don't you need a special license? The full BF menu is surely a tricky thing as far as copyright issues go. WD has to tread a fine line here. I think the ability to replicate Blu-ray exactly is just too risky for a company like WD. I wouldn't if I were them. I would lower the price to $150 and work on adding more premium access. There is a difference between companies like WD, Apple, MS, etc ... and the small media player companies who seem to be willing to take risks when is come to copyrights.

I do agree that the Hub is currently overpriced.

philip

Most places have reduced the price to $179 or so.

IIRC, it debuted at $199...

1 Year generally is the live of these boxes.. and with the prices of HD's dropping all the time, a 1TB drive doesn't account for the added cost at $79....

True. The drive in the hub is a 2.5" laptop type drive which is still more expensive than the 3.5" drives. If they dropped the list price to $150 and added wireless to it, then that would not be a bad deal in my view. I think the aim of getting the WD players to be as open as the smaller companies' offerings just won't work. WD has to be concerned about copyright issues. There are far more constraints on them.

Philip

Off Topic: Can you replace it with a bigger laptop drive or is it a sealed unit?
On Topic: Going to pickup the Live 2.0 as its the best bang for the 99 bucks!

Jessica

I run a external hard drive to mine via USB Jessica n works fine

Thanks Holiday but I was wondering if anybody might have opened up the lil sucker and go against the WDTV gods and pop in a 2 or 3GB HD. But I figure its proprietary and you'll have to copy over its s/w also.

Jessica

Not for bitstreaming which leaves their precious stream untouched. That's as illogical as demanding licenses from Amazon for hosting people's already paid for music in their cloud.


And why is that? Others seem to be doing just fine.

I just picked one of these up. It seems to work great, but I can't copy files from my computer to the usb drive. I have an imac. I can see the wdtv and open up the drive and all the folders and everything, but I can't copy anything over or make any changes. Any ideas? I'd prefer to not have to unplug the hard drive all the time.

There are some issues regarding Amazon and the cloud. Anyway, I don't think that citing Syabas and Dune is a great example. Moreover the legal issues vary from country to country.

Philip

So, this is the LIVE-SMP thread, not the Live HUB thread, so I'm not sure of the contexts here.

If you're talking about replacing the drive in the HUB-- 1TB is still (as far as I know) the largest laptop drive on the market. All the larger ones are DESKTOP (3.5") drives that won't fit in the case.

If you're talking about the Live-SMP, it's driveless.

raphaelwd

I know this is not really 'your department', but could you please use whatever contacts in WD that you have to find out when this new model will be released in the UK.

Many, many thanks.

Steve W

Great news.

A while ago I e-mailed WD support asking them to check out their My Book 6tb HDD in conjunction with the WDTV Live.

They've now replied saying they've tested it with both the old WDTV Live and this new model, and it works fine.

So, if you're happy to use both front/side and back USB ports you can attach a massive 12tb to either model. I've asked them if using a powered USB hub will be a problem over a certain number of HDDs, or over a certain capacity. I'd rather have 2 x 6tbs attached to a hub round the back than have one sticking out of the front.

Steve W

Steve, even if I knew, I couldn't say. Sorry.

No worries. Cheers anyway.

Steve W