*Official* WD TV Live Streaming Media Player Thread - Page 14

The players that do support the Blu-Ray menus, it's just basic support, it's not full menu support. It still leaves a lot out, which makes it really not worth it, for movies anyways. And a lot of times it doesn't even work for a lot of rips, from complaints I have read. But that's just my experience from the previous player I had before I returned it for this player.

Does anyone know if the box can convert Netflix dolby digital plus streams and output them as dolby digital through the optical connection for all Netflix dolby digital plus tracks? I have a legacy receiver does not have HDMI.

Thanks,

Scott

I appreciate the response!

Do any players on the market support full Blu ray rips? I have an Oppo in my living room that does and it works PERFECT. Unfortunately, its a $500 player, so I can't afford to buy a second.

I have the WDTV in my bedroom, so I like the fact that it's small and cheap.

Sure, look up the Dune Smart series and the Popcorn Hour C series. The Dune is considered by many to be the gold standard. With either of these players you are in the mid $200's.

The Netgear NTV-550 is another choice but it was ill-conceived from it's release, is full of bugs and at the end of its life-cycle so those bugs are not likely to ever be fixed. It's on clearance at B&H for $110.

There is also a very new player the AIOS HD by Pivos. It promises BD menu support and is selling for $100 at Amazon. It's an early product that has generated some enthusiasm but it has bugs and the jury is still out on how well it will be supported for the bug fixes. I'm watching it closely because there seems to be a lot of feature potential for the right price-point. You can read about it in the thread I linked to above.

I have a golden rule for media players: buy a player for what it is at the time of your purchase and expect no more. Do that and you will never be disappointed -- then again you may never buy anything either. Anyway, the cheap models look like they could be fun if they get the support they need but if you want something that works now for BD menus and with enough of a track record to be considered a gold standard, buy a Dune.

Do you guys know if it is possible to somehow add shortcuts to the main "home menu" screen?

I watch files from a USB attached HdD and also stream from shared folders on my PC. it would be nice to be able to quickly switch between the different storage places.

Thanks in advance guys!

Unfortunately I have found the Samba access for this device to be very unreliable and buggy. I will be accessing files on my network shares fine one day and then it just inexplicably quits working the next day with absolutely no changes to the network or PCs involved. It usually manifests itself as suddenly claiming I have the wrong user name or password and then later claims there are no Samba sources at all. When this occurs I can still see the WD device fine from the networked PCs that it claims are not accessible. Between this and the disabled network-source Media Library it looks like I will have to return this device before my return window runs out at the end of this week. Disappointing...

The same exact thing has been happening to my WDTV live Plus (last year's) after the last firmware update. I haven't had time to research a fix yet, but it's basically the only major issue I've had with mine.

Thank you very much for your feedback, this is very helpful in choosing my next mediaplayer (if a good one comes along). For now, using the Asus O!Play.

Not yet, but it's coming soon, according to RaphaelWD (WD Employee who posted this a few pages back.)

It requires the MEDIA LIBRARY to work on Network shared folders.
Once that's there, you can add FAVORITES to the Home Dashboard and go directly to where you want from there.

But right now it only works on USB disks.

Just on a whim, that's two signs of a flaky master browser on your network.

Countless posts about such symptoms on the WD forums...

If you have a stable MB on your network, you'll never see that again.

My NAS is on 24/7 and is configured to be the Master Browser. 100% reliable, never a failure (except when my 4 year old daughter turns my UPS off in the middle of a stream!! )

I've got five WDs (2 Lives, 1 SMP, 1 Hub, and a Live+) on the net... and they all are happy with my NAS and computers.

I have a few basic questions about this player.
I ordered one and it arrived last week DOA, so I never got a chance to use it.
Another one is on its way to my house and should arrive tomorrow.
Can this media player display album art (my music files are already tagged with album art) when playing music? Is the interface similar to XBMC?
I have a few movies and TV shows on my desktop PC that I want to stream to my TV downstairs.
I already used a program to get movie/TV show banners, pictures, etc.
Will this media player display all of that out of the box or will that require some kind of hack? (B-rad, etc)

I keep all my movies and TV shows in separate folders. The movie folders may well contain more than just the movie, but trailers as well. The TV series folder will contain episodes for that series When in Gallery view I would like to see the backdrop picture change for each folder that I view, so it can show a picture associated with that series, just like it does for the video files within the folder. i.e. would like to display associated backdrops for folder.
I think many people have there media files organised this way.
Is there away to achieve this ? Any help appreciated. Thanks.
If this can not be done where would be the best place to post for this as a request in next firmware, so that WD read it. Thanks again.

I've never heard of that until now. I did some reading on the WD forums and have (I think) fixed the workgroup on my router so we will see if that avoids the problem. Thanks.

I think the closest u can get to that is accessing the "Dashboard" (blue button) and add to "favorites"...so maybe an extra button to hit...but not on the main menu unless something changes in a future firmware update

I'm having the same SAMBA issues that others are having. I am running a computer with Ubuntu 10.10 that I store all of my media on. The WD forgets the log-in name and password once every couple of days I and I have to re-enter it. The wife is about to lose it because she can't access her shows.

I tried to get NFS working, the WD sees the IP address of the computer with the shared folders, but for some reason will not connect to it. I can connect to the NFS shares with three other computers in the house, but not the WD. I'm not sure what else I can do to get the NFS working.

I bought this little box to replace a laptop that was running XBMC, but so far has given me too many headaches. I may have to return it and put the money toward a nettop or some other small dedicated computer.

The WD Live device doesn't support HD Audio, right? Can I run HDMI from the WD Live to my Denon 2311 AVR and then HDMI to my TV, so my AVR can decode HD audio?

Or is that not possible?

If you are talking about DTS-HD, no you cannot. It does not support decoding or pass-through of DTS-HD

I'm in the same situation. I can't get the Live-S to connect to the NFS shares on my NAS. Same thing. It sees the host IP address but won't connect.

Yes, it will display the album art in MP3 / M4A / AAC ID3 tags just fine.
I don't know if it's similar to XBMC. I've never used it. There's plenty of screenshots available in the documentation that shows you what it looks like.
No hacking required for Banners / Backdrops / etc...


Please tell us how you let on. I know my Linksys E3000 was the source of COUNTLESS problems until I changed its workgroup to something else so that it wouldn't interfere with other devices in my "real" workgroup.


It supports Dolby True HD in MKVs and M2TS. Not sure about other containers, though...

the wdtv live-s displays the embedded album art. i'm at work, so sorry can't take a pic of how it looks like right now, but basically in "now playing" mode, it shows a small thumbnail of the album art at the top left corner, and on the right beside the thumbnail is the artist and album name. the rest (and big part) of the screen below it shows a list of all the songs in the album and highlights the one currently played. i know a pic is worth a 1,000 words .... but like i said ... im not beside my tv now.


hi tony. i've replied to u on the "other" forum, but will re-post it here just in case someone else in here has other thoughts on this.

I organise my folders in that way as well. as it is, i dont believe the current firmware is able to show the meta-info at the folder level .... the info only shows up at the video-file level. i know it's possible with custom firmware in the older wdtv live .... so i believe it's technically possible. WD just needs to get this to work properly in its future firmware upgrade (i hope).


which HD audio codec specifically?

as kingpcgeek pointed out, the wdtv live-s doesn't support DTS HD-MA (at the moment at least). however, it does bitstream Dolby TruHD to your Denon AVR.

How do people like this compared to the live +? I have the plus with brads firmware on it and like it except for it needs a reboot once in a while as it freezes up.?

Why can't I pass this task on to my AVR?

I'd like to use Dolby Digital, Dolby PL2, Pro Logic IIz, stereo, and 5 channel stereo. Not sure what else, but that's what I use the most.

Also, can I play flac or 320kb/s mp3s? Or is that limited to 192kb/s (like the Dune)? And why would there be a limit like that?

why can't the wdtv live-s bitstream DTS HD-MA to the avr? yea ... we'd all like WD to explain that to us as well ... hehehe .... some say it has to do with some legal mumbo jumbo licensing thingy.

btw, just for clarity .... those others u mentioned aren't really HD audio formats for movie audio tracks. HD audio = lossless, whether Dolby TruHD or DTS HD-MA (both compressed but still lossless) or PCM (uncompressed).

Yes, it plays FLAC fine. Should play 320 mp3 as well (although I dont personally use that).

This website shows what audio is supported.
http://www.iboum.com/pr/wdtvlive11.php

So, what are the other downsides of the WD Live device? Why should I pay extra for the Plus version? Thanks!

The WD Live was discontinued some time ago and will probably no longer be supported. The WD Live+ has been yanked from the US market and is only designated for non-US sales. Our resident WD rep, Raphael, has indicated they intend one more firmware update -- then that's it for the Live+. The current newly released model is the WD Live-S (topic of this thread) which, given WD's track record, will be actively supported with firmware updates to iron out the bugs and possibly add some new features (i.e. on-line content providers).

So buying the old WD Live would not be a smart move. Although you can find the existing stock of the Live+ on store shelves, it's selling for the same price as the new Live-S -- probably also not a good idea to buy a discontinued product unless you are completely happy with the way it is now and have no expectations that you are entitled to any future FW support.

So, I guess you get my point that there is probably no reason to buy either the old Live or the Live+ in the face of the new Live-S.

I'm an owner of the first generation WD TV and now just made the move to the new "Live Streaming" box from WD.

If it upscales DVD just as good as the 1st Gen, then I'll be pleased.

I did try a Roku 2 last week, but wasn't impressed with the PQ and its a huge hassle to even attempt to get the Plex channel to work right.

Is there anything radically different between this newest version the old WD Live?
I just ordered the old WD Live online for half the price of this newest version.
Just wondering if I should send it back or not.
I understand there will be no firmware updates for this old version.
If I hack it with B-rad's firmware, would it even matter?

I see, thanks. And why not just purchase a bluray player that has DLNA support? Couldn't the bluray player take the media from my NAS via ethernet and play it on my TV?

Couple generations newer chip; updated, pretty UI with scraping; new capabilities (i.e. NFS); new online sources; new set of early release bugs. No DTS-HD, but DTS core (1.5 Mbps) already rocks the house and I doubt I could hear the difference with DTS-HD.

Try the Live. If it works for you as is, keep it. I still have my Live+ set up as my primary media player on my plasma and am very happy with it. I have the Live-S in a test configuration plugged into my PC monitor and will keep it there until some of the current bugs are addressed in firmware updates. Once NFS and NAS scraping are fixed I'll look to replacing the Live+ with it.