*Official* WDTV Play Thread (Announced 2/12/2013)

I was wondering when their next model was forthcoming. At least they didn't call this one a "Live" also. Not holding out hope for DTS-HD or BD-lite menus.
Surprise me WD.

Not much to say until they release it. If I had to speculate based on the trend of their past offerings, I would say there will be no surprises (or new capabilities) with respect to network file streaming and all the "new" stuff will be related to expanding their suite of Internet services. I expect a next gen box to be more Roku-like.

And a whole new set of bugs and firmware updates.

What player doesn't have bugs at release. But one thing you can count on from WD is a steady stream of regular FW updates to fix issues. Unlike others (Netgear comes to mind) WD has a track record of not giving up on player and abandoning it half finished -- thus sticking it to their users.

As long as the network streaming features have not gone backwards in favor of the Internet stuff, I'll be buying one of the new WD players soon after release and put the Live-SMP in my daughters room.

Indeed.
I have a lifetime in the computer business, so I'm jaundiced on updating to a new set of bugs for the sake of Something New.

As noted earlier, the speculation is for expansion of the online content, and not the DTS-HD you long for.
With this in mind, I am tempted to spring for one of those $89 WD-SMB on Amazon.
If this thing will connect to a CIFS share on a NAS and play .ISO, I'm good with that.

My only disappointment with WD is the chronic disk failures in the 2TB arena.
Again, a life time in the computer business colors the picture.
On the plus side, the WD cross-ship warranty is exemplary.
I have a 2TB Caviar Green in this process right now.
It is great to get the replacement right away, and return the core within 30 days.
Perhaps WD will extend this outstanding program to their HT products. Or already have..

I don't know what you mean by that. I have Seagate 2TB drives all over the place -- they are my staple drive. I've found them to be reliable and trouble free. Perhaps because when I buy a drive I don't buy the cheapest possible and when I see "green" on the label I look the other way.

I'm in the market for one more WD Live player so hopefully when the new unit is released they will continue to sell the Live-SMP for a little longer. That way if the new unit is a bust for the file streaming types I can pick up at least one more Live-SMP. I know I can't hear the difference between DTS-core and DTS-HD so even though I want DTS-HD support -- just because -- I don't obsess over it any more.

I own a computer service business, and had a rash of bad Seagates that was intolerable.
That left a well deserved bad taste in my mouth, so I went back to Western Digitals.

The WD 640 Black are gems, the 2TB Green are dogs. They have a huge failure rate under two years in my client sites, and my own.
The 2TB Caviar Black are nearly 2x the price... not worth it.

A five year warranty on the Black isn't worth the high price.
When you use the warranty, you get a refurbished replacement with a 90 day warranty.
If the original drive fails 1 year into the warranty, your five year warranty is now 1 year and 3 months.

The only saving grace is the WD warranty program (cross ship) is SO far ahead of the pitiful and time-consuming Seagate process.
As a servicer, I found the Seagate policy to be appalling, and I won't go back.

I will pick up one of the current WD Live boxes.
I don't need MKV, DTS-HD or BD-Lite.

Same here.

 

I used to love WD HDD but not any more. I made changes ...

1. Switched to Seagate 2tb 5900rpm (for storage drives)

2. Only buying retail drives (no more lame bare-drive packaging for me)

... DOA and fast failures are back to a normal %.

Edited by Tesla1856 - 10/4/12 at 3:10pm

When can we expect this to be available?

So did i do a mistake that i bought a WD live hub ? should i have waited for this? i bought the WD live hub cuz it doesn't have cinavia, what are the chances this new wd play will have cinavia?

I don't think so.
I bought my first TV Live about a month ago, and am not at all concerned with GAS or new-gear-itis.

I figure the new TV Live is mature, and has firmware that is pretty well settled down.
A new product is another incarnation "Mom says No, to One Dot Oh".

If your TV Live does what you want, rock with it and smile.

well, I can only guess that it won't support 10bit color......

i have a question, i upgraded the firmware to the latest version and i noticed that now there is no more setting for 8 bit or 12 bit, am i missing it somewhere in the setup menu?

I take it that this product was killed? I saw nothing about it from ces announcements...

No, it's not dead yet, but it should be.

We're up to beta release 1.05.22, just about all features are finally working, but there are not enough apps to make it an interesting product compared to Roku and the WDTV Live SMP.

http://www.amazon.de/Western-Digital-WDBHZM0000NBK-EESN-Streaming-Full-HD/dp/B00B0AWGV0

I hope it is using a dual core processor, the interface navigation is quite slow on the current WDTV SMP.

If it support DTS HDMA & DD TrueHD 7.1 on muxed MKV, I'll buy.

Just a heads up... both of my local Best Buy stores are sold out of the WDTV Plus (like many other retails, including wdc.com) and now have a marketing sheet for WDTV PLAY on display. Go check your stores... it's under the Plus display.

^^^ The WDTV Live Plus was discontinued a long time ago and only exists on their website as available for Latin America. The current version is the WDTV Live-SMP and there are plenty of them on the shelf of my local BestBuy next to the Roku boxes and ATV's.

Apparently they are selling this now: http://store.westerndigital.com/store/wdus/en_US/DisplayAccesoryProductDetailsPage/ThemeID.21986300/productID.256031100/themeID.30153100

I don't see any mention of DTS, though, so it might not be much good for local/DLNA playback (for me at least).

Hmm, I just got the WDTV Live SMP

I see the play doesn't sport a USB drive, so no local media support so it looks to be wifi/ethernet/dlna streaming only.

It looks like it's just an entry level model, below the SMP and Hub. I was really hoping for something with a faster CPU to speed up the UI and apps, oh well.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=920

Their website says

Ethernet, USB 2.0, HDMI, Composite A/V, Wi-Fi, Optical audio


But looking at thei product overview
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/AAG/ENG/4178-705523.pdf

No USB is mentioned.

In looking over the manual, it does support playback from USB storage devices (USB port on side).

There is also one mention of DTSHD in the file format support but this may be a typo since DTS is not mentioned anywhere else.