Many larger HD movies with low compression play so poorly that they are unwatchable. The best option now, for people with the time and capability, is to build your own HTPC with support for all media types and preferred streaming services. The WDTV is no longer a viable option for having access to everything in one easy package. Roku does not support the.
I have had no problems with mkv files on my current WDTV players which are 3 years old. Even though they indicated it was out of stock, I placed an order and got one with 1 week. Still I would have liked WD to be manufacturing newer models of this device rather than discontinuing them. I fully understand. The WDTV has just become too cumbersome and sluggish to deal with anymore. Unfortunately for me it no longer plays about half of the movies I have on my system though a year ago it did just fine.
It seems as though Netflix and other shave put pressure on them to offer streaming services and minimize the ability to play local content. Similar competing boxes were bought up and then never brought back to market.
If my WDLive boxes die then I will be forced to build my own dedicated HTPC and switch to Kodi which has a good menu system for viewing files and playing subtitled movies. Kodi is what I plan to use also. Agree, this does seem a bit weird since they are not selling them today. Until smoke emanates from either, I will be good to go for a while. I even have a new Live Streaming player still in sealed box if I need to break into it.
I have no avi files with my movies on them, but I would suspect Kodi could do a decent job of playing them like a WDTV can. Also using Firestarter aka AppStarter.
Trying to keep my file sizes down on my NAS. Western Digital. Release Notes Related Drivers Get the best entertainment on your HDTV. Your media collection belongs on the big screen. Play virtually any media file format. Your shows on any TV at home, or away. Ready, set, stream. High-performance, streaming-ready Wi-Fi. Enjoy media from any source.
Show photos and movies directly from your digital camera or camcorder. Turn your smartphone or tablet into a touch-screen remote. Stay updated with RSS feeds. Programmable remote. Bring the arcade to your HDTV. TV Premium will need to update to this version in order to view games. Unit simply won't work after the most recent firmware is installed on it 4. Unit is prone to freezing 5. Unit would still freeze upon boot after power cycle, and following the reset procedure 6.
Only supports 2. This product is not even close to matching the polished usability present in competing streaming devices Apple TV, and Roku for example 8. Why the composite cabling? I realize that just about every TV will have composite connections but most new ones have either HDMI or component connections and in order to get high quality video experience out of the box.
Western Digital should have bundled a HDMI or component cable setup with this unit, as neither of these cables is incomparably more expensive any longer. Overall Review: If I could give this product zero eggs I would. The average person buying this product and trying to get it to work would end up returning it inside an hour.
When I approach a review product I take into consideration who is likely to use it. This product is something likely to be picked up by someone who does not want to deal with a HTPC and just wants to stream internet content to their big screen in the living room. So, I opened the box and followed the instructions exactly in the quick start guide.
The unit did boot and asked to connect to a network, which at first it did. It then immediately highlighted the firmware update option so I had it run through the update. Upon completion of this process it would refuse to reconnect to the wireless network, using the previous connection saved or even starting over by recreating the connection.
I figured the firmware update was the cause so I power cycled the device and the result was the same. I then followed the reset procedure with the reset button and paperclip to reset the unit to default.
The unit refused to reset to factory settings no matter how I tried to use the reset function. After power cycling again the unit came up and then stopped responding to remote control input altogether. Changing the batteries in the remote had no effect. Additional resets and power cycles did not work. The unit is now in a non-working state. I was unable to test any of the streaming capability.
I went through as many, if not more, steps that the "average Joe" would be likely to perform before giving up and seeking a refund. I could, of course, jump through a ton more hoops since my technical knowledge spans 20 years of building and configuring PCs and networks to attempt and get this device to work.
I am unwilling to give the product this much due. It should not have reacted the way it did and average person would be at a complete loss. This product is now in that category. The unit is now living in my trash container.
This little media streamer supports a very large number of formats and playback methods. The silent operation is a blessing for a home theater and the remote is well laid out with soft-touch plastic covering the back of the device. The most common options are located around the arrow buttons and select button with many of the more unique options presented on screen with the push of a button.
Western Digital clearly put a lot of work into getting the hardware right. The firmware of the device is relatively simple to use and can be learned in just a few minutes. Media is gathered by type such as music, video and services. Some file types require specific folder structures on the removable media to play properly, however most do not and can simply be dropped into the root partition where the WD TV Live will still properly organize the media libraries based on file type and meta-data.
The playback quality of the device is quite astounding providing 2. The menus were responsive, the video playback was a consistent frame rate and the audio had high fidelity. I threw a large number of different file types at this device, and almost all played without a hitch, provided they were DRM-free.
All of these services worked out of the box; however they did have issues with playback and freezing, as described below. Cons: While this device has a lot going for it, it also has a lot against it. In several days of testing I was unable to get key features working on this device and have complaints about many aspects of the firmware.
Some things, such as the options menu, are also confusing in that the UI still needs a little work. The on-screen keyboard is also inconsistent, offering at least 4 different layouts depending on which application prompts the user for input. Other elements, such as the colored buttons on the remote are never fully explained. I was unaware of what the on-screen symbols meant until after I had used them, sometimes bringing up a menu that would crash the device.
The WD TV Live would be much better if these little quirks would be worked out, however it appears that through many firmware revisions Western Digital has yet to address any of these issues. The TV Live tries to connect to these shares by running a search of the entire network and always hangs, leaving the screen with a spinning arrow.
Upon searching the forms I discovered that I am not the only one experiencing these problems. The dates and firmware numbers listed in the forum posts suggest that this problem has existed since the first version of the TV Live and there were many suggested solutions, however none seem to work.
To this day I still have not been able to connect my network shares and have instead had to rely on using a portable USB hard drive. I was able to connect to the media server on my HTPC; however playback was also unusable here as well. After the first 5 seconds of playback, all media would freeze and kick back out to the dashboard. All of these things work flawlessly on other devices. The firmware on this device, while beautiful, also suffers from extreme performance issues.
The menu lag and frequent freezes almost make this device unusable. The TV Live hangs and lags on everything besides local media playback. I was able to use the Netflix, YouTube and Pandora applications without issue until I tried to prompt the menu during playback or quit to the dashboard, often times leaving the device hard locked.
I usually had to pull the power to reboot the device as pushing the power button on the remote would take up to 20 minutes to power down. Overall Review: This device works extremely well at several things but breaks on everything else. If Western Digital would fix the few existing issues I would easily recommend this device. The problem lies in that this is the third generation TV Live and the same issues still exist, even after several firmware updates. This device regularly fails to even power off without pulling the power cord from the back of the device.
This is a huge red flag that Western Digital needs to go back to the drawing board and fix these issues. Sold by: Newegg Shipped by Newegg. This item is currently out of stock and it may or may not be restocked. Out of Stock. Add To Wish List. Are you an E-Blast Insider? Get Educated. Michael R. Eggxpert Review. Did you? Yes No. Matt M.
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