Adamson Rust is an anagram of Nostradamus - Eva Glass
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Western Digital TV Live
Product: Western Digital TV Live
Website: http://www.wdc.com/wdtvlive
System Specifications: HDMI, Composite A/V, Component video, USB 2.0, Ethernet, File Formats Supported: Video - AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9. Photo: JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG. Audio: MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Price: £120, $149.99, €134,00
HARD DRIVE MANUFACTURERS are always looking for new and inventive ways to sell their stock and trade, from adding new security measures to bundling in many different ways of connecting up an external drive along with other interesting angles.
Western Digital TV Live is one such device, doubling as a media player in this case, and whilst being very small and light, it does actually pack in quite a bit.
Measuring 40mm x 100mm x 125.5mm and weighing 303grams the Live box is more or less half the size of a hardback book, compared to Seagate's array of similar devices which are much bigger and closely resemble TV top decoders instead.
After connecting the WD TV Live for the first time the unit found and underwent two firmware updates, so you can't fault Western Digital for not listening to its customers and fixing faults along with updating new features on the device. New features added by the updates include better Youtube access and an ability to mimic DVD playback, amongst others.
On powering on the device there's a very simple menu structure presented with only a few options - video, music, pictures and settings. The last is just for the basic configuration of the WD TV Live, catering for different screen types and formats whilst all the other options are for media playback. The pictures option can also provide access to images stored on Flickr, besides using whatever is connected to the device.
There is no WiFi on board the WD TV Live so network connectivity is limited to only Ethernet. This significantly limits the options, and inevitably, the usability of the WD TV Live. The unit therefore has to be situated close to the WiFi or Ethernet router to access streamed video from the Internet or over a LAN, or extra equipment is needed. Apparently, a number of USB WiFi dongles can be used, but the list is limited and none of the ones we had at hand could work with the device.
We've been reading in the forums that there are ways around this lack of wireless support as there are unofficial firmware upgrades that bring in the use of many more WiFi dongles along with enabling access to an external USB DVD drive.
The array of file formats supported for the various types of media is very extensive indeed and one of the best lists we've ever seen, other than for hobbyists' devices.
Whether they play well is another matter entirely, as we've found regular XViD files occasionally show up a little distorted whereas they played fine on an Xbox 360. Where the WD TV Live did excel was in playback of HD media, such as 1080p x264 MKV videos, which it handled very well indeed and it is one of the first devices we've seen to play that type of media from a well-known large manufacturer.
Missing as a feature is the ability to access DVD chapters or menus on ISO files, but this could hopefully be addressed in a future firmware update. Also missing is the ability to play WMA Pro audio, which is largely featured in HD WMV video files. The majority of the downloaded high definition content is either in MKV or WMV format. The audio codec of choice in the latter is WMA Pro, which even an Xbox 360 can handle but the WD Live TV cannot.
All content can be accessed from storage devices connected to either of the two USB ports or streamed over the LAN. Some of the larger MKV files we tried out, at around the 10GB size, didn't play all that well over a 10Mbps LAN but were handled fine from an external HDD. Video streaming from Youtube is also possible in this model, with a good array of features around searching and accessing the content. What isn't possible is viewing HD Youtube content as there is no way of accessing it.
A couple of music streaming services have been bundled in for good measure, such as Live365.com which just holds a selection of Internet radio stations in which the quantity and quality is okay, but you really have to sign up for a VIP account to access better content, and Pandora which is another radio streaming service, only it doesn't work in the UK.
This really seems like a token effort, missing access to the likes of LastFM, Spotify or similar sites, all of which are more popular and more useful than what's provided.
What should have been bundled in is a lightweight web browser or a surfing client to fully back up WD's claims of Internet access, which could extend the usefulness of the device.
Playback of media is accomplished over either composite, component or HDMI to produce a decent picture and sound with all the different media codecs we tried out. The WD TV now supports HDMI 1.3, which caters for the lossless digital audio formats of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. There are some limits to the various ways the WD TV Live is connected as to what media can be played across what connection, for an example component couldn't handle 1080p only 1080i and composite only 480i/575i on our Toshiba 19-inch 19AV615D LCD TV. µ
In Short
Two main things bother us about the WD TV Live, storage space and playing HD video. It's curious why a hard drive manufacture wouldn't include a hard drive in a media playback device, but not even one of them can be found in the series of media devices by Western Digital. Seagate has at least catered for its own external portable series to be slotted inside its version of the WD TV range. Although it doesn't fully resolve the situation at least it makes some headway, where Western Digital appears to have forgotten that it makes hard drives. This model defines itself from the rest of the WD TV linage by offering up Internet connectivity for playback of HD content, only it cannot play the most popular high definition Internet content, HD Youtube videos. Other that those foibles, it's a good cheap media player that can handle well nearly all the codecs found in leeched content, along with excelling for some high-definition media playback.
The Good
Can play nearly every music and video file known to man, relatively inexpensive.
The Bad
No onboard WiFi.
The Ugly
No internal storage, can't playback Youtube HD content, despite being sold for playing internet HD video content.
Bartender's Score
7/10
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The consensus seems to be for the high price compared ot similar devices (example Asus O!play which is about 25% less and does more) WD TV LIVE is more or less the purchase of no0bs who don't do their research.
Barry (above me) stop trolling. First there are multiple issues with 1080 on the WD, you just need to check WD's own forums since they themselves claim to be working on several 1080 issues they can replicate as well as many networkinf problems not existing on other players.
Second, no one is "Moaning" aobut the lack of YoutTube HD, it was brought up by the second commentor (proably you form the diction) who said the reviewer was wrong and it had Youtub HD. NO the reviewer was CORRECT -- in fact YouTube open playback was removed killing HD. All the WD firmware updates have been to remove features, starting with the very first update which caused spdif out of sync on mp4, which is still a problem since WD apparently did not pay for all the codec licenses.
WD is also the only company making these streamers to not pay the small fee for dvd menus, which are the biggest user requested fix, so you get no dvd menus or chapter movement.
Come on people. I have the earlier version of this and HD content is at 1080p and is perfect. You get what you pay for and this is cheap compared to other similar devices. For me the options are:
1) use a 16GB usb stick to put content on
2) buy a supported wireless dongle
3) buy a powerline adapter and use the plug as a network connection ( I actually have a powerline network in my house and its worth every penny).
To all the people moaning about youtube HD content not showing. is that such a downer, if you sit in front of your tv and watch youtube, something wrong.
To that person who seems unable to read, and to back up his responder, yes - it does support 1080p, no problems at all. It plays magnificently on my LG50PS7000.
Secondly, with regards HD WMV files and WMA Pro audio... I'm not saying it DOES support it, but I've owned the box for quite some time now and I have never, ever noticed the fact because I've never, ever needed it. Listing it as a huge major is therefore a bit iffy.
No MyFaceTube HD?? Oh no!
Who the hell sits down in front of the telly to browse through youtube clips?
Lastly, I agree with the others with regards internal storage. Don't want it. I stream everything over the network (100Mbps... what on earth were you doing testing on 10Mbps?? Is it 1996 or something?) and 10GB+ 1080p files play without any issues whatsoever, so not sure what you were up to.
I had one for 1 month Keep Freezing Erroring Middle of the Movie. I was Playing MKV it would not play unless i playied there tverity. I replace with a Netbook win 7 system now i am happy. F- for WD live
Don't forget to turn your clock one hour ahead this weekend. Daylight saving time begins 2 a.m. Sunday.
So watching & then, Total Recall, where'd my hour go. its' rough Life. Nowadays Standard time is Here 4 months & 1 week anos. DSt until 7Nov since 2007.
Should public wait to get Hour Back, Perhaps.
Yep, there's no access to HD YouTube - even Western Digital confirms it on their support pages for the WD TV Live.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5346&p_created=1266013872&p_sid=EtUs6IWj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_srch=1&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9OTUsOTUmcF9wcm9kcz0yMDgsMjk5JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0yLjI5OSZwX2N2PSZwX3BhZ2U9Mg!!&p_li=&p_topview=1
This sucks and looks like it's down to the latest firmware, me thinks WD got their wrist slapped and had to take it away.
Why would you want internal storage?
It has no problem powering my external 500 GB 2.5" USB drive. How would internal storage be more useful or flexible?
@ fine print. Only the WD TV Mini is limited to 1080i, read the specs.
"- H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution. "
Note: 1920x1080p24
This unit does support 1080p:
Note:
- MPEG2 MP@HL up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- MPEG4.2 ASP@L5 up to 1280x720p30 resolution and no support for global motion compensation.
- WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- H.264 BP@L3 up to 720x480p30 or 720x576p25 resolution.
- H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution.
it is 1080, but 1080i, not 1080p. I'll hold of for juts a little while until they decided to make a proper device that can utilize my TV.
Wow! Did you spend a whole 5 minutes playing with the device before spending another 1 minute to write the article?
There is an option to prefer HD Youtube content, if available, in the settings.
WD also has a list of tested wireless USB adapters on their homepage, I believe in the FAQ section.
I picked up a Linksys 11N USB adapter for mine and it works great for streaming from my media center's shared folders.
I have one of these units and for the price, you can't beat it.
I prefer not having on board storage as that a) racks up the price (I paid £93 for mine as opposed to the £120 mentioned in the article) and b) introduces a potential point of failure (and if the drive fails, that means sending the entire unit away).