WD Live + Youtube

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

I have a HD Live box with the 1.02.21. I bought it over the standard version because at some point I thought it might be nice to get on youtube to watch music videos etc.

Now I have yet to get a wireless adapter and have read many threads about youtube now being blocked. Is this only certain videos or all of them?  I will be using this in Canada if that makes any difference. If they are not blocked then what quality (480p etc.) would I be getting from the firmware I am using?

Also a friend may be getting the Live Plus version soon but as far as I know even though netflix is doing there thing in Canada now it still doesn’t work with the Live Plus? Is this correct?  Will youtube work the same as the regular hd live with the plus having different firmware?

Thanks.

2

It is correct that NetFlix now streams to Canada, and it is also correct that the WDTV Live Plus does not support it in Canada at the minute.  WD is looking into it, but the Live Plus may never stream NetFlix in Canada.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/Netflix-for-Canada/m-p/59328#M13584

Let me add a further caveat…

The original WDTV HD did not downmix DTS.  Users asked for this, amongst other changes.  Instead of the theoretical software solution, apparently due to licensing arrangements WD went with a hardware solution and released the second generation of WDTV HD, which did support DTS.  Users had been expecting a firmware upgrade, and instead a whole new device was released.

When they released the WDTV Live, it didn’t support NetFlix.  Users asked them to add it.  Again, WD went with a hardware solution, and thus released the WDTV Live Plus.  Live users had been expecting NetFlix to be available through a firmware update, and not have to go out and buy a new box.  The users took WD’s “we’re working on it”-type comments to mean that WD was working on adding it to the Live, not working on adding it to a brand new device.  Many users went out and bought a Live, expecting that it would stream from NetFlix in the future, and then were furious when they found out that if they wanted NetFlix, they’d have to buy a new box.

So… even though I don’t personally see any technical reason why it would have to be done with hardware, and not firmware, there’s no guarantee that WD’s current “we’re looking at it” means that they’d be adding it as a firmware upgrade and not as yet another new device, if they do ever add Canadian NetFlix support.

Unless you’re a gambler, buy the box for what it can do today , and for what you want/need today… not for what you think/hope it might be able to do down the road.

But then… it’s looked, to me, recently as if WD is dropping the Live altogether and just going with the LivePlus.  Yes, there still are Lives on store shelves, but the last time I looked, BestBuy.com (for the U.S.) and BestBuy.ca (for Canada), are no longer listing the Live at all – just the WDTV HD and the WDTV Live Plus.  So it could very well be, that your friend might have to get a Live Plus anyways, if he waits too long to make a decision.

3

Hey thx for the reply. Yes I have looked around for just the Live version for my friend but as you say I can only see Live Plus versions for sale now. I have the LIve version of course but am not going to buy a $30+ USB wireless adapter if youtube isn’t going to work. Im still confused if its only the HD option of youtube is blocked or if most videos in any quality are.  If it doesn’t work then I would have my friend get the regular HD box.

So any info on the current state and quality of youtube on these boxes would be great.

Thx.

4

YouTube has blocked HD – other videos work fine in both versions of the Live/Plus (the only functional difference between the two is DRM hardware to allow Netflix to work – otherwise the Live and Plus work exactly the same).

5

There are other youtube videos which are also blocked due to the owner ticking a box saying that he did not want them to be played on television connected devices.

6

Ok thx for the info.  So they at least play in 480p?

7

The ones that are not purposefully blocked by the uploader (as Rich says, the uploader can basically say “don’t show this on media players” and YouTube blocks it).