My opinions as someone who recently upgraded to a Live from a 1st gen WDTV:
The remote: I’ve used a 1st gen WDTV daily since launch (it has the same remote) and the remote still functions like new. While only time will tell in the end, I have no complaints so far.
The connectors: On my 1st gen, the USB connectors were about as tight as most other devices I own. On my Live, the rear socket is a bit looser, however the side socket is very tight and requires some effort to remove a plug from it. As for the 3-into-1 style connectors, the 1st gen device has the individual Red/White/Yellow sockets, but it did not support component, only composite. The connectors on the Live were likely chosen due to space issues when component output was added.
The firmware: Agreed, the .12 fiasco was certainly disheartening, but my overall experience with updates on the original device was pretty good. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time, but obviously they need to prove they deserve it or I’ll move elsewhere if anything bad happens again.
The user interface: On the 1st gen device, the interface was fine, because the whole deal behind the WDTV was originally that it was a minimalist device. It played media and that’s it, no fuss, so it didn’t need a complex interface. However with the live, the interface could probably do with a redesign, or at the very least, reconfiguration of the menus. As for the background image, when I first turned on my Live I thought my TV settings were wrong, as the image looked like it had been badly scaled. Turns out it’s just a poor image. I may be in the minority, but I actually like the _design _of the background, I just hate the quality fo the image. It most definately needs to be replaced, even if it’s just with a higher res version of the same image.
Unfortunately I’ve never used either of my WD TV devices on anything but a 16:9, LCD TV and 16:10 LCD monitor, so I can’t speak to the quality of lack thereof of any other format.
As for the in-video navigation, this is something myself and others have been petitioning for since the first device. It’s not a deal-breaker for me, but better seeking and skipping in video/audio files is certainly welcomed.
Processing options & output quality: Again, not something I can speak to that much. On my TV and Monitor the picture quality has been fine, although I don’t have much in the way of high end equipment, so maybe “fine” to me is actually “bad” to someone else.
