WD TV Live - An unfinished product of poor quality - My review and explanations inside!

I agree that Western Digital have been very quiet about the problems and that there could be a lot more support. However if you had properly researched the product you would have found out its limitations. The instruction manual is online and you would have found there was no GOTO etc

I don’t understand your comment about the ‘size’ of the unit… Its modern electronics and the size really has no relationship to it being able to play HD. The USB sockets are no different to any other USB sockets on computers etc. so why should they fall out. Again USB sockets are designed for constant replacing but if you are worried simply use a short extension lead and plug into that instead.  The phono plugs for the TV are standard devices and I have never had any problem with this type of plug which has been used for years. 

I understand your disappointment with the unit but lets not be too picky.

Ok.  I did all the research before buying it, and all I wanted is a unit that will playback different formats I can watch on my TV, to avoid converting them to DVD (time consuming). My main concern is the output quality ■■■■■…and we are not talking about price here, as the same MPEG files play with razor sharp quality out of a unit costing HALF the price, only it doesn’t support the extra formats.

The chipset quality used is ■■■■ obviously, and particularly for MPEG decoding.   The image has an overall noisy / grainy feel and is not too sharp.   I can clearly see visible noise on any output…even on very high bit rate video, the same video played from another standalone unit are noise free and clean, so this comes down to 2 things…poor chipset used in this product, poor software used internally.   I have an ADS Instant DVD which is a small box, encodes and decodes, has outputs too, and I’ve played the SAME mpeg-2 files, and my God what bloody differences do I see, pristine, clean, razor sharp playback, on the SAME TV !  

The memory capacity for the firmware for the WD Live is not fully used, there is a LOT of room left for enhancements…this is what bothers me, why the hell didn’t they add a GOTO support, which is very basic and easy to add !!!  When you watch a video fast forwarding is very annoying, ANY player would let you quickly jump to any segment of your video.

ALSO - why the hell support VOB playback and not support DVD Menu and chatpering support ?!?!?!?  There is more than enough memory on the unit to add these SMALL features.

There is SO MUCH features the chipset used can support but only a fraction of it are exploited.!

But putting aside all the quirks, the biggest disappointment is image quality !    I’ve seen better decoding quality from FREEWARE based codecs !

This is why I said this product has a lot of potential but is unfinished and poorly tested.   The unit’s output is horrible, IRE levels are wrong (speaking of which there should be an option for IRE 0 / 7.5 setups).

WD reminds me of ADS, poor support, and they stopped releasing new driers and updates too quickly.

Then you have another person releasing homebrew firmwares and WD ALLOWING this, knowing that this kind of thing voids your warranty and can harm your unit and his firmware ■■■■■ anyways as it is more of a cosmetic change and not feature based.

What is actually POOR is WD’s firmweare - I’m sure the internal chipset used when programmed properly can deliver much better picture output.

You probably should return your WDTV Live. I have a Mini, a WDTV live and a Patriot Box Office. Of the three the WDTV Live has the best quality video. Maybe yours is defective. Yes, the firmware could be better. These things take time. I have to think your freeware codecs weren’t all that great or you wouldn’t have purchased this. As for me I didn’t want a computer sitting in my living room with it’s fans and the constant required updates. There is always a price to be paid for adopting a new technology. If you can’t deal with that this would be a great time to bail out.

LOL the free codecs is in relation to playback from my computer !

I wanted a box to allow me to transport clips to a usb drive or to network and view things on my TV !

Look at the forums all around, my box is NOT defective, tis is a FLAWED product and everybody is having problems with audio clipping and other issues… it is clear that WD is NOT acknowledging and not listening to any of its customer or even want to fix or improve the product, they’ve made it clear and it shows.

actions speak louder than words you know.

Try playing back an MPEG-2 720x480i through your WD Live and see for yourself - it’s as if the box is applying softening to the video - it looks significantly softer when output through the WD Live, even when using component connectors.

■■■■ !
I play the same MPEG-2 file through my Toshiba SD3990 and the quality is razor sharp clean like the original MPEG-2 was intended to be.

It is clear that the box is meant to be used with native HD content only and HDMI… the internal scalers  and ADCs truely ■■■■ !

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.

Your language and choice of words (and spelling) doesn’t really come across as credible.

Whilst their support is somewhat lacking, the device is performing perfectly well.

Whilst the unit works for you it doesn’t mean it works for everybody.  I never said the unit doesn’t work, the quality is bloody poor.  A unit that claims to process HD video and can’t play any format with half decent quality irks me…when my toshiba SD3990 costing half the price plays my xvid/divx AVi and MPEGs at amazing quality.

Don’t talk to me about spelling that is rubbish - and besides the point here - video quality is very bad, I’m not just talking about the background image used, but the processing of your video especially AVI and MPEG files.

Why the bloody hell do quicktime movies play in better quality, at same res…  they play fine yet they don’t support all audio formats, what a rubbish this piece of equipment is poorly tested poor support.

The Live has over 94MB of free space, plenty of space to add more feature and completly redesign thie firmware…

WD is a second ADS !  They will liekly leave us all hanging and stop supporting the unit and no longer offer ANY upgrade, like ADS abandoned their ADS Instaant DVD and left everyone in the dark.

Time for a little reality check mate.

I have tested this unit on every format possible. I have used TVIX 6500 before. WD TV Live for the price, it is delivering much more value.

I could not understand why someone should buy a product in first place if one feels cheapness of remote, build and sockets.  I have found the quality of WDTV live is far reasonble for the utility. Once connected it just stays where it is and it does not even have hard buttons to fiddle with.

The performance of chipset has to be measured by its capability to play a 14 GB 1080P file. While I have seen many high calibre players are stuttering to play a movie of that size, WD TV Live is doing the job effortlessly.

Quality of the movie is perfect and I do not find any noise or grain on well encoded files.

I have the wish list for this product, which are common for many like ISO menu for DVD, GOTO time selection, better navigation within the movie etc., This is very much possible to fulfill by upgrading firware whcih we hope will come soon.

I always buy any product after research and inspite of that if it is not meeting my expecatations, I will just replace or return. There is no reason for whining or going badmouth with different intentions. The majority consumers and critics view this product as best media player in its range and it  genuinely deserves.

Compared with Popcorn or Dune etc  I agree with the last poster. Considering the price entry point this is an excellent device.  Sure it needs firmware updates, in particular to sort out thumbnails and iso chapters bnut this will come in time, either from WD itself or the thriving mod scene.

I was very impressed that I as able to plug the device in, connect to my NAS via a powerline connection and immediately, with no fiddling with IP addresses etc, there was my NAS in the menu choice. A few files would not place but in the multiple codex world that is not surprising. Format factory will sort that out.

Hang in there for the next few firmwares releases or skip over the the mod scene.

Alternatively buy the BD Prime for a lot of money.

I only purchased my unit a week ago but I find the quality of picture fantastic. I don’t no if it is my Phillips ambilight that does the video enhancing but every film is great. My only problem has been lip synch on mkv and 5.1 surround sound.  I end up watching these in stereo though. It is still great value and I don’t know of anything better in it’s price range. Do you?

I don’t agree with everything you’ve complained about. However they are all valid complaints about the unit. The major problem I do agree with though that irks me more than the rest is the over scanning or cropping of the video on my TV. There are various comments and suggestions on this posted elsewhere but they don’t work on my TV (56" LG DLP). The reason I bought the unit was to avoid using my computer as a media box for the TV as the VGA input is 1320x768 and the sound was problematic using an audio cable from the computer out to my stereo. Using the HDMI interface on the WD TV Live give’s a nice 1080i with digital sound - very nice - but a cropped picture which I didn’t have on the VGA interface. If they don’t do anything else I would be extremely happy if this was fixed in a firmware update - soon.

I think everyone has got a right to their own opinions especially based their own subjective experiences with the device. As a survivor of the 1.01.12 firmware fiasco, and others, would and should be much more disappointed in our experiences than the OP is with his… 

But the OP clearly has an axe to grind. If the unit does not meet your needs, then return it. Most of these ‘issues’ are readily and immediately apparent to the OP (and others)- so what’s the point? There are other devices out that cost roughly the same as the WDTV Live that do the stuff HE wants!

And then the OP disses b.rad as well?

[text deleted] 

I`ve been happy with the WDtv when it was working.  Mine stopped seeing my video files suddenly and after an hour with Level 2 (Yoicks!) Tech help I sent it back for a replacement.  I like a machine that will play MKVs and allow you to choose from different soundtracks and/or subtitles and will cruise all your video/music/photo files without constant error messages ( like PS3) but for now Apple TV is the most dependable (80% of the time) for me and it has MUCH superior video navigation.

To poster above - exactly - this is why I say the unit is poorly built - not only bad image quality on mpeg and poor component output, the unit itself is flimsey - I’m not surprised your unit did not last a long time.

It needs to sit in a well ventilated area - do not put it in a closed area - the heat from the unit has to dissipate properly.  Your unit WILL get hot in a closed space.  In fact the unit uses passing cooling through a heatsink, problem is, the heatsink is inefficient when surrounding air is hot (summer) or in a closed area !  They should have added an outtake fan to the unit  - but regardless, very poor / cheap capacitors are used - this is not a product that is meant for longevity.  I have the unit in a wide open space with room temps of 64F (very cold) and the unit gets hot after playing full HD for a while - What good is to have a heatsink inside and vents on the side, when the hot air does not leave the unit ? It would be best done by using a fan to move air…as is the case on my Sony HDD/DVD recorder.

Also used B-rad’s firmware which is also garbage - most of his added features are user specific and he makes it seems like he added so many features when no new menu items and no new formats and no new fixes and no new features are added essentially.

8ball2001 wrote:

To poster above - exactly - this is why I say the unit is poorly built - not only bad image quality on mpeg and poor component output, the unit itself is flimsey - I’m not surprised your unit did not last a long time.

 

It needs to sit in a well ventilated area - do not put it in a closed area - the heat from the unit has to dissipate properly.  Your unit WILL get hot in a closed space.  In fact the unit uses passing cooling through a heatsink, problem is, the heatsink is inefficient when surrounding air is hot (summer) or in a closed area !  They should have added an outtake fan to the unit  - but regardless, very poor / cheap capacitors are used - this is not a product that is meant for longevity.  I have the unit in a wide open space with room temps of 64F (very cold) and the unit gets hot after playing full HD for a while - What good is to have a heatsink inside and vents on the side, when the hot air does not leave the unit ? It would be best done by using a fan to move air…as is the case on my Sony HDD/DVD recorder.

 

Also used B-rad’s firmware which is also garbage - most of his added features are user specific and he makes it seems like he added so many features when no new menu items and no new formats and no new fixes and no new features are added essentially.

 

 

I agree with a previous poster, you do have an axe to grind. Now you are talking about heat. Has your unit failed due to heat or is it just your ‘professional’ opinion that it will. How do you know about the capacitors and build quality unless you have been messing about inside the unit. I would not surprised if it did fail if you start taking it apart and flashing it with unauthorised firmware. What is your yardstick for cheapness regarding capacitors - I would assume that they use the normal mass produced consumer versions which are also in your average TV. This is not a ‘professional’ product, its just a  piece of consumer electronics.  I would say send it back but after what you have done to it will they accept it back. Obviously I agree that the problems noted in the majority of posts should be cleared up but you seem to be moaning for the sake of it.

Well said RichUK

I absolutely have no axe to grind - and I’m not returning the product and thank you for your concern that I “messed” the product - I’m certainly not a newbie there,[text deleted] 

I never said my unit failed - it hasn’t, but they could have used a better design in terms of heat dissipation - the unit does use a passive heatsink, but like most set top digital boxes that also become hot, you should leave it in an open well vented area.  While the chip is a low powered processor, ithe unit gets hot after prolonged use because the heatsink is dissipating heat properly but it is mostly TRAPPED inside the unit, with no movement of air.  Simply relying on vents is NOT enough, you need to move air, much like the air flow you have in your PC case.  YES the unit CAN fail with time if it overheats.

At first I thought the unit used a crappy chipset  so I decided to investigate further.   Yes the design is flimsey, it’s true that the caps and other components are found in computer components as well - don’t  ever compare the caps used in TVs - conventional TVs used high charge capacitors that are way bigger and a whole different ball game.  Yes some computer components were plagued with the use of cheap/fake caps.  The caps used in the WD Live are not the best quality, the unit is obviously not meant to last as long as a motherboard - mind you I’ve seen average to poor components even in higher-end gear. 

The unit uses an updated Sigma  Secure Media Processor series 8650 - revision 8655 in the WDLive, which has a faster processor, support for more RAM, HDMI 1.3 support…

The chipset used is capable far more than WD gives us in the firmware ! This is what is unacceptable.  Why the hell would WD would license a powerful chip and only use a fraction of its true power ???

Ok theboard design also supports 2 1.5Gb/s  SATA (eSATA) mind you they didn’t use that and the supported S-Video output probably due to cost constraints - although it would have been nice to have a S-Video connector and an eSATA connector rather than 2 USB ports !

Unit supports pulldown, frame conversion, deinterlacing and other post op functions -   12bit xdYCC processing!  Funny because the image output sure doesn’t look that - it looks inferior to a consumer 8bit processing for some codecs.   Chip supports custom/programmable up/down scaling and 2D acceleration support.  Great - yet WD messes the picture badly by over cropping it - not even offering you size and position options to manually adjust the picture to FULLy fit your TV, especially considering that the image is extended way past the overscan area of a conventional TV!  The chip supports these functions, give them to us !  The default values are not optimal for all situations.  Unit also supports noise reduction, deblocking, deringing and other post ops - but none of it is provided by WD to adjust - only internal registers that, again, are not optimal for ALL videos being watched !!!    The chip also supports chroma, hue, contrast, brightness, gamma, etc…  An added picture controls in the settings / video menu where you can adjust these settings and H/V position/scaling size would be a welcomed feature !!    Is deinterlacing enabled by default ? This could be what is causing interlaced video output to look like ■■■■ - because viewing QuickTime MOV a nd WMV HD content looks great through my composite and component outputs !  but viewing of other formats, softer/fuzzier.   Also the component outputs are a disappoint, and don’t look much better than the regular composite outs, yet the component out of my half priced toshiba player look amazingly better - funny isn’t it ?

I don’t have an axe to grind when I am reporting FACTS - the WD Live is NOT delivering on the full capacity of its hardware !

As far as the DVD + BluRay full MENU support, I would LOVE to see this feature and it is requested by many people too - it’s probably not included due to licensing issues.  The chipset used does NOT have native support for full DVD Specs, unlike DVD Players, so this would probably require a lot of time to reconstruct this & the licensing fees with it, although it would be good to support the DVD spec partially, and only menus and chapters.

About the flimsey connectors - yes it’s true you can use USB extension cables, that’s what I use now, and it works well.  A USB2 certified extension cable permanently plugged in the unit, it’s rock solid as I’ve used it on my PC and plugged and unplugged so many times and no problem.

Same for the 1/4 to 3 cables, keep them permanently plugged, those are the most deliate connectors as frequent plugs and unplugs push further apart the contacts that grip the cable’s connection (something that CAN be fixed yourself if you know about these things.

All in all, given the type of revised faster and more powerful processor used, I was surprised to see that the firmwares WD keeps spitting at us does not add any new features other than small fixes - nothing to take full advantage of the power the chips support…which is pathetic to me !

Another thing that I noticed - the unit has provisions for flash recovery - somehow there seems to be a protected boot block area that kicks in if the checksum does not match - assuming of course the BB area was not messed up during a bad flash update as well - in some cases you should be able to recover your flash, BUT it seems even WD messed up things further and cannot provide PROPER support for a function that exists already !  When flashing, instead of fully erasing the EEPROM, why doesn’t it use the same method used now by new motherboards, I notice it being used on m ASUS motherboard, that previously over the years erased the chip !  Instead it erases only a few blocks at a time then writes, etc…  if a flash fails, it will fail checksum and go to recovery.  The BB area being updated LAST once the flash area has been checked (crc) first !  This would have saved WD a lot of money in replacing people’s bricked devices because they have clueless people who did not do one simple task in checking the new update engine!  pathetic again!

[text deleted]  I was just curious to see what it did as many people talked about it, and the guy himself claimed it adds many features…It doesn’t - it’s garbage and for the majority of people you will never used the extra function, there IS no extra feature added, the menus are the same, the options are the same, no new ones, no new format support, no added functions, nothing…

Also the box supports WMV9 - why the HELL doesn’t it support WMA Pro formats used in WMV9 videos ??? what use is it to have an HD player if it can’t support some HD audio content !

[text deleted]    Those who are aware, will see that I don’t have an axe to grind.

Oh and one more thing - what bloody kind of media player does not come with GOTO support - this is something WD overlooked !!!  They should have had a serach by time functino since the FIRST firmware, [text deleted]  !

ok i ack your right to rant/voice opinions…

but i find it odd that you complain about wdtvl’s picture/display quality but also rant on about  it not having s-video connections…

you want good display quality stick with hdmi…those component/composite connectors that came in wdtvl are still in their plastic packaging in the box

You get what you pay for. For less than £100 I get an easy way to stream my movies from the NAS to the TV. The interface is easy though plain, Networking is mostly intuitive.

It does exactly what I want it to achieve. When I want to move on I would purchase something like the BD Prime or Popcorn c200. And there you also get what you pay for. Right now I want something to  SIMPLY play h264 and mpegs.

Almost every device on the market cripples the under the hood chip sets. That is the way the commercial sector works. You see it in electronics, cars, computer systems etc.  Yes they have put a top rate processor in the machine but they are not obliged to use it to the max. For the development time and costs they have just produced a basic kit. and seem intent on not offering access to the higher functions.  I would say that every NMT on the market suffers the same issues. This remains a young market with a bunch of players who don’t quite invest enough time and money in developing a killer app. The WD offerings fall into the same bracket as the rest. Take a look at the huge issues over the mede8er a similar priced product with its won woeful issues. Or the ridiculously expensive Divico products who have experienced an appalling year of poor product support and under-performing firmware.

I totally agree that issues around thumbnails, chapters etc were an appauling mistake but again every other NMT manufacturer has doen similar when releasing new products. The test now is how well WD will offer firmware fixes.

When a truly decent media player is released which does not have the firmware/feature issues that EVERY NMT has at present then I will be the first in the queue to dump the WDTVLIVE meanwhile I am very happy with a product which achieves the short term target I want.

Again you are not looking at this device as a piece of consumer electronics made cheaply in China. You are reviewing it as a professional audio/video product which is ridiculous and unfair. Why not share your obvious experience positively instead making these long winded rants about what may happen. Yes it has its problems and yes WD are not getting their finger out when it comes to sorting out these problems but most of us have the unit now  and we have to make the best of it.  

On another forum a Sigma employee said that certain DVD functions were down to licensing as you say. As to" the firmwares WD keeps spitting at us" quote, there have only been two at this stage and one of those has been withdraw. This forum has since been set up and hopefully the next firmware update will address a number of both our and your issues. I assume you have condensed your many thoughts and put them in the ideas exchange, no it seems you have not, which again makes me believe that you have just got an axe to grind. If you want change don’t tell us, tell Western Digital via their ideas forum.

Sorry I could not keep my trap closed but hey it would not be a forum if I did. Happy New Year.