New wd tv live when?

As the technology progress and the wd tv live gen3 left behind because DOESN’T support 3d frame packing movies and others does any admin/mod can tell us if we can wait a new wd tv live product with faster menu and if we can WHEN did released and what does it has.

ask the same question   … and get you’ll the same answer

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming/Until-when-does-this-product-supported/m-p/644651#M26150

fits79 wrote:

As the technology progress and the wd tv live gen3 left behind because DOESN’T support 3d frame packing movies and others does any admin/mod can tell us if we can wait a new wd tv live product with faster menu and if we can WHEN did released and what does it has.

There is currently no information about new WDTV products. Any new products will show up on the link below. 

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeentertainment/mediaplayers/

It’s coming up on 3 years since this came out, whereas they used to release every year it seemed.

I think this is the end of the road for WDTV perhaps.

Agreed.  This has become a very hot space in the past 6 months.  Google, Apple, Roku, and now Amazon.

Yes but those other products don’t handle folks who have a large digital library themselves.  Those are great for streaming media from ‘da Cloud’ but they support very few formats compared to WDTV.  

I know those who keep their own Media Library are in the minority but WDTV could do well servicing that niche but still powerful market

The major disadvantaged that wdtv products need is to support 3d movies and FULL BLURAY MENU so…

JRFishman wrote:

Yes but those other products don’t handle folks who have a large digital library themselves.  Those are great for streaming media from ‘da Cloud’ but they support very few formats compared to WDTV.  

 

I know those who keep their own Media Library are in the minority but WDTV could do well servicing that niche but still powerful market

I do have a large digital library, and have yet to run into anything that Roku 3/ Plex won’t play.  Most of what I have is natively supported by the Roku, that which isn’t the Plex transcodes on the fly.  

Really? Plex can transcode full HD bluray M2TS files on the fly? And the Roku will output DTS-HD MA?

And there is a lot of media players that supports almost everything.

Like mede8er med600x3d and now cost logical price for these who offer so…

dcb917 wrote:

I do have a large digital library, and have yet to run into anything that Roku 3/ Plex won’t play.  Most of what I have is natively supported by the Roku, that which isn’t the Plex transcodes on the fly.  

 

The WD boxes are self contained units that play files on it’s own, where as the Roku will play some files, but really requires another server running a media server (Plex, Serviio, MyMedia etc) to fully work well. These are completely different players, one built to stream Internet Media, and one built to play local files. I like both of them for what they are built to do.

On the Roku forums in a recent thread where people were complaing about the lack of file type support, this was the response from the Moderator (a Roku employee) which to me sums it all up very well.

“Roku was initially designed as an internet streaming device, not a local streamer. Local streaming isn’t really what it’s designed for.”

I don’t need to pound a square peg into a round hole. I can make my Roku play pretty much anything, but why would I when I have a device that already does it natively? One of each makes life very nice :wink:

-P

fits79 wrote:
The major disadvantaged that wdtv products need is to support 3d movies and FULL BLURAY MENU so…

Really? I’m certainly not the only one who doesn’t give a **bleep** about either feature.

I own all of the above devices and they all have their strong points.

Bottom line here for me is for me to ever be interested again in a WD player they would have to upgrage any new products with “current” modern hardware. I have not used my WD in ages due to its underpowered painfuly slow UI experence. The other mentioned products run circles around the WD as far as performance goes. The WD’s hardware is just to outdated and in bad need of a refresh and hardware/product update.

But who knows, it they release somehting i will be sure to always check it out.

Cheers!

pearl wrote:


dcb917 wrote:

I do have a large digital library, and have yet to run into anything that Roku 3/ Plex won’t play.  Most of what I have is natively supported by the Roku, that which isn’t the Plex transcodes on the fly.  

 


 

I don’t need to pound a square peg into a round hole. I can make my Roku play pretty much anything, but why would I when I have a device that already does it natively? One of each makes life very nice :wink:

 

-P

 

 

So you can have the best of both worlds?  That is where Plex comes in.  With that setup you get round and square.

If you were buying one of these boxes for the first time there are a few, but not many scenarios, where you would want to pick the WD.

Yeah, the world has definitely passed the WDTV Hub and the Live.  But saying that the WD isn’t still superior to the Roku for digital file support because Plex can serve files is like saying that my basic television is superior to the Roku for playing movies because its hooked up to a Oppo Blu-Ray player and my premium cable.  

I love my WD Hub, but its frustrating how … unfinished it seems, sort of an unrealized potential.  Part of that is the limitations of the time from which it came, ie. the underpowered CPU leading to painfully sluggish menues and slow network transfer speed of files.  But part of it is also what WD declined to finish or work out, ie. the poorly designed and crash prone YouTube app, the meager number of streaming options compared to other newer devices, the lack of disk management utillities (defrag).  I don’t know which of these is to blame for the the lack of DTS-HD passthrough support on the Hub, but its another expample of the device being outdated.  

Because of what the WDTV does so well I hope that WD doesn’t abandon the field.  I could easily live with a WDTV Live type device that lacks an internal drive.  The ease of attatching an external drive and the flexibility and advantages of such a system (size of the drive, portability for whatever reason without disconnecting the player itself from the TV, etc) outweighs the loss of the conveinience of internal space.  Beyond that, all thats required to have a successful modern WDTV device is adding (much) more robust CPU power, streaming options that are at least more competitive with Roku, Amazon, etc. and improving the interface and reliability of the apps.   

dcb917 wrote:

So you can have the best of both worlds?  That is where Plex comes in.  With that setup you get round and square.

 

If you were buying one of these boxes for the first time there are a few, but not many scenarios, where you would want to pick the WD.

No, that is where you, would not pick the WD, I still would. I do have a server with Plex on it and it’s fine, but it’'s still trying to get a Roku to do things it wasn’t made to, sometimes working well, sometimes not. No matter what, you are still missing the same issue: You are comparing a standalone unit to an architecture that requires a client and a server.

If you want to run a computer to manage your media media, there are plenty of options, and Plex is not even the one I would choose. That said, I (and you) have additional hardware and the technical know-how to build and troubleshoot server software, be it Plex, Serviio, PlayOn/MyMedia, Chaneru or XBMC as a standalone. That’s fine, but not what 90% my friends and family are in any sitution to build and support. 

The question and comparison is what the standalone boxes (along with an external USB hard drive) can do and which covers your needs. WD, Roku, AppleTV, Google Chrome and the new Amazon Box are the mainstream units that a person with light technical knowledge are goingt to buy, attach to their TV and try and use. I have not yet tried the Fire so cannot comment on it. As for the others, I would choose WD for my local media, and a Roku for it’s Internet Streaming. 

Real life example:

My parents have a Roku (2XD) and an AppleTV. I have a hard drive full of videos from a family trip we took last year I would like to give them. They have no way to attach this drive and watch the videos. I can buy them a Roku3, and then convert 500GBs of videos to a format it understands; Walk them through installing Plex on my father’s laptop (not gonna happen), or have them watch the videos on the laptop’s 15inch screen. None of these are good options. If they had an SMP, they would plug in the drive and we would be done. End result; me bringing my SMP across country when I visit them so I can show them the videos. 

I have no issue with Plex, and think that the most recent version of the Roku app combined with the latest Plex version finally does pretty much everything I would expect. It still requires a Roku, a server, and a person capable of troubleshooting it.

-P

pearl wrote:


dcb917 wrote:

So you can have the best of both worlds?  That is where Plex comes in.  With that setup you get round and square.

 

If you were buying one of these boxes for the first time there are a few, but not many scenarios, where you would want to pick the WD.


No, that is where you, would not pick the WD, I still would. I do have a server with Plex on it and it’s fine, but it’'s still trying to get a Roku to do things it wasn’t made to, sometimes working well, sometimes not. No matter what, you are still missing the same issue: You are comparing a standalone unit to an architecture that requires a client and a server.

 

If you want to run a computer to manage your media media, there are plenty of options, and Plex is not even the one I would choose. That said, I (and you) have additional hardware and the technical know-how to build and troubleshoot server software, be it Plex, Serviio, PlayOn/MyMedia, Chaneru or XBMC as a standalone. That’s fine, but not what 90% my friends and family are in any sitution to build and support. 

 

The question and comparison is what the standalone boxes (along with an external USB hard drive) can do and which covers your needs. WD, Roku, AppleTV, Google Chrome and the new Amazon Box are the mainstream units that a person with light technical knowledge are goingt to buy, attach to their TV and try and use. I have not yet tried the Fire so cannot comment on it. As for the others, I would choose WD for my local media, and a Roku for it’s Internet Streaming. 

 

Real life example:

My parents have a Roku (2XD) and an AppleTV. I have a hard drive full of videos from a family trip we took last year I would like to give them. They have no way to attach this drive and watch the videos. I can buy them a Roku3, and then convert 500GBs of videos to a format it understands; Walk them through installing Plex on my father’s laptop (not gonna happen), or have them watch the videos on the laptop’s 15inch screen. None of these are good options. If they had an SMP, they would plug in the drive and we would be done. End result; me bringing my SMP across country when I visit them so I can show them the videos. 

 

I have no issue with Plex, and think that the most recent version of the Roku app combined with the latest Plex version finally does pretty much everything I would expect. It still requires a Roku, a server, and a person capable of troubleshooting it.

 

-P

 

 

 

 

 

LOL, my parents gave up on their WD as the networking and slow/lame menus drove them nuts.  They are running yep…Plex with a Roku.  It took them 15 minutes to get Plex up and running.  I spent that 1 call helping with Plex.  I wish I could say the same when they were using the WD.  Point at the folders they already had from the WD experience and off they went.

Most people with digital libraries have them on a PC or a NAS (yeah Plex supports those too) so it is a moot point, WD or Roku, either is client/server.  The only question in the two scenarios is whether you are going to install software like Plex on the PC with your digital library.  The only way you get to s standalone, non client/server scenario with the WD is with no sharing, so I’ll grant the WD would be easier for those that just want to copy stuff to a flash and plug it in.

Regardless of what the Roku was designed for, Plex came along and you know what?  It just works and I get all the things in the Roku that are so much better than the WD.  In terms of troubleshooting, haven’t had to do that on the Roku/Plex and more importantly not a single call from my parents about Roku/Plex.

I don’t know what format your camcorder creates, but mine creates files that I can play without converting anything. That is the beauty to Plex it seems like it can handle anything.  Plus you get all the extensibility of Plex, something I am just starting to get into, cast or play on almost anything that can connect to the network.

littleg68 wrote:
Bottom line here for me is for me to ever be interested again in a WD player they would have to upgrage any new products with “current” modern hardware. I have not used my WD in ages due to its underpowered painfuly slow UI experence.

Yeah, I keep reading this but never experienced it myself. You must be talking about services cause from USB and wired NAS, I’m getting decent UI speed. The WDTV still plays everything it was designed for and I’m happy I don’t need Plex for anything.

Techflaws wrote:


littleg68 wrote:
Bottom line here for me is for me to ever be interested again in a WD player they would have to upgrage any new products with “current” modern hardware. I have not used my WD in ages due to its underpowered painfuly slow UI experence.


Yeah, I keep reading this but never experienced it myself.

Seriously…you have never experienced WD’s " underpowered painfuly slow UI experence."? 

I am very interested in what you did to speed up the " underpowered painfuly slow UI experence" that so many on this board routinely acknowledge.

I’m a newbie user when it comes to the WD TV live streaming but I have to say I’ve yet to experience a slow menu. However I do use TVersity on my main media server and perhaps that is assisting my experience.

But just to clarify:

It took me 5 minutes to setup the WD. I had the shares going in seconds and they are rock solid. I DO use DLNA however for most file serving so perhaps I’m tainting the mix. I had my Harmony remote set up in that same time.

The WD crapped all over my Humax PVR for file type support. I use the WD for music and video streaming- thats all. I don’t use netflix or any of the online viewers. And I’ve found it amazing value for the price.

There’s a “new” model for australia which has a 1TB drive. I don’t need it becasue this unit streams perfectly.

YMMV