This product (WD TV Live) does not perform as advertised

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

All,

Trying to play WMV video files by an external hard drive connected via USB.

Aparantly, this device does not perform as advertised and will not play some files with unsupported codecs.

Am I being to picky, but should this ■■■■■■ come loaded with every codec of every file supported.

It just does the same thing as trying to plug into my Samsung TV via USB. Same files don’t work.

Come on, WD, get it together.

As advertised:

Play virtually any media file format – WD TV Live supports a wide variety of the
most popular files including MKV, MP4, XVID, AVI, WMV , and MOV video formats.
Get the freedom to enjoy your media now, in virtually any file format.

Watch out for that word “virtually.”

Thanks for the ventilation opportunity. I’m very frustrated at this point.

Back to Best Buy for a return.

Cheers

David

2

David-Matthews wrote:

Back to Best Buy for a return.

Every media player has limitations of what codecs are supported.   Hopefully this experience has taught you that you need to do homework before purchasing.

The supported codecs / files are quite clearly documented in the specifications and user manual.

As to WMV files:  The specifications say that WMV is limited to:

  • WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.

With ANY media player, you’ll need to learn the difference between a FILE (container) and a CODEC.

WD does support all the file types listed.   WMV is a FILE (a “container”).  The codecs inside can vary greatly, which is why WD says that WMV9 is the supported codec within WMV containers.

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David, your WMV codec is most probably  Windows Media Video 8 WMV2   which isn’t supported

WMV2 requires Software Decoding

(MX Player on my Tablet will not play WMV2 using Hardware Decoding, but will play using Software Decoding)

The WDTV Live Streaming uses Hardware Decoding

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David-Matthews wrote:
Aparantly, this device does not perform as advertised and will not play some files with unsupported codecs.

Actually it does by not playing un supported codecs but only supported ones.

5

let the device connect to the internet and maybe your file will play fine…

it happens with some of my files

its stupid and i dont understand but it solves temporarly