Adding NETFLIX is now officially Unplanned

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

The status of adding Netflix has been changed to Unplanned:  http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Ideas/NETFLIX-streaming-support/idi-p/143

It seems that the motion picture industry wants better protection then the Live can offer.

Thank you WD for finally updating us on this idea.

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Disappointing but there are many other ways to access Netflix (PlayOn, Wii, BD Player, etc.).

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NETFLIX streaming supportStatus: Unplanned
by Raster99 on 12-02-2009 09:29 AM

Support for instant play streaming of movies from Netflix.

Status: Unplanned
Update: Unfortuantely supporting Netflix is not possible on the current WDTV Live platform. This requires additional hardward component and content protection mechanism. We understand this is a very hot idea and we will keep this in mind for the future.

4

Uh, what future…?

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Future products, I’m guessing.

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ROFL…I think we all knew it would come to this…and we all knew that our ideas are just a reason for WD to spin off new hardware. Heck that’s what they did with ideas for the Gen1. They made the live, the mini, and the Gen2. What’s next…the WDTV ThanksForTheIdeasThatLedToOurNewDeviceButYou’reStuckWithYourOldDeviceAndWe’reNotGoingToDoAnythingAboutIIt? For a 5th generation product, it better be good.

I’m not sure why they can’t get a working firmware out but they sure are willing to design a whole new box. Does their hardware team just have way more people than their software team?

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Ya’ll are a little off plumb to think that all ideas should be added in to existing hardware.    That’s like buying a car, and expecting the manufacturer to double its horsepower through a free firmware upgrade.   

Of COURSE they’re going to use ideas to guide their next product offering.    They’re in business to sell new products; not keep old stuff working with all new features forever…  :wink:

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For those interested in a box with Netflix and the ability to add new features that expand it’s “horsepower” with free applications take a look at this: http://www.popbox.com/features.php

http://www.thereviewcrew.com/news/syabas-introduces-popbox-supports-netflix/

They must be “off plumb” to offer something like that!

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Raster99 wrote:

For those interested in a box with Netflix and the ability to add new features that expand it’s “horsepower” with free applications take a look at this: http://www.popbox.com/features.php

 

http://www.thereviewcrew.com/news/syabas-introduces-popbox-supports-netflix/

 

They must be “off plumb” to offer something like that!

 

 

That article is old.  The official PopBox product page makes no mention of Netflix.  

Bit of an ommission, no?

Could well be the case that Syabas’ “wonder box” is also not up to snuff WRT copyright protection, so support has been cancelled.  Hold off on the pre-orders for now, chaps.  

So no YouTube, possibly no Netflix, and I’m not seeing any mention of Hulu either.  Which leaves… MediaFly?  

I’m struggling to contain my excitement.  ;)

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You could be right but we won’t know that till it is released. And with the ability to run 3rd party applications it’s possible for a Netflix app to show up even if it is not an official Syabas application. The Boxee Box also mentioned Netflix support as well but there is no mention of Netflix on their website at the moment.

In any case there are going to be other media players with some of the same features of the WDTV Live with the inclusion of Netflix in the under $200 range.  Already there is the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+.

The bottom line is that sticking with the current version of the WDTV Live is not an option if you wanted Netflix support. :wink:

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Raster99 wrote:

The Boxee Box also mentioned Netflix support as well but there is no mention of Netflix on their website at the moment. 

The D-Link Boxee page is pretty useless when it comes to info, and the boxee.tv homepage isn’t too great either (unless you create an account and sign in).

However, the Boxee knowledgebase has the following article on what Boxee can play (Boxee Box is just hardware; Boxee runs on pretty much any PC):

http://support.boxee.tv/entries/86468-what-content-can-i-find-on-boxee

Short version:  Boxee will let you stream Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, BBC iPlayer (depending on region I guess), and much more.  Pandora, Shoutcast, CNN, MTV, Last.FM…  

If you want a media box that does everything, Boxee / Boxee Box is the way to go.  It’s taking its sweet time to get here though.

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TonyPh12345 wrote:

Ya’ll are a little off plumb to think that all ideas should be added in to existing hardware.    That’s like buying a car, and expecting the manufacturer to double its horsepower through a free firmware upgrade.   

 

Of COURSE they’re going to use ideas to guide their next product offering.    They’re in business to sell new products; not keep old stuff working with all new features forever…  :wink:

I realize that we shouldn’t be expecting WD to turn our Ford Pintos into Ferraris but it really is a slap in the face to those that made suggestions about how to improve the WDTV Gen1 only to find out that WD has entirely abandoned the Gen1 only about a year after it first came out. And the standing answer to any question of why the Live, Mini, or Gen2 get features and the Gen1 is being left in the dust is because there are hardware differences. That’s a pretty easy answer for them but entirely not true. There is no reason whatsoever that the Gen1 couldn’t have a file manager added for example.

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I know this is a piece of technology… But 6 months is not an acceptable lifespan… Or really 4 months, if yours was bricked…

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If you really want to know what the Boxee Box is capable of doing or not doing, the best way to find out is to install the the Boxee software on your PC. This is the beauty of Boxee in my opinion. I don’t have to plunk down $200 just to find out that what I want to do really isn’t supported or that the audio is way out of sync or whatever. This should get you 90% of the way there. Hopefully that extra 10% will come from reading other people’s reviews of how well the hardware works. Also, Boxee is more about software than hardware (which is why they’re having someone else make the hardware) so I highly doubt that they would go so long with a broken version of their software…whereas a hardware company might (but probably shouldn’t and that’s why we’re all complaining) do that.