I believe everyone is being too hard on WD and too impatient.
Remember that this has been the time of year that many manufacturers shut down for the holidays, or at least give quite a few of their staff vacation for the holidyas.
Also, the Consumer Electronics show opens tomorrow and many device manufacturers like WD are gearing up to display their new products.
I would guess that possibly next week we should see something new in the way of firmware.
I think people (myself most certainly included) have lost their patience with Western Digital because of the firmware fiasco. Any ‘patience’ I had stored up, immediately was drained from this…
Why should we be patient? Clearly, I think if WD wanted to hold their present user base and expand it, they would certainly try to be more transparent and give more updates/frameworks/plans etc, than they are now.
The ‘big’ things we were promised in late October/early November coming in late 2009 have certainly not come to us, and *did* come to us was a big problem. I can see, if they have to wait for those ‘big’ things to coalesce because of the firmware setback.
I’d love to be wrong, but at the CES people (companies) don’t announce new features for existing products- just new products… What could WD introduce (in regard to home entertainment) that is not already addressed by the Live. Oh wait, I know… A new Live that is stable, robust, works for everyone and major web app integration? Really? I don’t think so… If they did, wouldn’t that be pretty much defacating on their customers who bought the Live to begin with?
I hate to be a pessimist… But no firmware announcements during the CES… Maybe after with nothing new but ‘bug’ fixes. WD please prove me wrong.
Displaying new products shouldn’t take any cycles away from the development and/or support engineers for the WDTV Live. Besides, what could possibly be improved from the hardware standpoint? They have the core components, regardless of the product cycle. 1080p is 1080p…DTS is DTS and the Codec are also what they are. Fixing the WDTV will solve every problem they would conceivable have with new media players or other similar products.
Besides, if the new firmware was ready to be released (and it was supposedly - only to brick because of method of downloading or installing (not the firmware itself) then where is the new firmware now that that issue has been fixed?
Good question right?
I would guess that possibly next week we should see something new in the way of firmware.
Seriosly, what makes you think that? It is more likely we don’t see anything for quite a bit longer.
The fact is that devices are coming onstrream now that really make the WD TV Live look dated
Given the expected product lifespan of a $99 piece of consumer electronics, the CES announcements of new products only emphasize the short-lived dud the WDTV is likely to become.
When I purchase an item, I expect it to work as advertised, whether is costs $99 or $9900. I would gladly accept a WDTV for free as a BETA TESTER and put the product through its paces and identify bugs, but I’m not going to PAY for that privilege.
WD is certainly not the only company guilty of poor quality - I believe its the way of things. As these devices grow in complexity and functionality, the software becomes more complex and more prone to defects. Defects that are unlikely to be corrected in the product’s short life as new-device-of-the-year. We, as consumers, have grown accustomed to this trend, and some have apparently even come to defend it.
Well, I can kind of see it both ways. Seriously…if I were to buy a DVD player or some other piece of consumer electronics, I wouldn’t be too happy if it was as flakey as these devices have been and would be more than likely to return it. From the standpoint of someone who has connected a computer to my TV for a while, there are certain conveniences that the WD TV offers which make me more than willing to put up with a little bit of ■■■■. If WD wants to survive in this rapidly maturing and expanding market, they’re going to have to keep up and meet the demands of people expecting their devices to work as advertised right out of the box.
At the same time, WD isn’t a media company. They’re a storage company. I’m 99% sure that they put this thing together so they can sell more hard drives. If the market continues to mature as expected (Boxee Box, PopBox, etc), then they don’t have to put a penny more into these and they’ve accomplished their goal because people will still buy more storage for whatever brand media device they have.
The investment that WD would have to make to stay competitive in this market is much more than they’re currently at. Especially as other companies start offering devices with more features at a comparable price, WD is going to have to cut their margins to stay competitive which means that their return on investment would be even lower. So, with all that, I wouldn’t be surprised to see WD join all the others that have abandoned the WD TV as well.
At the same time that I’m slightly disgruntled by these devices, I’m happy that WD was willing enough to open the market a little more and show other companies what can be done. I realize that they weren’t leaders in every area, but they certainly received more exposure than other more obscure devices ever did. I’ve never seen a popcorn hour on the shelves of my local BestBuy, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the PopBox locally available to me. Thanks WD.
Patience may be a virtue but WD doesn’t even acknowledge their customers, sure they added the status “acknowledged” but it seems to be just an automated thing. They way it sits know since nothing is pending, planned, implemented or even rejected as unplanned so you have to conclude WD is doing exactly NOTHING!
Really how hard is it to implement some of these things, I’m not a programmer but it’s open source there are tonnes of GPL programs out there that can. Heck I’d rather see a custom port of XBMC or something of that nature on the WDTV live than use any specialty WD software, at least parts of it. Most already have many of the features that are constantly being requested from WD
This device came out the first week of October, and was pretty much sold out (at least in my case) everywhere until Halloween. The brick happened in late November. The alleged ‘regroup’ of Western Digital for this product should be happening now.
Meanwhile competing devices have been: around, launched at the same time or upcoming launch for end Q1/beginning Q2. That’s not “product of the year”… That’s product of the past 6 months… With only one ‘successful’ firmware update? No additional features yet added on?
Maybe, I should have had more patience before I decided to jump on the Western Digital bandwagon…! (Don;t get me wrong, I like my unit… But it EASILY could be so much more…)
Well said.
I think a fair percentage of people bought these things thinking that they would be so much more, me included. While there were a few firmware upgrades mid 2009 for my Gen1 that fixed some issues I was having, they really haven’t done what I expected them to do with their firmware, which was to add that ‘so much more’. I, for one, will be much less likely to buy something for it’s potential. I think this is something that alot of us have learned…especially since that so much more has been added in other devices which we don’t think we should have to **bleep** over more money for…Gen2, Mini, Live.
Really though, I don’t think it’s all that fair to WD that we buy something from them with the expectation that they add so much more to it. Have bugs fixed, yes, but more features…probably not.
I really didn’t expect it to be “so much more”, (although I did hope), I just want it to work, as advertised, without the need for a forum like this where tech folks try to work around the bugs the manufacturer left in the product in their hurry to get it to the market.
I buy hundreds of hard drives every year in my job. I switched to Seagate, years ago, because of my experiences with WD’s tech support. I am disappointed that it hasn’t changed. Where is WD’s tech support? They apparently don’t monitor this forum or just don’t care.
Hi Stevej,
The WD Community was created for Users such as yourself to help one another, and to share your experiences and ideas with one another. As Moderators, we are here simply to facilitate and oversee the community. If you have a question relating the what’s going on in the community, we will be happy to respond. However, if you are looking direct technical support from WD, you will need to contact them in your region.
To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en
-WendyM
This is a real shame that no WD techs ever look into this forum. There is a post “Network drops every approx 4 minutes” that has been going for over a month with close to 3000 views over 9 pages of posts of Users trying to help each other with this problem. There are other posts with other problems that people can not solve. As we have no documentation of the internal workings of the code all we can do is experiment until something works then post about it. This is not how it should be. Nor should people be expected to do this.
It has been mentioned a few times that people should contact technical support for help. Well, several have without success and that is why they are here trying to get an answer. It’s too bad there is not one qualified person from WD to help with any of the issues here.
I am not one of the people having problems with my setup. I am lucky to have mine working with no problems and I try to help people here when I can. It is frustrating when all the help you give is to no avail and I have just about lost my patients too with WD and wonder why I even bother posting here.
We get no feedback on anything we ask. What are the plans for the firmware?
There are many questions we have and can not be answered by the moderators here which is understandable but WD really needs to get a tech involved in the forums here. Or maybe WD should release the firmware to opensource so we can dig into it and fix it ourselves.
I understand as moderators your job does not involve answering any questions here but is just to keep the peace. But, you are on the inside and we are not. You are in a position to get these concerns to the right people and let then know that they have some un-happy campers here.
Moderators, what would it take to get a WD tech in here?
oldguy1 wrote:
Also, the Consumer Electronics show opens tomorrow and many device manufacturers like WD are gearing up to display their new products.
I would guess that possibly next week we should see something new in the way of firmware.
Their problem is that at the CES other companies are going to show playback devices at the same price as the Live but doing ten times more. So lets hope for them (if not for us) that you are right and that there will be some impressive firmware out real soon now.
radio1 wrote:
The ‘big’ things we were promised in late October/early November coming in late 2009 have certainly not come to us, and *did* come to us was a big problem.
I missed this announcement, who promised us big things?
needed:
fix thumnail issues
iso and img support for DVD menus (i know this is most likely never going to happen)
better ff and rw functions
more stability with networks (hard wired and wireless)
more LIVE options to use internet etc
To Raster 99: I’m pretty much of the same opinion as you. However it is to be noted that the firmware *is* actually open source and available from WD. This is why the B-Rad homebrew firmware took off so rapidly. I haven’t checked it yet though.
I was one of the folks that did open a ticket with the problems I am having… specifically
1. box freezing up for no apparent reason
2. USB device not recognizing the attached drives
3. And most importantly… the network shares droppping in and out.
Today I just recieved an email from WD Tech support suggesting that I just return the box. I’m waiting on an answer back to see if they want me to return it cause they can’t fix the problems or if it is just to send me another box that does the same thing.
I got mine the week before xmas. I just wanted something that would play videos and other media I have stored on my network. I ran all of the available firmware updates with no issues. It hasn’t been perfect, but has certainly live up to my expectations. I haven’t experienced the newtork issues or other problems I have seen others post about. We have probably watched a couple dozen videos ranging from avi, mkv and dvd format on it and used the pandora internet radio mostly since we got it.
Navigation and features could be improved a lot, but the unit does what I need it to do and has without issue. DVD menus and improved FF/RW would be probably my pick for most needed features not already included.
I will say that this would be the first “community” for a particular manufacturer that I have been a part of that didn’t have a technical staffer actively participating to resolve people’s issues.
dudemanbubba wrote:
I will say that this would be the first “community” for a particular manufacturer that I have been a part of that didn’t have a technical staffer actively participating to resolve people’s issues.
Totally agree. Usually the tech folks are fanatical about their “babies” so inhabit forums like these even in their spare time. Perhaps this lack of WD staff makes a statement about company morale/loyalty at WD at the moment. We can only hope BDrad’s firmware matures quickly and becomes more mainstream.
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