Firmware for WD TV HD Media Player (Gen 2)

es335 wrote:

The “update” killed my perectly performing HD TV unit.   DONT DO IT. 

Which update are you talking about?

Dear Mr. bill_s,

The same situation came to me too.

I bought an WD HD with firmware ver. 1.01.41 from used market 5 months ago.

It became a semi-bricked one after flashing the official firmware 1.01.77 and I finally knew it’s an engineer sample.

Since the formerly working firmware was not backup now I got the WD logo only on TV after turned it on.

Hope WD can help . >_<

The only thing I can recommend is contact Tech Support and see if they can help you.  Let them know that you bricked your device after updating the firmware. 

To Contact WD for Technical Support
http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

Thank you Mr.bill_s.

I did contact WD Support as soon as I bricked my device.

But they just told me to reset & reflash the official firmware which I had tried several times.

The last firmware for “gen 2” was released on 2009 december and there is no more, what’s happen? the “live” now is capable to play dvd’s menu and in mkv they can see some that we don’t, i think with a new firmware you are capable of solvent these problems in our “gen 2”.

Please we need a new firmware as soon as posible.

(Please excuse my bad english)

so if you believe in Santa Claus and other legends, you may believe that WD will launch another update for the old models…

they just do not care about customers, just see how many products they launch…  they keep selling the old ones.

there is no respect to customers.

Interesting you mention Santa Claus…  Believers in St. Nick includes the group of people who paid for a product that has all the features mentioned on the box and in the documentation, and then they demand more and more for free.  

You might as well say “I bought a 300 Gb hard drive a year ago.  Now they’re shipping 1 TB HDs.   WD doesn’t care about their customers, because they should make my 300GB HD a 1TB for free.”

Tony,

Updates? yes.

For Free? Not necessarily. Bug fixes should be free, but not new file formats, more features, etc. 

I’d be willing to pay a bit of money for increased functionality, over and above what it said on the box…

New codecs (and for a large part new file formats/expanded support of existing formats) has to come from installing a new chip in the device, not merely a firmware update from WD.

It doesn’t matter what you personally are willing to pay for… there’s just some things WD can’t change without building a whole new device.

And every time users gang up and demand some new change that requires a new chip, and WD builds it, then the same users that wanted that support in the first place, are mad that they can’t just add it to their existing device, but have to buy a new one.

We’ve seen that (amongst other examples) with the Mini.  Users asked, begged, demanded, voted for .rmvb support.  WD went out and found a chip that supports .rmvb, and built the Mini around it, since the chips in the rest of the WDTVs don’t support it.  Now the Mini users are mad that the chips in their machines can’t do everything that the other chips in the Mini’s big brothers can do, and the owners of the other boxes are mad that their boxes still can’t play .rmvb… “you added it to the Mini… why can’t you add it to the Live Plus??”

That’s what happens with single-chip solutions… it keeps the cost down, but the chip places limits on where the development can go.

… it’s a fact of life.   Planned Obsolescence , particularly with Tech Gear, is here to stay.

Tony,

I’ve read enough of your posts to know that your an advocate for WD and all that it stands for…claiming that we’re all asking for more than what we paid for.

Please address the fact that we paid for functionality that we’re not getting. I paid for mp4 support and I’m not getting. Being able to play a few select files that hit certain areas of the mp4 spec is not ‘support’. I haven’t come across an .mp4 file that it wouldn’t try to play but audio and video are all terribly out of sync. I’ve heard similar stories about wmv and other formats as well. Heck, I’ve got .iso files that go out of sync as they get to the end of the movie. So you tell me…how are they delivering me what I paid for? And how can they still be advertising support for mp4 files?

This is clearly not the same as your 300GB vs 1TB analogy. Whereas we did and still do have our 300GB, we do not have mp4 support. I’m not sure that we ever did. Did we pay for it? Yes. Do we have it? (again) No? Clearly not the same thing.

And for all you people out there saying that WD needs to change hardware in order to get things working…tell me why WD is still advertising mp4 support!!! It’s completely misleading…and an outright lie!!! I know big companies with big money can usually get away with lying, but for you little people to take these lies hook line and sinker…I’m embarrassed.

A few nights ago I realized that I’ve pretty much stopped using the WD but I find myself at this sight every so often to find news on the update that Bill promised us ever so long ago… More lies??? I think so… Surprised, not really. Does it matter to me…I’ve pretty much moved on. There are much more feature rich and less buggy devices out there. The funny part is that at one point, people on here were saying that those devices are just as buggy as the WDs are so it didn’t really matter what you went with (Asus for example). As far as I can tell from recent reviews, they’ve been getting updates to fix their issues. What do we get? The opportunity to buy a 10th generation WD product which fixes some bugs, does nothing for others, and adds more features with even more bugs. I’m pretty sure I know who the losers are.

TonyPh12345 wrote:

… it’s a fact of life.   Planned Obsolescence , particularly with Tech Gear, is here to stay.

 

 

 

 

Why would WD plan their own obsolescence? I see them doing it…but why?

Interesting… way back when, before you “gave up” on WD, did you ever provide WD with legal examples of files that wouldn’t play right?  For them to work with?

That happens with any product from any manufacturer… there’s limits on what they can use for testing purposes.  If It works fine for them, it doesn’t guarantee it will work fine for everyone, but without even knowing what the problem is, they can’t go about fixing it.

All manufacturers rely on end users’ reports, since they can’t test all possible combinations of end use.  Or else they would have had to start testing the components for your car, back when Jesus was a baby, there’d be so many different iterations in possible end-use conditions.

You see that from any software developer… “well it works for me… what exactly are you doing for it to not work?”.

Without having samples of files that “don’t work”, if all WD has is a collection of files that work for them, then they can’t see the problem.  Are they supposed to just keep guessing?

The Gen1 wasn’t even listed as supporting .iso files, and I never had sync issues playing them.

I didn’t think they had cars when Jesus was a baby…

I never did supply WD with any samples. A spec is a spec and they should start there. From what I can tell, they don’t have that covered yet. How is it that my Roku player plays the mp4s just fine. I didn’t have to provide samples to them. But, if WD would like to pay me for consulting fees, I’d be happy to work through these issues for them. As it sits, I’m the customer and I expect them to provide what they promised the customer, namely mp4 support.

nijaju wrote:

How is it that my Roku player plays the mp4s just fine

Because the Nexperia chipset isn’t the same as the Sigma chipset??

Then I’ll stay away from the Sigma chipset thanks.

Nijaju, no, I’m not waving my hand over MALFUNCTIONS and saying that WD is OK.   If it’s not working the way it’s advertised or documented to, that’s an entirely different thing, and no, I don’t support that.  

My argument came from the poster who’s demanding DVD playback when the WDTV HD was never intended to do that.  

Now, as to the platforms that DID get that, well, that’s a BONUS, and a welcome surprise (like the WDTV Live.)   But that doesn’t ENTITLE everyone who bought an older product to get the same thing.

Right, and I completely agree with that. I’m not concerned with new functionality because that’s not what I bought. I would however, like my existing player to have bugs fixed. But, like I said, it’s becomeing less and less of an issue as I use other devices that actually work as advertised.

This whole WD experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. When looking at WD products, I don’t know if what they’re telling me on the box is actually how it’s going to be. I understand (more than some others I think) that a newly released product can have some bugs. It happens. It’s a new area for WD and they need to build up soem experience and expertise. But like I said, if they’re going to advertise functionality, they need to deliver.

This also goes for the firmware upgrade Bill mentioned a few months back. I understand that they’re reluctant to mention any future releases because people like me will bark up their tree until it happens, even if they change their mind and decide to not do it…but again…it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying WD is infallible.  After all, I’ve found enough issues with my Gen1 (and found the work-arounds) – I know the box isn’t anywhere near perfect.

My only point was, if WD tests a filetype or a codec with the test files available to them and nothing is amiss, then they are not “wrong” to consider it to have passed their testing.  They can’t try every file ever encoded.

So, if a user comes across a file that won’t do what WD says it should, there’s an expectation that the user will assist the WD techs in finding out why it doesn’t play right… is it an encoding issue? … is it a firmware bug? … is it a limitation of the chipset?

This isn’t a slam of you or anyone else, but without access to files that won’t play, WD is limited to guessing why they won’t play.

Should the devices play what’s listed as being supported?  Of course.  Do they always?  Nope.  Can WD do anything about it if they don’t know why the files aren’t playing like they should and can’t investigate the files that don’t work?  Not really.

I’m speculating that they have access to plenty of files that have issues and your speculating that they don’t. WD, wanna chime in here?

Really though, I could find out I’m wrong and your right but it doesn’t really matter to me anymore. I don’t use my box too much anymore. It’s more of the bad taste in my mouth that I wrote about earlier that I still don’t like.