A way to exclude certain network shares from the list would be great; I’ve got multiple machines on my home network, but only one of them has media, and it seems like my Live Plus *always* manages to get its name sorted such that it takes the largest possible number of clicks to get to it on the list.
Just a thought.
Rather than an exclusion list, I’d rather see an inclusion list. Like you, I have ONE share out of many systems and many shares per system, that contains media. Rather than make the same selections each day, I’d like to set favorites that can easily be accessed from a top level menu.
If you have a suggestion post it here:
richUK wrote:
If you have a suggestion post it here:
Why? So that WD can ignore this idea yet again? This is at least the third time it’s been suggested - and as much as I would *love* to see this feature (and suggested it myself several months ago), WD has no evident interest in improving the UI from a usability standpoint.
The Ideas Lab is a joke.
casm23 wrote:
richUK wrote:
If you have a suggestion post it here:
http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Ideas/idb-p/idea
Why? So that WD can ignore this idea yet again? This is at least the third time it’s been suggested - and as much as I would *love* to see this feature (and suggested it myself several months ago), WD has no evident interest in improving the UI from a usability standpoint.
The Ideas Lab is a joke.
Do you know another way of getting it done. Its posted here and on the ideas board - thats about all you can do.
richUK wrote:> Do you know another way of getting it done. Its posted here and on the ideas board - thats about all you can do.
Oh, I completely agree that the options for bringing it to WD’s attention are limited. The thing is, neither approach seems to work in any sort of meaningful way; about the best thing I can say for either one is that it gives users a sense of false hope that their requests may actually be taken under consideration.
Just because the lab isn’t updated doesn’t mean they aren’t paying attention.
Quite a lot of the suggestions have made it into production.
USB Keyboard
WiFi support for specific requested devices
NetFlix
DVD Navigation
etc. etc…
Just because YOUR suggestion didn’t make it doesn’t mean that they aren’t watching.
TonyPh12345 wrote:> Just because YOUR suggestion didn’t make it doesn’t mean that they aren’t watching.
And just because a very small percentage of the suggestions did make it into production firmware doesn’t excuse WD’s approach towards development of the firmware or this community. You are as aware as I am that it has been considerably less than exemplary.
I agree, they could do a better job of managing the Ideas Lab. In fact, my suggestion to them has been to do away with it unless they are going to maintain it.
However, I also don’t feel anyone should really “Expect” additional feature development beyond what the box was advertised to do… Any new FEATURES are bonuses.
I, for one, would rather see them iron out bugs until the box is dang near perfect instead of being distracted by doing new things, but I doubt that will happen, either… 
TonyPh12345 wrote:
I agree, they could do a better job of managing the Ideas Lab. In fact, my suggestion to them has been to do away with it unless they are going to maintain it.
However, I also don’t feel anyone should really “Expect” additional feature development beyond what the box was advertised to do… Any new FEATURES are bonuses.
I, for one, would rather see them iron out bugs until the box is dang near perfect instead of being distracted by doing new things, but I doubt that will happen, either…
If the Ideas Lab went away tomorrow, I for one would not miss it. There really isn’t anything it offers that can’t be done here.
Having said that, I would like to make it clear that I do understand that WD is under no obligation to incorporate an idea submitted to the Ideas Lab in any subsequent firmware release. The issue - as it has always been - is how they have responded to the community when they do offer ideas.
The reality is that there are a number of small things they could do to make living with the device better in the course of improving other areas - but they aren’t. And if that’s the route they want to take, that’s fine. But their poor level of communication with their users has resulted in me recommending to potential customers that they not buy this unit; if they want to continue engendering this sort of poor word-of-mouth, all they have to do is nothing at all.
Such simple tweaks are really so easy to make on the filesystem level! The problem is WD have to redesign the GUI, which implicates the decision making process has to be run a couple of times up down.
What we need is “ONE TWEAK TO RULE THEM ALL”, so we, the power users, can config the little machine to our needs.
This can be done by including a CLI where a simple command would adjust the config files.
At this moment I’m unpacking the wdtvlive.bin. This package is basically a Linux filesystem. So adding a secure shell and a CLI scrip is peanuts. Figuring out which config files to tweak will be more difficult for me without proper documentation.
Marcel-X wrote:
Such simple tweaks are really so easy to make on the filesystem level! The problem is WD have to redesign the GUI, which implicates the decision making process has to be run a couple of times up down.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at the firmware, but my recollection is that the GUI is mostly described in XML; tweaking it shouldn’t be too terribly difficult.
If you haven’t already, take a look at B-Rad’s Firmware. Should give you a pretty good idea of how it all goes together.
casm23 wrote:> If the Ideas Lab went away tomorrow, I for one would not miss it. There really isn’t anything it offers that can’t be done here.> Having said that, I would like to make it clear that I do understand that WD is under no obligation to incorporate an idea submitted to the Ideas Lab in any subsequent firmware release. The issue - as it has always been - is how they have responded to the community when they do offer ideas.
The reality is that there are a number of small things they could do to make living with the device better in the course of improving other areas - but they aren’t. And if that’s the route they want to take, that’s fine. But their poor level of communication with their users has resulted in me recommending to potential customers that they not buy this unit; if they want to continue engendering this sort of poor word-of-mouth, all they have to do is nothing at all.
I’ve always been partial of the thought, “Better the devil you know, rather than the devil you don’t know.”
I think the original intention of the Ideas Lab was to centralize all the suggestions in one area for users to get involved and kudo on the best of all the ideas. I, for one, wanted DVD menu support and NetFlix. I live in Canada. I got my DVD menus, to which I am very grateful. But even though the Live Plus is available up here, NetFlix is only supported in the U.S. Am I disappointed? Yes. But I did get my #1 request fulfulled (DVD menus).
WD is paying attention, giving priority to the most sought-after requests. For the time being, even though there may not seem to be any movement on the improvements scene of the firmware, and as the support life of the Live is surely coming to an end with the new box coming out, some of the big requests did make it in the latest releases.
Like I said, I got my DVD menus, which I’m sure WD saw as the #1 request in the Ideas Lab. Had there not been an Ideas Lab, we’d certainly still be complaining, but elsewhere all over the board.
