That’s helpful info!! I just followed the link the tech sent me and didn’t go digging through the forum as the title was an instant match - he probably saw the title and thought the same.
Off topic for my box and a bit of background as to why you will see the Aussies getting passionate about this topic…
Netflix launched in Australia recently to much anticipation. For a long time Australia has been locked into a monopoly of one TV content provider (Foxtel) who are expensive and absolute rubbish with year old TV series repeating endlessly. Which is why Australia has the highest rates of illegal downloading or people using Geoblocking/VPN to access US services.
Now Netflix is here it’s visible in all the electronics/TV shops and the first question people ask on Sales.
WDTV Media Player dropping Netflix will kill it’s Sales in Aus at the moment, especially while Netflix is riding high.
OK wandered over to the WDTV Live Hub Forum and thought I’d sum up for anyone following this thread…
Wow there’s a lot of angry people over there. Long threads for every country that didn’t get Netflix support.
The common theme was summed up in this simple post form someone:
“I’'ll never buy anything from WD. Extremely disappointed.”
Ab bit unfair as after searching through it all, here’s the issue:
“As for the Hub not supporting Netflix, this is entirely down to Netflix themselves as every time they launch in a new region they change the DRM in use and each new DRM scheme needs hardware support to function.”
i.e we’re screwed - no netflix support ever on the Live Hub as it needs different hardware for the region.
It does mean that the WD support tech was telling me porkies when he said “We do not have a Firmware update at this moment but certainly we are working on it.”
So I guess there was no point in trying to chase down an ETA on that!
Guess I will bin the box and buy myself something else.
Thanks all for your feedback - sorry about the rookie mistake using the wrong forum.
Sorry to thread-mine a bit, but thank you for the information in this thread, saved me buying 2 of these boxes today.
Now to find something similar that plays most formats and outputs DTS etc on my media files, as well as supports Netflix. Because contrary to WD’s advertisement of this product, i DO need a player to also play Netflix.
Ebay sellers are getting over $100 for the older box.
Yep, same here, I nearly bought 2 for family members yesterday, saying they did ‘everything’, now I’ll be buying none. The family members, unlike me, don’t need the USB playback anywhere near as much as they’d like to try Netflix, and so will be buying the $45 Chromecast instead of the $139 WDTV Media Player.
If they sold Roku 3 boxes here in Australia, the WDTV sales would be in serious danger after this latest release removes Netflix. As is stands though, if you want a device that plays USB content AND streams from Netflix etc., we’re out of luck. There is now nothing that is sold here that can do both… Just as Netflix FINALLY launches in Australia… WD or Netflix, or both, someone has clearly dropeed the ball on this one…
The hardware obviously isn’t an issue on the WDTV ‘Media Player’/‘Live’/‘Live Streaming’. I’d like to know, for sure not heresay, what the actual reason they dropped Netflix is, and if we can get it back!?
I understand these are meant to be ‘user to user’ forums, and our disappointment probably goes unnoticed here, is there anywhere that we can actually make our voice actually heard about this issue? Thanks!
The Netflix app on the Australian distribution of WD TV will not work because:
The device as distributed by Western Digital in Australia probably does not have a DRM (Digital Rights Management) clearance for digital content in Australia, a lengthy process to execute, and WD probably hasn’t bothered as such for a small Australian market.
The ABC iView app was recently disabled because WD were probably not prepared to keep the app up=to-date into the future.
In my opinion this is no great loss as these apps are dated and clunky when they operated. I used the Netflix app when I was accessing Netflix USA with the WD TV Netflix app via a VPN setup.
I rarely use any of the in-built apps anymore, instead I use the Mirrorcast function and cast Android Chromecast apps to it, e.g. Youtube, Deezer etc which are much more funtional and easier to use than the WD TV app counterparts.
It’s been an age since WD have updated the WD TV firmware, so I am not expecting WD to make any improvements in the near future. It’s a shame because it is an ideal device for most puposes, particularly if you have an older TV which is neither a smart TV or even the newer Android TVs now coming in to the market. For me, at least it’s better than an Apple TV device.
There appears to be some confusion between older WD TV Live and the latest WD TV devices.
There are technical issues regarding access to the Netflix datatbase as the Netflix Publc API is no longer supported.
On ANY device available in Australia, there are ALWAYS geographic retrictions over access to content in this country. DRM (Digital rights Management) is a thorny beast in Australia and is easier for 3rd party content distributors such as Netflix, Stan, Foxtel/Prestel, FetchTV and Quickflix to negotiate with content owners/distributors than it is for hardware manufacturers like Western Digital. Other players such as Apple and Rokyu notwithstanding.
I bought the WDTV by accident thinking it was the WDTV live. Yes, Im an ■■■■■ for not reading the box properly, but they look the same.
I think its pretty moronic for WD not to support the most popular streaming service in the world. Its almost like they WANT people to use their competitor’s devices.
I for one will never buy a WD product again, and make sure none of my friends and family do either.
I tried accessing it to vote, and it tells me that I don’t have access to it. Maybe that’s why there are only 10 votes. The locked everyone else out.I’d by 4 or 5 more boxes from them if the new ones supported netflix. I have 4 of the older boxes that do, and love their performance. Tried a Roku 3 did not like it. returned it. I did not want to re-encode the almost 800 family videos (almost 25 years) we have. Tried Plex, playback was choppy on the roku. Very smooth playback on the wd product.
I have Wd Tv media player ( gen 2) with no app for Netflix . How do you connect google chrome cast through the unit and have it operating ?i have google connected through the HDMI outlet of the WdTv box
