“What really annoys me is that they just don’t seem to care how much they are hurting the company’s reputation. And for what?”
What’s odd is, I have an Asus Oplay, and there was exactly the same level of indifference by Asus towards fixing any bugs, or providing any updates. They just don’t seem to care, just like WD. It would be in each case, simply a matter of investing a developer’s time for a few days, maybe a week at most.
I suspect the revenue isn’t enough to justify it for them. Obviously they don’t care about reputation, it’s all about the dollars. Who cares if a few dozen SMP users get angry… they can sell more new WD Lives and make more money that way.
Why don’t you try and find out by posting them here since you already have done most of the work by finding them?
fred9999 wrote:
Who cares if a few dozen SMP users get angry… they can sell more new WD Lives and make more money that way.
Yeah, unless they don’t any more since people have moved on. Honestly, I’ve never seen so many people claim not to by anything from a particular brand before as on this forum. And if this really is about money, why waste time putting unadvertized features like DTS-MA passthrough into the old SMP model, rather than using it as an incentive for people to buy the new model? God knows, people need those since everyone apparently is totally missing Netflix.
Yeah, unless they don’t any more since people have moved on. Honestly, I’ve never seen so many people claim not to by anything from a particular brand before as on this forum. And if this really is about money, why waste time putting unadvertized features like DTS passthrough into the old SMP model, rather them using it as an incentive for people to buy the new model. God knows, people need those since everyone apparently is totally missing Netflix.
Sometimes I get the feeling that WD is ‘experimenting’ with new features and using us as the test subjects, just to see what works and doesn’t work with the intention of using that info for future products, and don’t care about making the current product work as intended.
I owned these players since Gen 1.This is how WD has dealt with each player .Never coming close to fixing all the bugs, most of the time making things worse towards the end then quitely moving on without a word to customers.
I have always bought my players on clearance, I have never payed more the $60 for one as I know what i’m getting.
Yeah, unless they don’t any more since people have moved on. Honestly, I’ve never seen so many people claim not to by anything from a particular brand before as on this forum. And if this really is about money, why waste time putting unadvertized features like DTS-MA passthrough into the old SMP model, rather than using it as an incentive for people to buy the new model? God knows, people need those since everyone apparently is totally missing Netflix.
LOL… people always say stuff like that… it feels good at the time, but as soon as they see something they like, out comes the wallet, never mind who makes it…
Yeah, I feel the same way… I wish I could shun WD forever… but I know if I see one of their drives on sale, or if they came out with a new media player that got good reviews, I would probably get it. And they probably know that too, which is why they don’t care. But they’re no different than all the big companies.
@Techflaws
I opened a ticket describing my problems with YouTube rebooting the box frequently. It was suggested by support to roll back my firmware. I said I didn’t really want to rollback my boxes again and asked if an update was coming to fix the issue. I was told yes it is being worked on, so I could wait for the new firmware rather than rolling back.
Redo1 wrote: @Techflaws
I opened a ticket describing my problems with YouTube rebooting the box frequently. It was suggested by support to roll back my firmware. I said I didn’t really want to rollback my boxes again and asked if an update was coming to fix the issue. I was told yes it is being worked on, so I could wait for the new firmware rather than rolling back.
Sounds promising. I wouldn’t hold my breath though.
Why don’t you try and find out by posting them here since you already have done most of the work by finding them?> * * *
I’m really not interested in helping to make a product better which I’m not using and not going to buy, namely that Netflix-less WDTV Media Player, or whatever it’s currently called.
Seeing as WD isn’t even fixing the MP4-bug they introduced in 2.02.32, I have no reason to believe they’ll fix any newly reported bug either.
I just bought a new WDTV, my current one has been freezing randomly which makes my kids unhappy for some reason.
I plug it in and setup the new device, which take literally less than 2 minutes, only to discover that there is no Netflix app.
Worse than this, the Google tells me that this is by design and the product no longer supports Netflix.
Are they out of your mind? I will be returning your product to the place of purchase tomorrow. I’ve already begun researching you competitors for an adequate replacement. What a shame.
This was a fine product. I am left baffled by this monumentally absurd decision by WD.
Good luck with your future products. You’re going to need it.
I just bought a new WDTV, my current one has been freezing randomly which makes my kids unhappy for some reason.
I plug it in and setup the new device, which take literally less than 2 minutes, only to discover that there is no Netflix app.
Worse than this, the Google tells me that this is by design and the product no longer supports Netflix.
Are they out of your mind? I will be returning your product to the place of purchase tomorrow. I’ve already begun researching you competitors for an adequate replacement. What a shame.
This was a fine product. I am left baffled by this monumentally absurd decision by WD.
Good luck with your future products. You’re going to need it.
In other news, the Roku looks promising.
WD’s reasoning is that you “already have a netflix box” and don’t need another. No, I like that the older one does Netflix AND plays videos off an SMB share.
Worse than this, the Google tells me that this is by design and the product no longer supports Netflix.
Are they out of your mind? I will be returning your product to the place of purchase tomorrow. I’ve already begun researching you competitors for an adequate replacement. What a shame.
This was a fine product. I am left baffled by this monumentally absurd decision by WD.
did you ever consider it might have been a decision by Netflix to take it away from WD ? after shutting down their public API ?
Worse than this, the Google tells me that this is by design and the product no longer supports Netflix.
Are they out of your mind? I will be returning your product to the place of purchase tomorrow. I’ve already begun researching you competitors for an adequate replacement. What a shame.
This was a fine product. I am left baffled by this monumentally absurd decision by WD.
did you ever consider it might have been a decision by Netflix to take it away from WD ? after shutting down their public API ?
Would this mean Roku also would no longer support Netflix, in addition to any other hardware that supports Netflix? It seems like a highly unlikely move by Netflix to cut support for the very devices that are supporting a lot of Netflix usage.
Actually I think it has more to do with Adobe dropping open source support for their video player and Google working with them to create a proprietary solution for Chrome only (which I get, but still pisses me off).
So I get the reasons, but dropping it is not a solution. You pay the licencing fee to Google or Adobe or whoever or you work something out with Netflix. Roll the extra cost into the price of the product and blame whoever you paid said fee to for the increase. Or you sponsor an Open Source project to develop an alternative. Anything. Not nothing.
I posted essentially the same message as above to the WD facebook page, they responded with an apology and an offer to reach out to try and get the issue resolved:
This is my response, I think it sums things up pretty well:
on Facebook I wrote:
There’s really nothing you can do, I just wanted to make sure that you, as company, not you specifically, are aware that dropping Netflix support, directly resulted in loss of business. I wasn’t going to post about it, but how would you know how this decision affected your customers.
I think WD is a great company, makes great products, I’ve used your hard drives for years and I’m loving my My Book Duo network storage. And until it started flaking out, my current WDTV has been an outstanding product.
But dropping Netflix was a mistake. And I understand the reasoning behind it, but you guys need to work with Netflix, or work with Adobe, or work with Google or just get to work and find a solution. Dropping support isn’t a solution.
