Is WD TV Media Player Discontinued

Professor · June 9, 2016, 5:32pm

MoxiePop:

If it isn’t discontinued then you may want to consider alternatives. The WDTV is no longer a viable option for popular streaming services and its capabilities for streaming your own media are very limited.

The latest models are mostly the same older hardware with no speed or memory improvements and have no support for Netflix or Amazon Prime. The result is a very slow and often frustrating experience navigating libraries of movies with a very cumbersome interface. It can be modified but nothing will make it smooth and snappy.

My WDTV Live, which previously supported Netflix and Hulu had those features removed after the latest firmware update. I reverted manually but the services no longer work. Trying to access them times out returns error messages from the service saying that the device is unsupported and to contact the manufacturer. In many cases the device just locks up requiring a reboot.

As a set-top media streamer it is marginally functional but does not have support for newer changes to mkv or newer codecs. Additionally it seems that some support has been downgraded. Movies which used to play smoothly now stutter or fail to load. Many larger HD movies with low compression play so poorly that they are unwatchable.

The best option now, for people with the time and capability, is to build your own HTPC with support for all media types and preferred streaming services. The WDTV is no longer a viable option for having access to everything in one easy package.

I agree that WDTV or WDTV Live is no longer a viable for the popular streaming services, but it is the only viable option I have found to support streaming my personal collection of over 10K media files of which 85% are in the .avi format. Roku does not support the .avi format. As a result I have a Roku box for external streaming and I use the WDLive or WDTV box for my internal files. I have had no problems with mkv files on my current WDTV players which are 3 years old. I like the easy to use menu system on the WDTV to access my NAS files that I get to use the Network Shares option on the WDTV streaming box.

I recently purchased a certified refurbished WDTV box on Amazon. Even though they indicated it was out of stock, I placed an order and got one with 1 week.

Amazon: Western Digital WDBYMN0000NBK WD TV Media Player, with Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity (Certified Refurbished)

Still I would have liked WD to be manufacturing newer models of this device rather than discontinuing them. Western Digital is still showing WD TV on their main web (Not the WD Store): All Products: Shop Hard Drives, SSDs, USBs, & Memory Cards | Western Digital