This is sad, i think this WD Community sould be called the WD Negative Community !! Every post is negative i think WD people have a lot of homework to do on wdtv live !! New firmware and strong product that going to make the competitors freak !! PLS do something !! :manindifferent:
Except that ALL forums are negative – you should visit the Apple forums sometime (you’d think there never was an iPod or iPhone that ever worked at all).
People don’t come to forums to say “Hey, just wanted to tell you that my Live is working great! It’s streaming all the video from my home network, I can play 1080p streams with DTS or AC3 surround sound, and I couldn’t be happier!” (Which is me, BTW).
You only come to forums when you have a problem, just like you only go to the hospital when you are sick (if you spent all your time in a hospital you’d assume there were no healthy people anywhere in the world). Compared to other devices of the same type the Live works fantastically (I bought another and am in the market for a third). But trying to accomdodate all the literally tens of thousands of different setups, and tens of thousands of different audio/video codecs and container combinations is asking a lot of any device.
AppleTV (which I own) limits the device greatly – you can’t choose what drive to attach (you can’t attach any), you can’t choose the network adapater (it’s internal as well, so no choices there) and you have to use iTunes to manage your files (so no video/audio codecs other than MP4/V and even THOSE are vastly limited as to data rates, frame sizes, etc). Even at that there are tons of people (myself included) who can hardly get the #$##! thing to work (I wish the Live had been available when I bought the ATV). If Apple (which is a MUCH bigger organization than WD) can’t satisfy most people with these limitations, what makes you think WD (with a much broader product) can?
I love the Live but recognize there are folks who will never feel the same way and, truly, it’s not their fault. If they don’t want (or can’t) live with it’s limtations they should return it and get something else (which will ALSO have limitations). Nothing is perfect out there but the Live is perfect for me (and, most likely, for the many others who aren’t in this hospital right now).
5 Likes
True.
Ditto
I agree completely !
I am a big fan of the WDTV and I’ll suport it, But the frustration is hi !
All in all I get to make the WDTV Live to work but I have to reset it (remove the power) at list 2 times a day because cannot read or connect to my WHS(Windows Home Server)… while any other computer or device i have can !
(wired network GigaBit Lan). Plus random freezes, drop out of movies, the sync problem…
is abit too much !
Is not just a little bug or a problem with a file or codec not supoprted.
This is a product designed to work with network shares ! and … it does not work ! it fails the very purpose of it.
Is like a car that does not drive (or stops every 2 hours and have to be turned off and on again…): useless.
I have also the first WDTV. Now If I cannot use the network what is the purpose of the Live ?
A serius update of the firmware is needed… beacuse negativity in this case is Legit !
Don’t use a media server – use network shares instead.
Trust me, media servers are Not Ready for Prime Time. I’ve tried at least four different hardware devices and dozens of media servers and none were worth the effort to download them. They ALL have trouble holding connection, and some of them are just plain pernicious.
With the Live you don’t need a media server – that’s the whole point. Try network shares and you’ll be a happy camper (all except for the thumbnail issue, but they’re working on it).
you could try a Media Center PC or HTPC just like I did. I’m using an Asus EEEBox 1501 with ION chipset. It runs XBMC and Boxee, and is silent enough. The advantage is that you have “choice”. Windows or Linux, XBMC or Boxee or Windows Media Center, MPC-HC or whatever you fancy. XBMC isn’t perfect but there’s an entire community developing it…
You can make this setup as user friendly as a WD TV Live, but in the end it’ll cost you 3-4x the price of a WD TV LIve.
But that’s not wireless, right? I mean, how do you serve your HDTV (assuming it doesn’t have a WAP) or other video displays that aren’t in the same room as your PC?
If I had my PC next to my various (four) HDTVs I wouldn’t need a WDLIive either, but unless you have hard wired HDMI connections throughout your home (and then some sort of HDMI switching or branched connection at the PC end) just a media server PC ain’t gonna do it.
Voyager wrote:
you could try a Media Center PC or HTPC just like I did. I’m using an Asus EEEBox 1501 with ION chipset. It runs XBMC and Boxee, and is silent enough. The advantage is that you have “choice”. Windows or Linux, XBMC or Boxee or Windows Media Center, MPC-HC or whatever you fancy. XBMC isn’t perfect but there’s an entire community developing it…
You can make this setup as user friendly as a WD TV Live, but in the end it’ll cost you 3-4x the price of a WD TV LIve.
That’s something people don’t seem to appreciate. This is relatively ‘cheap’ media player by a company whose focus is not really home entertainment products. They expect it to have features only available on hardware costing considerably more, or features coming out on products that haven’t even hit the market yet (e.g. unfair comparisons to Popbox and Boxee Box).
Before buying anything, you should research it and be aware of potential issues. That’s simply common sense these days. I did some research but still not enough to fully prepare me for all the issues (purchased back in December).
I can’t understand the people buying a WD TV Live today and then coming on the forum surprised at the variety of known issues (usually creating new threads about them and not bothering with the search function, or even looking further down the thread listing in some cases).
Best thing to do if you’re unhappy with a product is take it back to the store and get a refund / exchange for something else. Whining about it to people already aware of the issues is just despressing.
FWIW, very few threads on the forums are actively monitored by WD tech staff (prerelease threads, ideas lab, maybe if you prefix your title with [BUG]).
If you want a personal response from WD, you need to contact them via phone or email support in your region.
When I first bought my WD Live I considered bringing it back several times. I was very frustrated and was spending many hours sorting through my many issues. Now many weeks later I love my WD Live. It works perfectly 100% of the time. No video or audio problems. No lost network connections. Just glorious high definition, surround sound bliss.
This product certainly has its issues and limitations, but once you learn what those are and work around them, you’ll be very happy with it. I’ve been considering posting a journal of all of my experiences so that others could learn from them.
I find it interesting that mkelley says that he’s had nothing but bad experiences with media servers. I have had the opposite experience. I’m using Twonky Media Server to stream video to my WD Live and it works beautifully. I don’t use network shares at all. Granted it didn’t always work well. I had a few bumps along the way getting my system to where it is now.
I think the most important thing to take away here is what mkelley said in his first post. The WD Live does not work perfectly in all scenarios. The key is to find the right combination for your setup and then stick with it.
Then I bag you to share how did you set it up …please
I use the Live to connect exclusively to the Network-shares of only one computer (Windows home server) .
After all I still consider the LIVE the best multimedia -box available.
* All IP’s are statically assigned by the router…
* connection is wired and fast (GBlan)
* the permissions on the WHS are set to GUEST no password
IT WORKS FINE. … meaning : I can connect to the shares watch all videos, photos, play audio… everithing seems normal.
BUT…
* every day the live fails at least one time to connect the share folder- only solution is to remove the power from the live and try again (all others computers, I pods, Hifi, NEVER have problems)
* sometimes the live drops out of the movie saying connection to the server lost … but the media server is still workig (so only network share connection)
* double-thumbnails problem (…)
* rarely, but has appened, audio unsyncronized - need to restart the movie
SO yes it work but it works really buggy … and this stress the validity of the product and the patience of the user(s) (I can handle it but my wife and kids?)
problems with network connections … possibly SAMBASHARE … SOULD BE SOLVED ASAP …
But never an update even went close to it… support is very disappointing!
SO please, if you can explain how to make the live work in a relayable way, please share it .
mkelley wrote:
Don’t use a media server – use network shares instead.
Trust me, media servers are Not Ready for Prime Time. I’ve tried at least four different hardware devices and dozens of media servers and none were worth the effort to download them. They ALL have trouble holding connection, and some of them are just plain pernicious.
With the Live you don’t need a media server – that’s the whole point. Try network shares and you’ll be a happy camper (all except for the thumbnail issue, but they’re working on it).
I switched to network shares and dropped the usage media servers too!
Using a Synology DLNA certified NAS, I found out that .ISO images were not accessible via media server.
Also re-indexing is allways out of sync…directory shares are allways real time in sync!
DonFede wrote:
Then I bag you to share how did you set it up …please
I use the Live to connect exclusively to the Network-shares of only one computer (Windows home server) .
After all I still consider the LIVE the best multimedia -box available.
* All IP’s are statically assigned by the router…
* connection is wired and fast (GBlan)
* the permissions on the WHS are set to GUEST no password
IT WORKS FINE. … meaning : I can connect to the shares watch all videos, photos, play audio… everithing seems normal.
BUT…
* every day the live fails at least one time to connect the share folder- only solution is to remove the power from the live and try again (all others computers, I pods, Hifi, NEVER have problems)
* sometimes the live drops out of the movie saying connection to the server lost … but the media server is still workig (so only network share connection)
* double-thumbnails problem (…)
* rarely, but has appened, audio unsyncronized - need to restart the movie
Well, you’re a little confusing here. You say you’re connecting via shares only, but saying that the media server is still working? Stop running that media server – maybe that’s part of the problem.
I can tell you *exactly* what I’m doing but whether that will help you is another issue. The bigger issue is why you’d ever drop a share you already have, while a movie is streaming. That sounds like something is happening on that PC, and since you’re only doing it on one PC there’s an easy way to test. Just share a folder from another PC, even a laptop, and see if you can isolate the problem.
I have five computers connected to my net – three hard wired, two wireless, along with the Live (wireless) and I share folders with all of them and the only time I get problems is if I start a heavy network load (say a transfer to one of my three TiVO units, which are ALSO connected wirelessly, from one of the computers). I don’t get a dropped share, but the movie I’m watching will start slowing down greatly (as soon as I stop the TiVO transfer things go back to normal).
As with any troubleshooting situation, you need to start simplifying as much as possible, so on your Home Server make sure you have nothing else running you don’t need. Stop all services you don’t need . It would be far better to run another test PC (I have one just for these purposes that I’ll insert into my net) that is completely clean (i.e. free of all the ■■■■ that accumulates when you start downloading and installing stuff from the web, or when you buy a computer full of ■■■■ from a place like Best Buy or Dell) but if you only have the one you’ll have to work with it. I can promise you this – it’s something on that computer. And a good tech could isolate it in a few hours.
Sorry Here is more details
* the LIVE is connected wired to a netgear Gigabit switch (brand new)
- I have tried another switch .
- I have connected the WHS to the same switch
* the WHS have shared folders
- the live conncts with GUEST account (no pass - read only permissions)
The reason is that using a regular user with password simply wont work
(works untill the live is turned off ) is a known bug.
* the WHS also run the Windows media center
- this is the one think that works flowless in the WDTV Live never crushed
- it only sheres the photos and small videos library allowing to sort them by date
- I have already tryed disableing the media server, restart the WHS and the LIVE.
Disconnections are happening also if I play mp3 on the Live.
After The Live is restarted everithing works fine.
- I have 2 Desktops and 2 laptops, 1 iphone (jailbreaked), and Philips Hifi with wlan that can play mp3 via
networkshare… NEVER A PROBLEM with the share folders on the WHS.
- From the WHS trough Shared folders I can play 1080p MKV on the Live , another 1080p MKV on BOTH
Desktops(wired) and a 720p on BOTH Laptops via (wifi)… NO PROBLEM. network load seems fine fine for
the WHS.
Okay, but that doesn’t really say anything about my suggestion for troubleshooting. If you are able to share properly BUT the share drops out, then there is something wrong with the computer that is serving that share (most likely some other service or program that is running in the background and polls periodically or performs some other task). It might be as simple as your antivirus software downloading the latest definitions or performing a scan, or it might be as complicated as an actual botnet that is running with you unaware (particularly likely if you’ve EVER downloaded any software from the internet).
The only way to track this is to start with a “clean room” – a computer that is known not to have any issues. For many (most?) folks that’s not going to be easy unless you built the computer yourself and/or wiped it clean of all the ■■■■ that is preinstalled on all store or online bought systems. You can try cleaning up your PC by disabling all the stuff (and services) except for that which is absolutely necessary, but I’d much prefer using a clean PC as a test bed.
One thing for sure – it ain’t the Live that’s your problem. If it were, it wouldn’t work perfectly for me and many others.
Although network shares may provide a more stable connection than media server, they introduce an issue with MP3 playback. With media server, track playback is as you would expect it to be, with a minimal gap between tracks. With network shares, the inter-track gap can exceed 15 seconds, which is extremely irritating. I think that the difference here is that with media server, the HDTV Live reads ahead and has the next track data available immediately after the current track completes. With network shares, there is no read ahead, hence the delay.
Unfortunately, with media server connections over the LAN, MP3 playback is broken by a network connection error exactly 30 mins after playback is initiated - ie. there is a bug. MP3 playback from locally connected media works perfectly.
I think the title of your reply says it all. Quite frankly, I don’t know why anyone would want to play music using this device but then again I do know some folks in the community where I live that like the cable channels that play nothing but music (for my music needs I use iTunes and stream wirelessly with Airports).
It’s not the Live that’s doing any read ahead with media servers I’ll bet, though. It’s undoubtably the media server itself doing that, since that’s the whole point of such servers (they “serve” the data to the device. You really don’t need a Live to use a media server, since the Live itself is a media server it’s kind of redundant. For example, my Samsung TV can connect directly to a media server and most HDTVs sold nowadays can as well).
As I said elsewhere in this thread, there’s no way the Live can be all things to all people. Apple chooses to define very narrowly what it can do and it STILL has many many issues. My own personal advice to you is there are far far better ways to play music than using a device like the Live, and I would explore them.
I like media servers. MY WDTV-Live works great! I do think the media server function of the WDTV-Live needs to be URL input functional for online MP3 and WMA streams at the very least!
I do have some NEGATIVES…
WDTV-LIVE $119 Value
WIreless-Dongle $70 Still here
PlayonTV $40 felt that one
Real Cost $229 Ouch versus buying ACER mini desktop pc running W7 x64 bit at $199
If Western Digital can market WDTV-LiveX at or below $175 with better media server functionality then I’m good to go on buying another one or recommending it . if the WDTV can’t connect to a URL media stream input by the user then I still like it but i shouldn’t honestly recommend it because the real and hidden costs are high.
IMHO
And, as I said, the Live isn’t all things to all people.
For me, with the Live hardwired to my router, the cost is around $100 (price paid at Amazon.com). That’s reasonable for what I need it to do (serve my movies to my HDTVs). The real problem is that everyone’s needs are different, and as you point out, if you have a different set of requirements then it may be better for you to buy a different device.
No harm no foul – that’s absolutely fair. I wouldn’t want WD to start packaging what you want inside it (because the cost would go up). For me it’s fine as it is.
