The next three months will be critical for a quality FW update

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
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Many of us are fed up with the WDTVLive’s slow response to the community’s improvement requests, and the lack of transparency in the development process. We’ve massively asked for DVD / BD Menu support and fixes for our networking, subtitle and synchronization issues. We got a YouTube update and a buggy beta that fixes about everything but what we were looking for.

Other boxes like AC Ryan POHD and ASUS OPlay also have massive FW issues of their own; the Xtreamer is too noisy and the good (more expensive) ones like PopCorn Hour have dull interfaces (no thumbnails browser)… 

Hopes are high that these 3 new products will bring massive improvements.

I’ve installed Boxee on my PC and it looks great! The good thing is you can “try before you buy”, as the software runs on any PC/Mac/Linux. It does play everything, and also DVD ISOs with menus. 

To end on a positive note, I’m relatively satisfied with the WDTVLive for what it can do. The device has great potential, it’s a shame that the WD development team is not capable of unleaching it. So if nothing else comes along in the next 3 months, I’ll be looking out for the best 2010 player on the market…

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Unless I can get network support for the Gen2 via a usb dongle, scrape info from the net for my movies, play movies that currently work on my PC but not on my Gen2 (many MP4s), and stream netflix, I’ll be looking for another player. I realize this is quite a bit to ask for in the next few months, but it’s something that I believe I can get from at least one of the upcoming players even if I have to pay a little bit more. And I could upgrade to the Live and get some of these, but not enough of them. I think the Live and Gen2 still have a lot of potential, but it’s just not happening fast enough.

Despite all the bugs, if I had to go back and do it over, I’m pretty sure I would have still gotten my WDTV even knowing I would replace it after about a year or so. I think WD has done a fairly good job of making these things a little more mainstream than devices like the Popcorn Hour ever did. I think one of the big reasons the other boxes are coming out is because WD and a few other companies have proven that there’s a market here. Even when we do switch, WD hasn’t entirely lost because I’ll still need something to store my few terabytes of movies.

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Voyager wrote:

 

Many of us are fed up with the WDTVLive’s slow response to the community’s improvement requests, and the lack of transparency in the development process. We’ve massively asked for DVD / BD Menu support and fixes for our networking, subtitle and synchronization issues. We got a YouTube update and a buggy beta that fixes about everything but what we were looking for.


Other boxes like AC Ryan POHD and ASUS OPlay also have massive FW issues of their own; the Xtreamer is too noisy and the good (more expensive) ones like PopCorn Hour have dull interfaces (no thumbnails browser)… 

 

Hopes are high that these 3 new products will bring massive improvements.

I’ve installed Boxee on my PC and it looks great! The good thing is you can “try before you buy”, as the software runs on any PC/Mac/Linux. It does play everything, and also DVD ISOs with menus. 

 

To end on a positive note, I’m relatively satisfied with the WDTVLive for what it can do. The device has great potential, it’s a shame that the WD development team is not capable of unleaching it. So if nothing else comes along in the next 3 months, I’ll be looking out for the best 2010 player on the market…

 

 

 

Well said, Voyager. DVD / BD Menu, networking playability & reliability and  subtitle (unicode) the MUST HAVES in my next purchase.

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I was running a WD TF gen.1 over an year and was quite happy with it (except its speed). Last December I bought a “Live” because of its inbuilt network capability. I’m very disappointed about the product and have gone back to the old gen.1 now.

E.g. the “life” can’t handle music playlists over more then 1 folder lever - something the old WD TV was able to hanlde with ease.

The UI is ugly and less then basic (no music/movie jukebox/moviesheet). Will wait for the popbox coming soon. Looking at their new UI they will wipe WD TV from the market (incl. a few other brands). Using homebrew software isn’t a solution neither because you relay to two other parties at least. E.g LaurentG’s album view is no longer supported on the “Life” as he stopped developping. Very sad… 

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Well, like 'em or not, there have been three official FW upgrades for the WDTV Live since the first of the year.  How do other manufacturers compare?  I got a Samsung BD-P1600 at the same time as the WDTV Live & there hasn’t been a FW upgrade yet, except for one that happened right out of the box (and which I assume is the only FW upgrade for the device).

For the record, I am running b-rad’s unofficial “homebrew” FW (4.01, based on the official .24 version) and it is quite nice.  Although LaurentG isn’t developing for the live, I believe that movie sheets are being supported by other OSD hackers now…

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djeaux wrote:

Well, like 'em or not, there have been three official FW upgrades for the WDTV Live since the first of the year.  How do other manufacturers compare?

No offense but I am trying to figure out if you are joking,?

The first firmware you mention did nothing but brick units. The second did nothing but reverse the first, and the third most notably removed a feature, HD for YouTube !

How do other makers compare to that?  EVery single one of them better!

Zetty wrote:

 

Well said, Voyager. DVD / BD Menu, networking playability & reliability and  subtitle (unicode) the MUST HAVES in my next purchase.

 

 I think WD can deal with some aspects of DVD/BD Menu, networking problems, and some subtitle issues with firmware if they work on it and put some pressure on Sigma. I care less about menus than I do about chapter support, but I agree for a lot of users this is a sore point. I would include shortcuts as somthing needed as well. Looking at the request section the shortcut requests seem to be spread out over several threads but aggreagate to a lot of interest.

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Can’t agree more. Next purchase will definitly not be a WD product. Can’t wait to see some of the new pruducts coming out

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Really anything is said in this post. I bougt the WDTV Live a few weeks ago. When i figured out, that there is no suitable way to play my selfmade movies (VOB) with the chapters or menu access, i put it right into ebay. Very sad about this.

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Voyager wrote:

PopBox -

Similar price to Live (at launch) but Ad supported, supposedly to pay for 3rd party plugins, yet Syabas are too cheap to pay the YouTube licensing fees.  No thanks.

Xtreamer Pro -

Xtreamer and related HDD products like eTRAYz don’t have an impressive track record with their own firmware issues (reading their forums is what put me off buying an eTRAYz).  Now they’re combining those two tech into one box?  No way is that thing going to have a solid firmware on release.  More expensive than the Live, so I would hope it has more features.

Boxee Box -

Substantially more expensive and being released the better part of a year after the WD TV Live.  Of course it’s better!  

TBH, I’d rather have waited and got the Boxee Box but when the firmware gets better I’ll be satisfied with the Live.

The WD Tv Live pretty much does what it claims to do.  You can’t compare it to newer products and demand that WD instantly incorporate features that other companies spent months / years developing for their product.

The PreRelease firmware shows potential now that the Update Manager (1.01.17) and YouTube (1.01.24) issues have been fixed.  Future firmwares will address the needs and wants of the community, simply a matter of being patient. :slight_smile:

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@PixelPower:

Thanks for your analysis and interesting thoughts on the PopBox and the Xtreamer Pro. Personally, I’m also looking out for the Boxee Box. I fully agree with taking the time to see how firmware is doing on any new device before making a move. That’s a lesson I learned with my purchase of the WD TV Live :smiley:

WDTVLive, also on fw 1.02.14

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If you don’t use youtube both those updates (Update Manager (1.01.17) and YouTube (1.01.24)) are a waste. WD has not fixed any of the major issues with the box.

How long are we suppose to wait for WDC to fix things, Patience may be a virtue but continually waiing for something that was promised on the box is just out of the question.

The other STB’s at least show effort in fixing problems, unlike WD live who ignore it and hope at goes away

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Red_Baron wrote:

If you don’t use youtube both those updates (Update Manager (1.01.17) and YouTube (1.01.24)) are a waste. WD has not fixed any of the major issues with the box.

 

How long are we suppose to wait for WDC to fix things, Patience may be a virtue but continually waiing for something that was promised on the box is just out of the question.

 

The other STB’s at least show effort in fixing problems, unlike WD live who ignore it and hope at goes away

You are correct but you also have to accept that there is absolutely nothing that you or anybody else can do about it. You either get rid of the unit or wait until WD release an update.

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Hoping for USB Hub support for my four 2TB My Book hard drives… If not, then I’m definitely switching to Popcorn Hour… Just being patient right now.

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Red_Baron wrote:

If you don’t use youtube both those updates (Update Manager (1.01.17) and YouTube (1.01.24)) are a waste. WD has not fixed any of the major issues with the box.

 

How long are we suppose to wait for WDC to fix things, Patience may be a virtue but continually waiing for something that was promised on the box is just out of the question.

 

The other STB’s at least show effort in fixing problems, unlike WD live who ignore it and hope at goes away

1.01.17 was essential to fix the flawed update manager.  WD didn’t ignore that problem, they did extensive testing and released a firmware purely to make sure that future firmware updates would happen seamlessly.  And it worked.  Yes, I grumbled at the time because I wanted more but in retrospect it was the right thing for them to do.

1.01.24 was focused on YouTube to satisfy contractual obligations between WD and Google/YouTube.  They had to do it and it made sense to bundle all the YT fixes together.  Yes, it was disappointing for people who don’t use YT.  Again, WD really didn’t have much choice in the matter.  Without that update, chances are YT would simply block WD TV Lives from any access.

What major issues are you referring to btw?  

With .24 (and the prerelease, MKV goofiness aside) I am having no significant issues with the Live.  Any files that won’t play back have turned out to be poorly encoded.  Network share issues turned out to be flaws within the network, not with the Live itself.  Maybe I’ve been lucky.

There is an increased presence of WD staff now that we’re participating in beta testing new firmwares.

Really, most of my complaints from around January have been or are being addressed and I’m a lot more positive about it (hence defending it now rather than joining you in reaching for the pitchforks, tar and feathers).

It really sound like you’d be better off with another product if it’s failing you so severely.

Just don’t come back gloating if you get a Boxee Box, that’d make me jealous.  ;)

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I’m thrilled with my WDTV Live. Prior to it I was blowing through a hundred DVD-Rs a month. I got what I paid for…not a miracle device but a media player.  And you know, it plays media just fine.  

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Same reason : claiming back physical space taken by all these DVDs (around 300 now, on a 1.5 TB drive)

Different perspective : It’s nice, but I miss the DVD menus (especially with my kids who want to play the extras, choose the language & subs, usually not English in my case)… and also the fact that I sometimes need to rip out material simply because the ISO won’t play correctly (e.g. large titles which play instead of the main movie, multi angle, etc.)

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If you want to play DVD discs, buy DVD player (less then 30eur), if you want to browse internet, you should buy HTPC.

What WD Live was presented for, its being used for.

Everything good encoded is played perfectly!

Network worked for me great from the first day!

With all FW-s.

What is wrong with you guys???

What are you expecting from this cheap unit?

You read in description what you are buying, right?

Yes, i was little disappointed  about YouTube restriction, but thats life, why should we blame WD?

You Tube is the one to be blamed.

We are here to present our thoughts, and new ideas, talk about different subjects, but it should NOT be some saying that another project is better!? WD is even strong enough to let you write all this, but you really crossed the line i think… if they close this forum, will you be happier?

Next time you think harder…

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I believe we do have the right to ask for more.

Most of these boxes have the same family of chipsets in them, so it is not as if the WDTV Live is not capable of doing more. Furthermore, many of those same boxes do what many consider to be basic features. DVD menus, synchronized playback and Netflix streaming.

The lack of some of these features is purely disturbing in that their absence shows a severe lack of fore-thought to what their users would want.

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I agree.  I create many DVDs from my home movies and spend a lot of time creating custom menus and chapters in Pinnacle Studio.  They play fine on my computer or in a DVD player, but when I put a collection of them on my USB drive and connect them to the Media Player the menus and chapters won’t work because the WD TV HD Media player firmware doesn’t work with .IFO files.  When will Western Digital rectify this problem???

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Ok, we all speak in our own name.

ALL my collection plays without ANY audio delay. Everything is sync well, so i ask people from WD NOT to do anything with that, cause they can only ruin this good working.

When i say all, i mean: MKV, AVI, MPG, TS, MP4.

All subtitles are also working great!

Networking also!

And if someone wants to convert in 3rd party software with ‘who knows what kind of codec’ used, they could have a problem, yes…

I am not saying that i will not have problem in the future, but: SO FAR SO GOOD !!! :smiley: