i see that several guys here are angry because WD just forgot the gen1 users.
Well i only can request the features that for obvious reassons must be present on the Gen1.
1- The file manager. Because the WDTV mini contains it and the processor is exactly the same than the gen1. ‘Sigma 8635 300MHz’. In fact i am owner of a WDTV mini and i cant understand how the mini that is the cheapest model from the WDTV series can have the file manager when the gen1 not.
2- The video preview. I see how the WDTV mini is able to do a video preview (no sound) same than the WDTV live. So why the gen1 users cant have this ? Seriously, exist some reasson ?
3- The menu DVD playing. As i see the WDTV live is acapable to play the menus, so why the gen1 users (the most) cant have this ?
4- The DTS downmix. Because other media players on the market from the gen1 time, solved this issue with firmware updates. So why the WD Gen1 users cant have this ?
As far as i know the gen1 users are the most ones and i dont see any reasson to buy any other WDTV HD yet.
Dont missunderstand me. I am a happy user of this pretty little machine , but it is true that WD lately forgot the first clients with their gen1 models.
I know that have passed 2 years from the product release, but a prestige company as WD for sure can do this little effort of update to one of their most famous product in the last years, or not ?
Greetings.
PD: it is important that all the gen1 users that think the same than me post replies to catch the attention of WD, if this is possible.
it is true that WD lately forgot the first clients with their gen1 models.
Not really… they stopped making them almost 2 years ago. They’ve been saying quite openly since April 2010 that the Gen1 has reached End-Of-Life (EOL) and will receive no further firmware updates. They didn’t “forget” Gen1 owners – they consciously chose to abandon us.
The DTS downmix. Because other media players on the market from the gen1 time, solved this issue with firmware updates. So why the WD Gen1 users cant have this ?
Because all the other players were built using a different chipset that does support DTS downmix. The chip driving the Gen1 can’t do it. And even if it could, you didn’t pay a DTS licence when you bought it, so WD wouldn’t be able to add it for you.
The file manager. Because the WDTV mini contains it and the processor is exactly the same than the gen1.
In fact i am owner of a WDTV mini and i cant understand how the mini can have the file manger when the gen1 not.
The video preview. I see how the WDTV mini is able to do a video preview (no sound) same than the WDTV live. So why the gen1 users cant have this ? Exist some reasson ?
No, it’s not the exact same processor. It’s not even the same brand. The WDTV Mini and the WDTV Elements Play use chips from AmLogic. The Gen1 uses an early chip from Sigma Designs, and the Gen2, the Live, the Live Plus and the Live Hub all use a newer family of Sigma chips.
The menu DVD playing. As i see the WDTV live is acapable to play the menus, so why the gen1 users (the most) cant have this ?
Again, the Gen1 has an earlier, less-capable processor than the Live, the Live Plus and the Hub. Even if the Gen1 wasn’t a Legacy device, and no longer supported, it doesn’t have the processing power that the newer WD boxes do.
Not really… they stopped making them almost 2 years ago. They’ve been saying quite openly since April 2010 that the Gen1 has reached End-Of-Life (EOL) and will receive no further firmware updates. They didn’t “forget” Gen1 owners – they consciously chose to abandon us.
*> They didn’t stop making them two years ago. They STARTED making them two years ago. It was launched in late 2008, the first owners got them around Nov/Dec. And it was the only WDTV available until late 2009.> So your comment about when they stopped making them is out by approx 1 year. Thats a pretty big margin of error for a 2 year old product.
Just let the gen1 users to reply to this topic, and we will see what they feel about.
I am a Gen1 User… I told you how I feel… and the fact remains that we’re SOL no matter how we feel.
sorry but all these are escusses.
“The device physically _ CAN’T _ do it”, seems like a pretty good excuse tho, doesn’t it?
What exactly are you expecting?
The device _ CAN’T _ do DTS downmix. The device has a weak processor that is nowhere near as capable as the newer Sigma chips that WD switched to. Don’t you think there’s a reason WD started using the more advanced processors? If the old, cheaper chip really could do it, then they could have just used them in the newer devices, and sell the devices for less.
farstep wrote:
So your comment about when they stopped making them is out by approx 1 year. Thats a pretty big margin of error for a 2 year old product.
Apologies for the brainfart. I was thinking they were 1 year out of production when they went EOL, not 6 months. So yes, it seems closer to 15 months than the 21 months I had in mind. All I could remember was that there were Gen2’s and Lives on the shelf when I bought my Gen1, and that WD said my warranty ran out in September, so I mis-remembered September as when my Gen1 was purchased. Since the Gen2 and the Live were October and November, as you point out, obviously WD is incorrect about when my device was purchased.
21 months would reasonably have been “almost 2 years ago”… 15 months would be better represented by “over a year ago”.
The real fact is that a prestige company as all think that is WD, cant abandon the users as it does. See the fact that the gen2 users feel exactly the same as the gen1 users. The facts are excessive.
The dts downmix, could be a thing that not possible, i am not so sure about this because as i said other similar media players from other companies fixed this problem just with firmware updates. But the other features contained into the WDTV mini for example, are perefectly possible on the gen1 with a minimal update. Also the menu dvd playing is perfectl possible and we dont need to buy the live moel just only for this .
No more excusses please.
PD: another call for the gen1 users that feel theirselfs as abandon by the WD.
WD’s official line all along has been that the 8635 chip will not support DTS downmix to stereo – it will only passthrough. Most of the 8635-based players seem to not even passthrough DTS – they just reject DTS altogether. I can’t find anything from Sigma that either confirms or refutes whether the 8635 will do DTS downmixing or not. Sigma seems to have pulled many of their 8635 pages (the links are dead) – it’s almost as if the chip is Legacy and no longer supported.
But the fact remains that you didn’t pay a licence fee to DTS when you bought your Gen1, and neither did I. So, even if the chip could physically do it (and WD has been less-than-honest about the chip’s capabilities), WD can’t legally offer you DTS downmixing. You haven’t paid for the right to downmix DTS to stereo with your WDTV, so you can not downmix DTS to stereo with your WDTV.
Asking for it won’t change the fact that WD legally can’t give it to you without paying DTS their licence fees.
And again, what other chips can do has absolutely no bearing on what the 8635 can do.
“Limitations of the Sigma 8635 are a slow user interface, limited DTS support, and a general lack of power.”
Comparing 400MHz, 500MHz, 667MHz, 800MHz and 1000MHz processors with a 300MHz processor is apples and oranges. Seems to me like the 667MHz-based media players have more than twice the processing speed as a 300MHz processor – should seem logical that the faster processors can do more processing in the same amount of time.
