WD doesnt care about clients?

Hey everyone, I bought a wd tv live a few months ago, everything was ok, wd even had a forum to help clients, share ideas and stuff. but the last update was like 6months ago and i believe they forgot about us users. There are still a lot of issues WD never solved. My player has problems when trying to fast forward for example. They never got a timer to shutdown the player or something like that, it should be on the firmware from the beginning. Mp4 files have compatibility issues a lot of times… the function to add some miliseconds to delay or advance the subtitles simply doesnt work, i’ve tried in a lot a ways, never done a thing…

I’m to disapointed with WD at the moment. Its sad.

I’m sorry to hear this, i’m a new user of this device and did not know this. :frowning:

Maybe we should change to another brand that IS supporting and renewing their firmware…

If you have a tip on another brand that does, please let me know.

josepimenta wrote:

Hey everyone, I bought a wd tv live a few months ago, everything was ok, wd even had a forum to help clients, share ideas and stuff. but the last update was like 6months ago and i believe they forgot about us users. There are still a lot of issues WD never solved. My player has problems when trying to fast forward for example. They never got a timer to shutdown the player or something like that, it should be on the firmware from the beginning. Mp4 files have compatibility issues a lot of times… the function to add some miliseconds to delay or advance the subtitles simply doesnt work, i’ve tried in a lot a ways, never done a thing…

 

I’m to disapointed with WD at the moment. Its sad.

And your question is?

This is a user-to-user community forum where we try and help anyone who needs it.  It’s not particularly an effective place to moan and complain about things (but if it makes you feel better…)

WD has released a number of firmware updates in the last six months so I’m not so sure what you’re talking about.  In fact, there is still a current beta out there and as soon as it’s stable we’ll see it released.  However, the updates are mostly to fix bugs and not to add features so at least in that regard you are correct.  But as with any of these devices, you should NOT buy something that doesn’t already do what you want it to do (because it may never do it).  Doing that is a lot like marrying someone with the hopes they will change into someone you really want (and that NEVER works :>)

ToddeSwe wrote:

I’m sorry to hear this, i’m a new user of this device and did not know this. :frowning:

 

Maybe we should change to another brand that IS supporting and renewing their firmware…

 

If you have a tip on another brand that does, please let me know.

 

 

You Did Not Know what?  That there are people who complain about the Live?  That’s true of ANY product (software or hardware).  If you want a chuckle, jump over to the Apple iPhone forum (you would swear that you should NEVER buy one – yet mine has worked fine for years).

I have three Live units and am considering a fourth – and I’m very picky when it comes to this stuff.  But as with anything (and as I hinted to the OP) you shouldn’t buy anything that doesn’t perform as you want it to.  If you have just bought your Live I would assume it’s still returnable so if it isn’t working the way you think it should return it now and get your money back.  Otherwise, don’t worry about it (it’s still the best media player out there by a wide margin).

If you subscribe to the “grass is greener” theory you might keep your eye on the Boxee (due in November).  Then again, remember what happened to the Popbox.

the last update is from (3/30/10). I didnt knew it didnt had a timer to shutdown as almost every piece of equipment has. i didnt knew it was so hard to fast forward. This sould be stuff easy to fix. why do you want ideas from us if you people dont hear and use any of it?! I like the equipment a lot, i just think there should be more updates to fix this little things. And you shouldnt be that agressive to wd costumers.

josepimenta wrote:

the last update is from (3/30/10). I didnt knew it didnt had a timer to shutdown as almost every piece of equipment has. 

Where in the manual does it describe such a feature?    It doesn’t.   Therefore, there’s no excuse for not knowing that.

Now as to the effectiveness of FF and REW, I can agree with you on that…

do you want me to read the manual of a device before I buy it? the problem is not on my side, its on wd because its a basic function on almost all electronic devices. its a shut down timer! it should be so easy! But ok, its my fault also on believing in the quality of the software of WD devices.

josepimenta wrote:

do you want me to read the manual of a device before I buy it? the problem is … on wd because its a basic function on almost all electronic devices.

I don’t care WHAT you read, but ASSUMING a device does something is your OWN issue.   People who don’t know (due to laziness) what they’re buying don’t deserve to complain.

When I bought my AVR and TV last month, I spent WEEKS reading user manuals and specification sheets before I made my decisions.   Guess what?   BOTH of them do EXACTLY what I expect them to do.

Sheesh.

I think it’s a bit disingenuous to suggest that WD “has released a number of firmware updates in the last six months” when in fact  they are only releasing limited betas to the group of elite uber-geeks (or uber-group of elite geeks) who spend every waking minute waiting to jump on them. These releases appear and disappear and reappear and so on in a pretty neurotic way.

Now, me, I have a very nice WD Live cabled in with the latest standard-release firmware, and it  does everything I bought it to do; it doesn’t have any issues with audio in Matroska, I don’t use HDMI (use component), I don’t have any 1080p stuff.  It plays all my 720p mkv and mp4  and mov, all my Xvid stuff (in avi) and so on. There are some obscure Apple codecs it won’t handle, and it won’t do Flash video, but  I didn’t expect it to.  It upscales the little motion jpeg movies that my wife makes with her still camera in a very tasty way, and it does a reasonable downmix from 5.1 to 2-track, which is a bonus when you compare it to my satellite provider. It co-operates nicely with my Netgear gigabit switch and my Dlink gigabit router, so I’m pretty happy with it.

I wish it would navigate DVD menus; I don’t know why they can’t release an official update that just has that  feature included.

Remember, WD sell hard drives, and very good ones. The original player was designed with the idea that you’d buy one of their portable drives to play your media from. They’re not really a media company, and it kind of shows, but this is a useful and inexpensive, er, “media renderer.”

W.

Warren wrote:

…I wish it would navigate DVD menus; I don’t know why they can’t release an official update that just has that  feature included.

W.

Hehe…  Now that’s a LONG story, but to summarize it, it’s BECAUSE of the DVD functionality that the HDMI issues started.

mkelley wrote:

 


ToddeSwe wrote:

I’m sorry to hear this, i’m a new user of this device and did not know this. :frowning:

 

Maybe we should change to another brand that IS supporting and renewing their firmware…

 

If you have a tip on another brand that does, please let me know.

 

 


 

You Did Not Know what?  That there are people who complain about the Live?  That’s true of ANY product (software or hardware).  If you want a chuckle, jump over to the Apple iPhone forum (you would swear that you should NEVER buy one – yet mine has worked fine for years).

 

I have three Live units and am considering a fourth – and I’m very picky when it comes to this stuff.  But as with anything (and as I hinted to the OP) you shouldn’t buy anything that doesn’t perform as you want it to.  If you have just bought your Live I would assume it’s still returnable so if it isn’t working the way you think it should return it now and get your money back.  Otherwise, don’t worry about it (it’s still the best media player out there by a wide margin).

 

If you subscribe to the “grass is greener” theory you might keep your eye on the Boxee (due in November).  Then again, remember what happened to the Popbox.

I did not know that the support was that bad or that they don’t fix bugs that is supposed to work. I read carefully on internet and on the box before i bought my device, and i know what i was expecting from it, but there’s a couple of things that does not work and when i read that WD has not released a new firmware for six months i got scared and a bit disapointed.  You speak of iPhone, i can tell you about HTC and my HTC HD2 Leo. That is a rather expensive device and i had to flash it with a homemade ROM to get what i expected when i bought it. Now, this small WD Live does not cost THAT much so i can live with it because it does the work far better than my old solution xBox 360 and wifi. I’m just beginning to get a bit fed up with manufactors that does not fix problems and release products that is not working out of the box. Thank god for flashable firmwares and that was ONE of my criterion for buying this product.

I hope you’re right when you say that they have released several firmwares, to me that is important and it shows that they at least are trying to fix it.

I think the Live does work – there are always bugs with any product, no matter what it is (I have a tea maker that keeps dripping after it’s finished – the company has been making these things for decades and you’d think by now they’d have figured out this flaw, because flaw it is as everyone writes about it on the 'net).  There are products that are disasters (can anyone say Popbox?) but in general when you get something that doesn’t do what you need it to do you return it right away.

WD has shown a commitment to fixing major issues with their media players but they don’t have unlimited resources and product’s do have a limited life.  Eventually new products come out and old ones are no longer actively developed.  The Live is in that transition stage – nothing yet to replace it, but they aren’t actively working on new features but fixing bugs as they can.  I’m sure that WD will release a new gen Live/Plus at some point (perhaps as soon as next year) and at that time we will have to accept the Live as it is, just as the Gen1 and Gen2 users of the WD base player did when the Live came out.

Obsolescence is not a Bad Thing – except when it comes to people (like me).

I for sure can live with that, and my experience so far is good, the only thing i disslike is that i can’t “go to” a fixed point in a movie when someone have turned it off in a wrong way, it takes for ages to fastforward x16 :slight_smile: 45 mins into a movie. And the seccond thing is that i can’t play mkv files, but that problem can be on my side. I have not had the time to take on this problem and see where my problem lies… (hope you are following despite my bad gramamar)

And of course it would have been nice to have DVD menues, but i can’t find that section that says it does support this in the manual. :slight_smile: he he he…

Wow, is just took a look in the manual and i found what is was complaining about and how to skip 10 mins when fastforwarding :slight_smile: From here on i will shut up untill i have read the manual. :slight_smile:

Something good came out of this discussion, i learned how to use my device. :slight_smile: he he he…

Have a nice evening!

The 10m skip was a new feature.  It was probably added after you read the older manual.  :)

You can definitely play MKV files – it’s all I have – so if you have issues with these let us know and we’ll get you straightened out (but do start another thread).

I promisse to start a new thread or read the others first :slight_smile:

So how about the fact that DTS is suppose to be playable on the Plus but to get it to work you have to reduce the size of the compression or something like that as per the Support staff if I want to use it.

Now how many people out there are in to completely reworking a blu-Ray movie and changing it to make it easier for the box to play

Shouldn’t it play it as the Musician or the Movie Producers wanted it.

Not I, and DTS plays just fine for me.

Now a BLU-RAY probably has DTS-HD, which is a whole different thing. 

So far, DTS has been telling WD that NO MEDIA PLAYER without an integrated BD Drive will be licensed to do DTS-HD.

TonyPh12345 wrote:

 

So far, DTS has been telling WD that NO MEDIA PLAYER without an integrated BD Drive will be licensed to do DTS-HD.

 

That appears to be borne out with a quick look through Sigma’s brochures.  Their chips (except for 863x) list support for DTS and TrueHD, but not DTS-HD.  Sigma only offers DTS-HD on their Blu-ray boards, for driving Blu-ray players.

Without DTS-HD supported by the chip in the WDTVs, I don’t see what WD can do about adding DTS-HD to existing boxes… ever.

josepimenta wrote:

the problem is not on my side, its on wd because its a basic function on almost all electronic devices. its a shut down timer!

Almost any? The iPod Shuffle e.g. also doesn’t have one.