I’ve bought the WD TV LIVE and have it now for about a month and I am not satisfied.
I am a music fan and have got a NAS server with 800 GB of music most of it in FLAC quality.
I like to use the media library for a shuffle play of all my music. But the time it takes for the media library to update with this collection is way too long (I’ve even wired it, so not wifi).
Another problem is the difference in volume. It takes so long for the media library to update, that a volume calculator can be included.Or simply add a volume control to the remote (I’ve installed the app on my Android mobile, but it still doesn’t work. Is this because my WD TV LIVE is wired and my mobile is wifi?)
Another thing is the small music info screen. Why not a big cover design (included in the TAG) and other TAG information that can be selected. The best thing is to have a splitted screen. On the top all the TAG info with cover design etc and on the bottom a search bar to search in the library. I’ve seen themes for the WD TV HUB, but why not for the WD TV LIVE?
It would also be great to search/browse for music easily in the library and select the next track that has to be played (que next song is included but doesn’t work).
It would also be nice to have more search options (from the TAG, like year or producer etc.) and that you can select these options and shuffle from there (So search for only songs from 1992 and shuffle this list or search for artist select Kings of Leon and shuffle all songs found from Artist Kings of Leon…)
I am still trying and working with it every day. But for now I am not satisfied. It works fine for films etc but not as an ideal music player.
If there’s anoyone who could help me with the problems mentioned above, please help me. I would like to be more satisfied, but for now I would recommend this to any music friend.
I’m having many of the same issues the original poster describes with music. I have ~100G iTunes library and ~50G [and growing] worth of FLAC files both stored on a NAS. Everything is wired.
I finally have turned the media library function off, as it is a guaranteed lockup for me. Perhaps the unit wasn’t locked up, but after 4 hours of the blinking front light and a frozen UI, I gave up. I tried clearing & restarting, adding a flash drive, only manually adding to library - eventually it locks / freezes. Not that there’s actually a good explanation anywhere of how the library is intended to work and be used - and no I don’t consider restating the button function with different words as the owners manual does a useful explanation.
Tag management is terrible. The unit reads the “Title” tag but not the “Track” tag so regardless of whether you connect via media server or network share the files play in alphabetical order rather than in the intended order. The “Display By” option in the Music Setup simply does not work.
Its just not true to say music is an afterthought for the device. It truly does have a very broad of supported music formats. The problem is simply poorly written software. I’ve seen this before with WD - their new router products are an excellent example. Well thought out hardware design, great feature set and if you’re willing to reboot every 12 hours of use it’s the product for you.
Its pretty clear from the various issue reporting methods that WD has no organized effort to address these issues. The tech support staff are completely disconnected. In these forums, theres a guy who’s descriptor says “Staff” but all he does is ask you to do basic experiments which he doesn’t follow up on.
The WD Community was created for Users -such as yourself- to help one another and to share your experiences and ideas with one another. As Moderators, we are simply here to facilitate and oversee the Community. If you have a question or issue related to the WD Community itself, us Moderators will be happy to respond and assist you. However, if you are looking for technical support from WD, we recommend to contact them directly.
Thanks for your reply Robothief. I will contact WD directly, but if I don’t share the problems I have, there might be more disappointed (future) users and like posted above nobody would find anything on the internet that WD TV LIVE is not good for use with Music.
And I also thought that some of my issues could be resolved by some other users who dealt with this before and found a solution…
I can fully understand that the Moderators would do anything to help and it was never my intention to insult the Moderators.
Are you telling us that the “Live Streaming Issues” forum is a waste of our time?
No.
We see all of your post and issues posted.
Issues are reported to WD as usual. But, if any user needs a direct response from WD on an specific question, they might as well contact us directly for support.
I use the WD music player function every day, and I think it is wonderful – if one gets a little “creative” to make it jump a few hoops, etc.
I create playlists from my iTunes Media folder, (which is duplicated on a hard drive attached to the WD player) and even make random “smart” playlists using the DJ feature of iTunes, and can play music to my heart’s content from the media player feeding into the TV or stereo.
If anyone is interested in what I have written already about all this in the forum, use this google search to find anything I have posted here about iTunes and playlists, etc. There are a 131 hits – it’s not as if no one is not talking about this here!
With the standard theme and no adjustments it is correct: WD TV LIVE is not the best player for music.
But with some easy modifications WD TV LIVE becomes one of the really best streaming
players for music available on the market (for its price of course).
To make WD TV LIVE one of the best players for music you should at least …
1.) Use the digital output to a high-end DAC/AMP or high quality AV-receiver
2.) Turn off media libary for navigation speed, navigate by folder, adjust your folders, folder-names and music file-names to the need of the streamer (all needed mp3 tag information into the file name)
3.) choose Joey’s *GREAT* mod of the UI for the now music-playing view with covers
Use plex to catalog and organize yer music. It will download cover art, looks great on all 3 of my wd tv live players. Can stream music all around the house.
Granted, the Music player of the WD is not an iPod, but as I and others point out, it is not “sorely lacking”. The comment above is “sorely lacking” any comments of substance or verifiable reasons why it is lacking.
The quality of the sound is (for many people) the most important point about music.
So the WD TV LIVE is perfect for music, none of any Apple product has the same quality:
No digital output with the ipods (just with expansive docks), appleTV comes with a bad limitation of fixed 48 kHz at the optical-out S/PDIF, no HD-sound (192khz/32bit) quality yet or in the future with airplay.
So we can be very lucky not having these restricions with WD live.
Still existing lacks are:
no gapless play
MP3 tags and music queue only with (the really not recommended) media libary switched “ON”
The quality of the sound is (for many people) the most important point about music.
Agree, and that’s why I listen to the CD when sound quality is utmost to me. IPods, WD players, and digital music in general is all about convenience. So, when I want convenience, I play an iTunes-created, 100-song random playlist via the WD, and pass the output to the stereo. I have too large a music collection to spend the rest of my life (and part of the next) converting my entie collection to digital files. Some of my digital music is from my favorite CDs, and even LPs, but since I have been a member of eMusic for many years, more and more of it is from there.
