Yes the youtube interface looks nicer. but I keep getting “content cannot be played on tv enabled devices” or something of the sort, not on all videos, but many. youtube maybe to blame or maybe WDTV should have paid their dues or whatever. Youtube is a big deal, thats why some of us paid the price difference versus the WD HD Player. Streaming is nice but I am getting aggrivated with the many videos on youtube that will not play on WDTV possibly because of youtubes ads and their ad revenue. Whatever I forgot about the PS3 and at least with that Ill be able to see all vids on youtube and hook up a small wireless querty keyboard to it instead of the WDTV
Setup:
-samba windows share via Gbit network
-HDMI cable
-Sound setup is stereo
The sound is almost perfect but not 100% for mp4 files.
On a side note I would concerntrate efforts on “core media player functionality”:
-basic playback of regular/popular/current media file types
-UI usability
(i) no need display a network username and password if it’s a saved share (waste of time)
(ii) 1 clcik to display/hide playback information and options
(iii) 10 minute player advance should NOT require fast forword to previously be depressed
(iv) full DVD menu support
(v) better directory listing and paging support
Whilst youtube and various other third-party support is a “nice to have” (I probably wont use it) for most of us we brought the WDTV Live for the core player functionality. Please do not misinterpret, I believe you have a strong product which could be very successful and your speed and response in terms of Firmware release does your company credit. Keep up the good work and focus on Core functionality first
Thanks
drp58 wrote:
Was on .11, was holding off upgrading, finally did it this time. No probs with the upgrade, Utube thing works now, not that I really care, but now ALOT of my HD WMV files wont play, and some HD AVI’s also. They ALL played fine last night
For what its worth… wmv files codes is WMV3 and the avi’s are mpeg4 divx5
Anyone else??
Gonna downgrade later tonight
I notice that you also posted this on the general discussion forum. I also note that a reset solved your problems without downgrading. Perhaps you should edit the post on this forum as well
FlyBoyJim wrote:
I bought the WDTV Live a month ago. I understand why so many are having problems. But I can assure you, it has absolutely nothing to do with the WDTV Live unit. Problems like with network shares, so many are having problems with this when really it comes down to understanding networking and how router firewall walls work and folder/file permissions among your USERS within Windows. The network share problem and any other network problem is so easy to resolve. And other problems like A/V sync, movies ending after a few minutes, not seeing all the shares, mkv problems, and on and on it goes. But I am here to tell you I have the same media player as all the rest of you have and I don’t have one single of these problems. I ran into the same issues as you guys but i reolved them within seconds. Why? Because i know alot about setting up networks. My point of this gloating is I didn’t go to university to learn this stuff. I taught myself by reading /trial/error over the years. So when I encounter what you folks are encountering as hair pulling problems, I know right away what is causing the problem and why and its fixed in seconds. I can tell you almost every single issue i have seen folks talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the media player.
So, again my 2 points are, WDTV LIVE works perfectly and flawlessly. It does everything it advertised it could do and then some. This is one very powerful little box that exceeds my expectations.
My second point is, do enough reading (not only this forum). Doing trial and error problem solving with this media unit you will be slapping yourself when you realize how easy all these issues are to resolve. Having said that, i can’t just explain solutions to people. This is one great media box that will teach you all you need to know almost about your OS and networking. I am one of those that needs to be at your terminal or on the phone to resolve it with the person having the problem.
Also, forget customer service at WDTV for networking support. I tried out 3 different techs over there just to see if they were any good or not. As best as they do to try to help you, they don’t know very much. They know alittle, but nowhere near the knowledge they need to help you with getting your network share problem solved. Which btw, I’ll say it again, it is a really easy problem to work out no matter how bad/ or old your hardware is or how screwed up your OS is or whether you have anti virus or not. I’ll leave you with those thoughts. Enjoy your box, it works perfectly. Improvements are only bonuses to what this box was advertised it can do.
P.S. No, I don’t work for these guys. I just held my tongue for too long over a product that has no issues to speak of and whatever issues blamed on WDTV Live when you find the problem to whatever your issues are, you’ll see everytime it isn’t the box that was the problem.
Enjoy.
An interesting post and hopefully you will be staying around to advise other users. The real point is that some people who buy these units are not interested in the whole problem solving game, they just want the thing to do what it is meant to.
An interesting post and hopefully you will be staying around to advise other users. The real point is that some people who buy these units are not interested in the whole problem solving game, they just want the thing to do what it is meant to.
I agree with you that we are a plug n play generation as folks don’t want to be buying products nowadays and have to fiddle with things to get everything working right. My point was to bring testimonial to the fact that all the problems I have seen discussed here are on the PC/Router end of things, not the WDTV Live box. Just the fact alone that one group says they are having no problems of any kind and another group says they are having all kinds of issues. Doing the math, its clearly evident the issues lie on the PC/Router end of things.
I’ll do my best to help folks. But I can tell you, the checklist can be large on the PC and router end of things that its not easy to help out in a “text” forum. Under that format, going step by step could be very lengthy. Especially when the person trying to help out is one that doesn’t type very many words per minute. The best solution is seated at a persons’ PC or on the phone with them to be effective. Having said that, I’ll wander around in the forums this morning and see what I can do to help.
Just a note…
Windows 7 users, sorry I am unfamiliar with that OS. Probably coud figure it out without looking at it, but this could easily end up being an excercise in frustration if I tried to help anyone out on the fly like that.
FlyBoyJim wrote:
I agree with you that we are a plug n play generation as folks don’t want to be buying products nowadays and have to fiddle with things to get everything working right. My point was to bring testimonial to the fact that all the problems I have seen discussed here are on the PC/Router end of things, not the WDTV Live box. Just the fact alone that one group says they are having no problems of any kind and another group says they are having all kinds of issues. Doing the math, its clearly evident the issues lie on the PC/Router end of things.
I am glad I am not alone. I have been trying to help people with network issues and not be condescending but it gets hard sometimes because people want it to just work and sometimes that requires learning something new.
For example I had several people tell me they followed the tutorial I wrote and then they say things like ‘I did what you said but my router pings ok so I skipped the first part’ . They skipped the part where I said connect the box and pc with a crossover cable and get it working like that FIRST before putting a router in the mix if you are having connection issues. So then they reply, it still doesn’t work when I did what you said.
I understand everyone isn’t computer literate or video encoding gurus, but they need to understand that this whole media player on the network thing is really new and there are a ton of things that can go wrong. I don’t envy WD one bit. Making a device that could work on any network and play any video by just plugging it in is a monumental task.
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FlyBoyJim wrote:
Just a note…
Windows 7 users, sorry I am unfamiliar with that OS. Probably coud figure it out without looking at it, but this could easily end up being an excercise in frustration if I tried to help anyone out on the fly like that.
Just a note about win7 . Really the only change is that win7 now wants to use homegroups, MS answer to just putting in a single code on each pc that then configures that pc to match the others with that code. WDTV doesn’t support that though , so it is basic samba stuff to get it working.
FlyBoyJim wrote:
My point was to bring testimonial to the fact that all the problems I have seen discussed here are on the PC/Router end of things, not the WDTV Live box.
Have to agree. I was so sure that the WDTV Live was the weak link in my network setup but seems like it’s actually my Vista shares / my wife’s Vista laptop stealing Local Master Browser status and then interrupting the network when she closes the lid.
Thinking back, I started having connectivity issues with my old XBMC Xbox media centre right around the time she bought her new laptop.
I agree with you that we are a plug n play generation as folks don’t want to be buying products nowadays and have to fiddle with things to get everything working right. My point was to bring testimonial to the fact that all the problems I have seen discussed here are on the PC/Router end of things, not the WDTV Live box.
Let’s say perhaps not ONLY the WDTV Live box…
I’m on several forums and WDTV Live is the only device for which I see so many posts regarding a basic thing like samba access.
I’m not a network expert but I’ll leave the router out of the loop for the majority of issues.
Having a 100mb router directly linked to a Gb switch where all my devices are connected (2 other Gb switch in cascade, a PC, a Tv, a NAS, a network printer, home alarm and the WDTV), I can say that as soon as the devices have their IP address (by the router) the data doesn’t go through the router anymore otherwiser I’ll not have Gb transfert rates between my PC and my NAS.
Second, I think that all other brand of devices users have the “same” level of knowledge and same kind of set-up as the WD Live ones, but as said before I’ve not seen long thread about samba network shares with other devices, haven’t seen any “workgroup” things (btw my workgroup is not workgroup and no issue accessing my printer card reader from the pc despite it is as well on a fixed workgroup names workgroup), modifying registry and so on.
I cannot help regarding this subject as I’m not using samba access to windows PC, having a NAS (under linux) I use DLNA and samba access to it.
Despite having no issue to connect to the NAS (not under “workgroup” workgroup name btw) in samba and never experienced network drops, the transfert rate in samba is lower than in DLNA for an unknow reason to me. I cannot play files with bitrate over than 50 mbit/s in samba while I can play 70mb/s file in DLNA.
The BR max rate should be 54mb/s according to BR specs so WDTV may have issues reading BR rips using Samba at least in my setup (no file to test).
Using only DLNA access, I’m not concerned by all the samba/PC access issues, but looking at numerous threads in several forums on this, I think that WD need to work on samba access or propose, as other brands, NFS access if there is no way to solve samba issues.
I’m happy! I have to second FlyBoyJim!
No big problems so far.
However, newest firmware did bring something very useful: play each video from a playlist without any intervention!
For me this is perfect! My dauther has her own favorite list and it’s realy nice to let her for 30-40 minutes with her favorites songs without her comming in to ask for next song :smileyvery-happy:
I haven’t test anything else as I didn’t had any issues before. Chapter for DVDs it simply looks too far in in future…
Forgot to thanks to WD. Very nice all improvement for Youtube! Keep the good work!
I disagree with the sound being near perfect in mp4 files. Via optical it is still putting out stereo PCM instead of Dolby Digital 5.1
I have just updated to the latest firmware 1.01.24 audio sync is still a problem, audio gets out of sync within the first few seconds. Surely this has to be resolved soon…
Youtube is nice I guess, if you use it a lot.
However, would it not make more sense to add a web browser with a custom youtube plugin? You can do anything with a standard web browser, including browsing network shares.
In fact, a browser could replace the complete interface and would make more sense, as almost everyone knows how to use a browser and is comfortable with the interface. It’s also a lot more flexible than a separate interface.
Good News for all.
According to ScottWD a senior Product Manager at WD.
There is a major product release in the pipeline and even some possible beta testing.
I found this info at http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=4704.15
BarnDog wrote:
Good News for all.
According to ScottWD a senior Product Manager at WD.
There is a major product release in the pipeline and even some possible beta testing.
I found this info at http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=4704.15
Sorry, am I the only one pissed off that the Sr Product Manager is swapping smileys with the plebs on an unofficial forum whilst us fools sit ignorant on the OFFICIAL WD COMMUNITY FORUM?!?
One thing I’ve found with the YouTube now is that I’m not getting videos to play in HD where available, and there is no option to automatically select HD which was there on the previous firmware. The only thing in the menu for YouTube Settings is for language. Is there a way to select the HD option?
Updated firmware fine, however these 2 YouTube bugs have not been fixed. Please see my idea for info and kudos it.
Also my “Access to YouTube Channels/Subscriptions/alter position of videos” idea has been acknowledged, the fast forward /rewind suggestion in that idea has been implemented it seems via an idea soley about that. ( http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Ideas/YouTube-FF-amp-Rev/idi-p/790)
Please give kudos for my idea to have access to channels/subscriptions at
Thanks
Hello!!!
I just got my WD TV Live and it came with firmware .12 but the available update is .17 not .24.
Is .17 a requirement to be able to update to .24?
What was the firmware that was messing up units? I don’t want to damage my new player, but want the new .24 firmware.
Regards,
Willy.
FlyBoyJim wrote:
So, again my 2 points are, WDTV LIVE works perfectly and flawlessly. It does everything it advertised it could do and then some. This is one very powerful little box that exceeds my expectations.
Enjoy.
I disagree with your view, network problems has been ruled out when the same problems happen with attached USB drives. The problems that we all agree on is the out of sync audio problems, and the reason you are not seeing them is because of the limited movie file types you may have.
Popcorn hour has released an updated version of their player: the A-200, and it is only $180. The extra $60 is worth for all the troubles the WD TV Live gives you. I personally ownd both, the WD TV Live and the Popcorn Hour A-200, and the later is by far more stable. Also Popcorn Hour is actively releasing updates for minor bugs, but the core funcionality works perfectly.
