OK, so I’ve now plugged it in and given it a quick spin and on first impressions, it satisfiys the primary objective of being the most economical “set top box” that can play Netflix and has TOSLink (digital optical audio) output.
Seriously, I am glad to know you are already enjoying your new WD player.
Remember, if you have technical questions, forum member mrvander has volunteered to field any questions you have. :wink:
So, here’s a Netflix recommendation to help you get going: We saw a fun inde movie on Netflix the other night called “Safety Not Guaranteed”.-- a newer movie (2012) that’s already made it to streamer status. It’s a bit quirky, if you like that sort of thing. There’s lots of great classics there, too, so enjoy!
So, apparently they have added DTS-HD passthrough but have left out MPEG2 support? I’m not sure what they are thinking over there. And they decided to pay extra for DTS “licensing” (their bogus excuse for no DTS-HD on the SMP) for this cheaper player even though it is overall less capable than the SMP?
And they decided to pay extra for DTS “licensing” (their bogus excuse for no DTS-HD on the SMP) for this cheaper player even though it is overall less capable than the SMP?
I ended going with a WD TV Live instead of the Play even though it will only be hooked up to a TV and the lack of DTS was not a factor. One of my hopes for the Play was that it might have been built on newer technology and been more efficient and generated less heat. My WD TV Hub drives me crazy with the noise from the fan or the slow start-up if I shut it down completely and I have read that the WD TV Live is fanless but is very hot even in stand-by. There never seems to be a perfect solution:neutral_face:
I, too, have read about the fan noise of Hub and high heat of SMP. Neither of these are a problem with the older Live and Live Plus models – no fan, and my Live Plus only gets warm. Older technology apparently rules!
I have a WDTV Lve SMP and WDTV Live Plus. Also I have purchased two other WDTV Live SMPs and a WDTV Live Plus as gifts for family and none ahve had any heating issues.
IMHO, most of the folks talking about high heat of the SMP are “Chicken Littles.”
My SMP gets no warmer than the Plus and Live did under similar conditions.
You are likely right on target here. Some folks think any electric appliance that gets warm is “too hot”. They likely have concerns about their toaster being “too hot”. (Actually, our new toaster is so well insulated; I sometimes think it is “too cool” and not working! )
The best way WD could have impressed me with a new gizmo would be to introduce a new model Live Streaming with needed new features; e.g. true gigabit connection, USB 3.0 ports and dual-band N wireless (2.4G and 5G). These are features many people today could use and see a marked improvement with. In addition, if this top-end “fantasy” model was introduced, they then could have lowered the price of the existing WD Live Streaming to what they have priced the Play at today! Kind of similar to how Apple keeps the iPad Gen 2 in the lineup, even as they introduce new models.
I had assumed that the WD will release a new model WD TV Live Hub with needed new features; e.g. new Sigma, 2TB HDD, true gigabit connection, USB 3.0 ports and dual-band N wireless (2.4G and 5G). I hope that will be presented something like that later.
All the poor souls being lured into buying this device by WD have no idea about the poor software-quality and general lack of real support, I feel sorry for them.
All the poor souls being lured into buying this device by WD have no idea about the poor software-quality and general lack of real support, I feel sorry for them.
The problem sits in front of the Play, just check out his previous posts.
An ad-hominem is everything you’ve got?
Potential customers just need to check the firmware-discussions and issues-tracker for the SMP to know everything about the level of software-quality of current WD-devices.
Just as an example: On the SMP, deleting and moving files on a NTFS-HD now takes between 3-5 seconds per file(!) with the latest version 1.13 compared to almost instantanous deletion/moving with version 1.12.
Great quality, is nice.
That’s probably one of the reasons the Play has no USB-slots.
This is too funny – the new Play is bringing out the “nastiness” in people it seems. Jeez, I tried to help a guy in a different Play thread, and his initial comments to me were less than polite. I suppose when people discover they made the wrong purchase decision they can get kind of testy, eh?
So I have been using the PLAY for a couple of weeks now and decided to plug in a differnt USB External Drive to watch my archived movie. It would not connect. The drive is set up for exFAT. Does the PLAY not support this format? My other external is NTFS…
