I’ve just sat down with a coffee and re-read this entire post from beginning to end before I started my work - clicking into and re-reading the various links provided too. Apart from feeling like a brain hemorrhage is quickly coming on, I’m highly confused and having a couple of doubts (about my ability) to implement this 30MB hack.
The reason I didn’t go with a WDTV Live Hub is due to a complete automated Smarthomes system integrated throughout my house - i.e. miles of Cat6 throughout the walls, one central hub and an 8x8 Matrix Switcher controlling the lot (think Control4). Therefore, only a basic WDTV Live was required to connect to my NAS, but I can switch to the WDTV from any room in the house and watch content on any TV, hence a Live Hub was complete overkill. (However, given the information I’ve come across regarding linksheets, TG and custom FW since I got my SMP, I’m beginning to wish I had purchased the Live Hub just to get past this 30MB limit.
I know there’s a tonne of info out there and I have read, re-read and re-read (several times in some cases) the various links provided for hacking this limitation…
http://forum.wdlxtv.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7663&start=0
http://forum.wdlxtv.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8707
The problem I have being; some of these posts were initially posted in the infancy or early stages of development (Dec 2012), so the information contained within is not entirely clear or concise as it was still in development - certainly not for a non-techy, non-developer Noob anyway. I also have no idea which of the links to ignore and which to follow step by step (putting yourself in my shoes, it’s hard to deciper when half the language being used is (or reads like) advanced developer lingo). I’ve seen more Cap letters here than after a surgeons name 
Going by KAD79’s link, this seems to give me the right WDLXTV custom FW and also the hack to get around the 30MB limit, so do I even need to be reading the other two links or are they just giving me an unnecessary headache?
The other problem being, just how techy it all seems. i.e. DMAOSD.logs, Telenet, CMD lines via browser to input IP to place a palace.bin file somewhere, Config scripts, etc. All just to get a USB stick inserted and get around the 30MB limit?
With the absolute greatest of respect, some of the instructions are a little vague for the non techy, non developer…
i.e.
_ Overview: First you run one of the scripts in homebrew/ - confirm palace is in homebrew mode _
Ok, but run the script from where? Am I running the script from my PC or am I heading down to my cinema room, turning on my WDTV Live, connecting to my PC from my WDTV via the network and then running the script on my WDTV?
_ On Windoze: to execute: _
Step 1) edit device-ip.txt and enter in the file *ONLY* your media players IP address
Step 2) win-homebrew-upload.bat
Step 3) win-homebrew-brewme.bat
Step 4) win-homebrew-status.bat
I’m already lost after step 1! Where or how do I edit the device-ip.txt for example? When you first read this, there’s no clue as to whether you’re referring to a file on the downloaded content on a PC or if the ‘device-ip’ file is some hidden file located on the WDTV somewhere. OK, after about 3-4 mins of looking through everything, I found the device-ip file, but it would have been easier if step 1 was written like this…
Step 1) After un-zipping your download, locate the ‘homebrew’ folder and inside it - the text document labelled ‘device-ip’. Open this and change the existing IP address to that of your own WDTV media player’s IP address.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it (I’m just trying to get my head around it before starting, otherwise I know that I’ll hit a wall half way through and have NO WDTV at all - which would be a nightmare), but even one guy in the links above had Linksheets implemented on an older WDTV previously - and even he had a couple of questions and queries to get around. If he had done it all before and still couldn’t figure out some of it - what chance have I got? In a way, it’s very much like a different language - I can see the words, but it ain’t making much sense.
I certainly have no intention of coming across as ungrateful here (genuinely), I fully understand and appreciate the amount of time and info you have all given to this post to help me out and I know that no one can ‘do it for me’ - but if there was one link with a cleaned up set of instructions (in simple-ish language) - it would make this far less daunting for me and any other Noobs attempting this. I am sure it would then be something that would take around 20 minutes to implement as opposed to reading through pages and pages of forums for days and I could spend that time sorting out all of my files and folders and working on TG. From what I’ve read - I’m sure a lot of people wanted to try custom FW & Linksheets, but read a few of these links, got overwhelmed and thought “Ehhhhh, maybe I’ll just leave it alone, life’s too short”. Everytime I re-read some of these links, that’s exactly what I’m thinking too. I’d really like linksheets and some custom FW, but I still want to be sane after I’ve completed the work.
I can imagine how this post could be taken incorrectly, so I want to say again that I really appreciate the help to date and I am not trying to rub anyone up the wrong way. If would just be immensely helpful if there was a straight talking foolproof instruction guide to go about doing this, as I am sure a lot of people visiting these forums and enquiring about custom FW are the same as me, a Noob with no clue on this topic who would like to a slick looking WDTV thanks to your hard work.
I know I have the bones of it to hand and I could nearly recite the pages throughout the forum that I’ve read so many times, but as I mentioned before, I just want everything to make sense before I kill my existing WDTV FW. Apologies for the long post.
