Has the WDTV Live and other similar players been abandoned? There haven’t been any firmware updates for a long time and no new versons of the player have become available in stores. I have a WDTV Live and while it is the best player out there in terms of what it can handle it doesn’t work as a consumer apliance ought to. And it shows how lame the whole media playet industry is when the best product available really **bleep** like this. It has always had a problem staying connected (every few hours it needs to be unplugged and plugged back in before it will play media). Sometimes it even fails to last long enough to finish viewing a whole movie withouit having to be rebooted. As long as I’ve had it it’s been this way no matter how many firmware updates it has done. And the last one ruined playback of many .mp4 files which used to play just fine. And while I have several media boxes the WDTV is the only one that had any promise with regard to playing the media on the various computers and NAS drives I own. I keep hoping they’ll release a newer version of the product which might work better beause I’d but it immediately despite the WDTV Live not working nearly as well as it ought to.
Hello Zetaprime,
At the moment there’s no official documentation that this player has been abandoned.
Regarding your unit rebotting by it self, I havent seen that before, have you tried performing a factory reset on your unit?
I hope it has not been abandoned. It still seems to be the best thing going for playing a variety of video formats, and oh yeah, I need composite outputs due to my ancient TVs.
The FW release 2.02.32 came out in August, although I opted to go back to 2.01.86 because of the remote control shortcut keys causing problems for me (i.e. when trying to skip to a particular time in a video, using an assigned shortcut key 0-9 would catapult me out of my movie and into a completely different menu item).
I was intrigued by the new API and thought perhaps it would open the door for the enthusiast community to create some cool software, but when I looked at the API docs I lost faith. It didn’t seem like there was a lot of functionality there, or at least to me as one who has never done this kind of programming.
-Marty
Apparently it hasn’t been officially abandoned. Unofficially we have a case where if it HAS been WD has lost a ton of customer loyalty by not telling us it has been, and if it HASN’T been adandoned, they’ve also lost a ton of customer loyalty by ignoring months and months of pleas to give us some basic acknowlegement that they’re working on fixes (neither telling us here, nor telling us via the people who have contacted support reps).
Here we go again.
Dont know if WD really quietly abandoned the SMP now, but 2 years after i bought it they gave it a new lease of life with the last firmware update in August. I am referring to the Downloads app (with auto start app to further boost its usability in case of power failure) and Miracast support. These 2 features itself make this device the best among media players, let alone the support for most number of video formats and also most of the common streaming services. Earlier I had to run a power hungry PC or laptop just to download P2P files, now I can do it more efficiently using a device just consuming less than 10W which I dont bother keeping on all the time. No need to copy or stream files across the home netwrok as well. So convenient!
As the SMP is now with the latest firmware update I am quite happy and already got more value than what I paid for.
Well I really hope it hasn’t, because quite honestly the WDTV Live is excellent in terms of features. Little disappointed though as the last firmware release seems very unstable and so had to roll back to a previous release. I can’t say I would recommend this device to others due to its inconsistencies and perhaps lack of a better software development support. I’m primarily using it with a good old CRT dinosaur monster and it kinda annoys me that this device doesn’t allow me to change one of simplest and most basic image/sound adjustments like contrast/sharpness settings and everything. **bleep**, if only it had something like a simple 3-band EQ for audio output that would make things much better and easier for all of us. Like for example the Youtube app on this device, not sure but picture quality is kinda off as it appears to remove all sharpness making it look lifeless as a result. I understand that this might come an attempt to avoid noise and other bad compression artefacts, but just give us an option to change it at least. Everything on this device seems so flat, both audio and video reproduction are so flat, overly flat. Perhaps it would gain from the addition of filters and dsps and stuff. Just my 2 cents.
prankstare wrote:
I’m primarily using it with a good old CRT dinosaur monster and it kinda annoys me that this device doesn’t allow me to change one of simplest and most basic image/sound adjustments like contrast/sharpness settings and everything
Contrast, Sharpness, Brightness etc … should be available options on your CRT TV via the Remote or Front/Side Panel (unless it’s a really ancient TV)
prankstare wrote:
but picture quality is kinda off as it appears to remove all sharpness making it look lifeless as a result. I Everything on this device seems so flat, both audio and video reproduction are so flat, overly flat
“Flat” Audio/Video is a result of using Composite Video/Audio (Red,White,Yellow) on an Old Analog CRT TV
You’re running a HD Digital Device on a SD Analog TV … so it’s not realistic to expect Optimal Picture and Sound Quality.
(the Reverse) It’s like hooking up a Analog VCR to a HDTV and expecting good picture and sound quality … which it won’t have.
WDTV Media Player (a HD Digital Device) connected via HDMI (HD Digital Connection) to a HDTV (Preferably a FULLHD 1080p TV) … gives you optimal image quality. Add an AV Receiver or Surround Sound AMP … and you’re got optimal audio quality.
JoeySmyth wrote:
Contrast, Sharpness, Brightness etc … should be available options on your CRT TV via the Remote or Front/Side Panel (unless it’s a really ancient TV)
Yes, I know it does. But the problem here is that this TV can’t save more than one personal setting while I have at least three different devices connected to it (set-top box, dvd player and now the wdtv).
JoeySmyth wrote:
“Flat” Audio/Video is a result of using Composite Video/Audio (Red,White,Yellow) on an Old Analog CRT TV
You’re running a HD Digital Device on a SD Analog TV … so it’s not realistic to expect Optimal Picture and Sound Quality.
(the Reverse) It’s like hooking up a Analog VCR to a HDTV and expecting good picture and sound quality … which it won’t have.
Sorry but that’s wrong. Although it is true that you can’t get optimal picture quality, you still get much better quality by having HD source material even on an non-HD tv set (especially on a CRT panel). Now most SD digital content have poor bitrate and that will look awful on any type of panel whether CRT/LCD or SD/HD. You can test that if you want. And I do have a modern LCD panel with HDMI inputs so I already tested wdtv using this type of connection and same thing: good quality but still flat compared to Blu-ray and DVD players for example with same source material; perhaps they apply some kind of fancy post-processing filters to make the image slghtly better on them. And still on the Youtube playback thing, it is really weird because I don’t have such a problem watching videos from Netflix or local/network media for instance regardless of which type of cables (HDMI/RCA). Are you really suggesting that the “flat” image is the result of whether or not using HDMI? Sure it is not.
JoeySmyth wrote:
Add an AV Receiver or Surround Sound AMP … and you’re got optimal audio quality.
Yes I know again. The reason I bought the wdtv is because I wanted to have smart feature on an old CRT that’s in my room and wasn’t willing to spend money on crappy 32" LCDs (because honestly, they are all **bleep**). Besides this old giant has reasonably good audio with decent SPL as most quality CRTs did back in the day so no need for an additional receiver in this case.
But the problem here is that this TV can’t save more than one personal setting while I have at least three different devices connected to it (set-top box, dvd player and now the wdtv).
So, that’s a problem with your “TV” and not the WDTV
Sorry but that’s kinda wrong. Although it is true that you can’t get optimal picture quality, you still get much better quality by having HD source material even on an non-HD tv set
*cough* with Composite ? nah… doesent even compare with HDMI on a good quality HDTV
And I do have a modern LCD panel with HDMI inputs so I already tested wdtv using this type of connection and same thing: good quality but still flat compared to Blu-ray
Well, Blu-Ray players can have all sorts of fancy hardware filter’s than can reprocess/upscale a video image.
But lack the compatibilty to decode and playback the many formats the WDTV supports.
With Youtube, Netflix thing … kinda different because they’re streaming sources …can’t personally speak about Netflix, but i know if i’m downloading (maxing out my bandwidth) … the Picture Quality of “Youtube” suffers (looks like 480p)
… but if stop downloading the picture quality is restored (back to HD) … So, basically image quality is dependant on the bandwidth.
Yes I know again. The reason I bought the wdtv is because I wanted to have smart feature on an old CRT that’s in my room and wasn’t willing to spend money on crappy 32" LCDs (because honestly, they are all **bleep**)
Don’t buy a crappy LCD then … buy a “Name Brand” Good Quality (LCD / LED)
Personally, i have a FullHD 1080p 3D Panasonic Plasma TV and everything looks great 
JoeySmyth wrote:
So, that’s a problem with your “TV” and not the WDTV
Look man with all due respect, I honestly don’t know what’s the matter with you. I’m not saying this is a bad product. Besides everyone is writing their opinions here. I wrote my impressions using both a good old CRT as well as a LCD panel with HDMI and the same happens, sorry if you can’t see that. Then you go and make a statement that has nothing to do with what I said, how is it possible that the output method has anything to do with the use of post-processing filters? It’s not like the device will automatically enable or disable “filters” depending on the type of cables used. And I did say I already tested the device using HDMI so I know how full HD looks like at its full glory. Sorry if you fail to recognize that.
There is a noticeable difference in how video is handled on Youtube/DailyMotion/Vimeo compared to Netflix and Media Player which has nothing to do with resolution or bandwidth. Or perhaps I could be wrong too. Also, by “flat” it doesn’t necessarily mean “bad”. It’s just a matter of personal taste really. And if you can suggest any real good 1080p LCD panel smaller than 40" that can beat a good old CRT in terms of contrast, uniformity, colors and viewing angles without having to worry about possible leakage, banding or dse then we’re good.
