Yes again Netflix Canada

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Just to point out that it CAN be done. Nothing to do with licensing imho.

http://blog.boxee.tv/2011/02/14/netflix-on-the-boxee-box/

Boxee launched Netflix support today in US and CANADA!

I bought my Live Plus yesterday as I figured eventually it would be able to do Netflix.ca guess I am returning it for Boxee tomorrow.

2

Boxee only just added Netflix support (months after product launch) and have the benefit of the latest Netflix API.

The WD TV Live Plus / Hub have had Netflix since before the Boxee Box was released and are currently stuck with an older API.

Nobody said it couldn’t be done.  Netflix develops the API and creates the app, not WD.

We’ll get an updated Netflix interface when Netflix gets around to it.

Enjoy your Boxee Box…?

3

rofl netflix develops the API and creates the app??? Netflix develops the API and hardware manufacturer creates the app. 

I guess others always create the API and then make the apps for other peoples equipment right? 

Microsoft creates the API and then makes the apps for everyone else’s hardware.

Not how it works my friend, it’s WD being lazy, they need to integrate the new API in THEIR hardware. Netflix has nothing to do with their hardware.

4

chammer101 wrote:

 

Not how it works my friend, it’s WD being lazy, they need to integrate the new API in THEIR hardware. Netflix has nothing to do with their hardware. 

Potato, potahto.   

Point is:  WD never said they’d do NetFlix Canada.   Calling WD “Lazy” for not doing it is like me calling you lazy for not doing it yourself.

On the other hand, Boxee DID say they would, and though they delivered 6 weeks later than promised, it did happen…

5

Perhaps you can explain to me the difference between the Live and Live plus devices?

They need to pull the Live plus from the Canadian Market, Charge me $20 more than the Live and I do not get anything else. Its a rip off imo.

Even if you check the comparison on the WDC.com site the only difference in the Live and Live plus is Netflix and Blockbuster. Both of which we cannot get in Canada.

I just don’t get it, it’s like buying a the “gold” version of a game in Canada, because it’s gold you get extra armor, pets or whatever but all said addons are not available in Canada When you install the game. However it does state on the box that only American’s get the gold addons. Then why even make the gold version available know what I mean.

6

The H/W is there, it’s purely a S/W update from WD.

They do not feel it economically worth it.

But as they continue to lose sales, maybe they will change their mind. I bought a Samsung BD Player as it was cheaper than the WDTV and had Netflix for the kids. I wanted to buy a WDTV Live + for Netflix but it doe snot have it.

I like my WDTV LIve, but now I will be buying a Boxee most like, and am recommending other media players to friends.

Bottom line, WDTV have lost at least $400 in sales with just myself and my friend. I’m sure you can multiply that a lot across Canada these days, coupled with the cost of returns to BB and other outlets.

They were selling the WDTV Live+ Refurbs for $49.99 at the local liquidators this week: It was listed as a Live+ in the paper flyer I receieved in the Junk mail. http://virtual.torontosun.com/doc/factorydirect/#0

http://www.factorydirect.ca/static/index.htm

I imagine many of these returns because of this issue. The Product Manager for the product should be fired, as he/she is completely incompetent in their job in the last 6-9 months. Netflix, DVD Menu etc etc, to little to late.

7

Im from Canada too and months ago, (check my post history) I bought a WD Live Hub 1TB unit from Best Buy and the employees told me Netflix worked in Canada, returned it…

Then got a WD Live Plus at  Best Buy employee said that it works for sure in Canada, and returned that aswell.

So in the end, what happened?  Because of the stupid false advertising, by Best Buy employees, they made nothing but a loss.  And I wasnt the only one.  Several friends did the same thing as me.

So whats the point of this?

Well WD is so **bleep** lazy, and thats why they are losing so many sales and got so many returrns.   I have owned a Boxee Box since day 1 launch in November.  Been happy with it, because the devs promised to bring Netflix to Canada for the new year.  And they came through.  

And they provide awesome updates for the device.  Makes me love the Boxee, and I have got 3 friends to buy the Boxee Box, word of mouth spreads a lot faster and better than advertising.  

I would never recommend a WD LIVE HUB to anyone I know.  But Boxee, **bleep** yes.

Well anyways, Iomega is releasing a device this Friday, and it will contain a 2TB drive in it.  Also, its brand new, so the UI could be totally different, and will have some amazing features.  Gonna wait to see how that is and then get that if its pretty good and goes beyond the Screenplay Director.

8

Are you talking about the IOMEGA BOXEE?  

The DLINK box and IOMEGA devices are identical UIs.    The UI is TOTALLY under the control of BOXEE.   From what I can gleen from the Anticipation Forums, the User Experience is going to be identical between them.   The only differences are the Remote Control and the Hard Drive.

And it’s also something like $450 isn’t it?   I haven’t seen pricing on it yet.

9

chammer101 wrote:

rofl netflix develops the API and creates the app??? Netflix develops the API and hardware manufacturer creates the app. 

 

I guess others always create the API and then make the apps for other peoples equipment right? 

 

Microsoft creates the API and then makes the apps for everyone else’s hardware.

 

Not how it works my friend, it’s WD being lazy, they need to integrate the new API in THEIR hardware. Netflix has nothing to do with their hardware. 

After reading this, I had to go dig into this.  

In this case, it appears YOU are wrong.   NetFlix DOES write the app;  at least for quite a few platforms out there.   Sony, Boxee, LG, etc.   I doubt WD would be an exception to that.   As far as I know, only the TiVo Series 3 is the exception because of TiVo’s bizarre HME interface, NO 3rd-party apps are executed on their boxes. 

Whether NetFlix provides source code or compiled binaries is unknown, and irrelevant.  

If you want more details, There’s comments about this in the Boxee Developers’ Blogs.    The new Boxee NetFlix UI requires an HTML 5 engine because the entire UI resides on NetFlix’s infrastructure, and the app on the appliance becomes basiclly a browser.

10

Screw WD they basically don’t give a fudge about Canada

11

All of the WD TV products are basically dead. It does seem as if WD is really dragging their feet with fixes and updates to Netflix for Canada .

My WD TV Live is great at streaming most mkv’s and thats about it for me.

The boxes have great potential, but the again they’ve had great potential since they came out. They just haven’t matured as well as other products.

Either WD doesn’t want to put in the effort, or doesn’t know how to resolve issues with the WD TV devices.

I picked up a Boxee Box a couple of days ago and it is great. It does pretty much everything I need it to do including VPN for US services in Canada.

I highly recommend the Boxee box.