Western Digital TV Live Streaming Media Player
Posted by Notcot on May 16, 2012 in Home Cinema & Video |
Western Digital Western Digital TV Live Digital multimedia receiver Digital AV player HDMI 1080P Wireless HiSpeed USB2 UK Plug Black WDBGXT0000NBKUESN Storage External Hard Drives
- Built-in hard drive: N
- Connectivity technology: Wired
- Component video (YPbPr/YCbCr) out: 1
- USB 2.0 ports quantity: 1
- HDMI ports quantity: 1
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Great Little Player,
It sets up in a few minutes and connected to my home DLNA (Windows Media Player) Server in no time. Already had a couple of firmware upgrades which seems to have resolved a couple of small issues I had. Streaming is smooth over wireless, though I am only streaming around 720 and not 1080p. One observation is that the supplied video cable is a waste of time, and simply doesn’t do the box any justice. Replace this immediately and run HDMI which shows the interface in its full glory.
It is intuitive and easy to use, and although you may need a little PC knowledge to set up your media sharing, the instruction manual (only found on line here…. […]) is pretty helpful. I would recommend streaming from a DLNA NAS rather than PC, but honestly that is more for convenience of not having to have the PC always on rather than anything else.
It seems to support every file format I need it to, and overall, I am more than happy with it. Much more flexible than Apple TV and all in all a better box in my view.
***UPDATE***
I have had this over two months now, and have not changed my opinion. BBC iPlayer and NetFlix are now supported in the services menu, which is great. The Media Library function needs read/write access to your media server, and adds great value by giving details of cast, director, artwork running time etc.
As an aside, another review stated not to expect great results with HD wireless streaming. To be clear, although I haven’t tried 1080p HD, I am easily streaming 720p HD throughout the house, and the WD TV Live never misses a beat. Generally this is MPEG4 (ISO and VOB formats are also fine) and up to 6Mbps (generally around 1Mbps) streaming rate over a pretty standard home wireless router (802.11n @ 2.4GHZ). My BT Home Hub2 streams well to one device, but with multiple can start to drop out. I must stress this is nothing to do with the WD TV Live, but worth noting. My LinkSys X3000 copes easily with 3+ simultaneous 720p HD streams.
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|Finally.. A streamer that WORKS.,
Ordered this item on the weekend and took two days to arrive, and packaged very well (Amazon always packages exceedingly well!) I read reviews about this one and the Hub version, but as I already have many 1TB drives (and read that the internal drive kept on failing for people in the Hub version) I went for this one.
Now, I’ve been looking for a decent streamer for a LONG time. I have PS3’s, a 360, an Apple TV, an Xtreamer Ultra, NONE work as well as this little box does.
Firstly, it plays everything. My PS3 was lacking this (even jailbroken) as was my Apple TV, the Xtreamer Ultra is shambles (selling it), and the 360 stuttered. This little box played all my HD, mkv formats, smoothly, and what surprised me even more, is that it streamed a 720p .mkv from my MacBook Pro wirelessly, with no lag or stuttering! My PS3 can’t even handle 720p movies unless it’s plugged via ethernet, but both my laptop AND PS3 must be hooked via ethernet in order for streaming to be fluid. This is a MAJOR plus point, and i’m really very impressed.
Secondly, it detects all my NAS storage and connects well, including my WD World Edition MyBook. It does however take time to index files from external HDD’s, which can get a bit annoying, as the interface lags a bit due to it and at one point it got stuck and didn’t move till I disconnected my HDD. I’m sure this will be fixed in a FW update. But it indexes files fine from my HDD’s and shows all the clips and thumbnails.
Thirdly, Apps. They work well with the UI, I have Spotify premium and i’m using it all the time now, works really well! Haven’t tried the other apps, but i’m sure they are as good. I like the colour co-ordination in the apps which matches the UI. UI is fluid and is good for a Media Player.
Lastly, should you buy this? Yes. Don’t waste your money on things which won’t work out of the box, don’t spend hundreds on sophisticated items, you simply need one little box which does it all. Reason I chose this over the Apple TV (for all the fan boys out there) is because I can’t be bothered to jailbreak it and install apps etc, it has no external HDD support and even though it’s an Apple product, it’s pretty much useless to me as I have all my media on HDD’s, I don’t rent.
So, this is a worthwhile investment, you don’t need an ethernet connection to stream fluidly (perhaps a good connection though, mine is 20MB), if you want an ethernet connection and have no port in your room I suggest you get the WD Livewire, or TP-LINK ethernet plug. I have the TP-LINK one and works perfect with all my stuff.
Overall:
- Streams Movies, HD and SD, amazingly well with no stuttering
- Apps are great, work well
- UI is user friendly
- Expandable, ext HDD friendly
- Does what it says on the tin.
5/5 Stars, well done WD!
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|Great little Media Player,
Had mine just over a week now and I am very pleased with it, I have my content stored on 2tb Seagate external HD’s via USB, both DVD and BluRay rips, it has played every video file type I have thrown at it so far. I have found that it does not seem to support AAC audio, though this has not been a real problem as I try to use the best possible audio format when ripping my movie collection using MakeMKV (well worth looking at this free programme if you have a large DVD / Blu Ray collection to rip to HD). Though this latest version of the WDTV has built in wi-fi don’t expect to be able to stream HD content wirelessly and you won’t be disappointed in the quality of this player. Got mine from Argos as they had stock before Amazon and it worked out cheaper than the current Amazon price.
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