After being announced in
early June,
Anandtech recently put the Western Digital WD TV Live Plus through its paces and discovered the
Netflix enhancement works as advertised. Like many Netflix-enabled devices though, the TV Live comes up short compared to the full PC experience since access is limited to only the Instant Queue. Its presence also sacrifices firmware hackability -- a quality which previously made up for the
WD TV Live's lack of versatility as an HTPC. The ability to move, copy, and manage locally stored media files via the interface, on the other hand, was praised as a unique advantage over competing models -- exciting, we know. Sadly, video quality was docked as being "significantly less than the HTPC counterparts they've seen so far." However, it's possible this could be improved in the future via firmware updates, since its Sigma Designs processor features noise reduction and deinterlacing algorithms that strangely aren't currently enabled. File format-wise, DVD ISOs worked flawlessly, while Blu-ray ISO and some WMV video formats experienced issues that users may want to read up on before buying. Gripes aside though, Anandtech was still willing to place it "around the top of the list" for media player devices, thanks to its wide file compatibility and robust features. For more details, hit the review source link.
posted July 31st 2010 11:07AM
last time i bought it. it disappointed me. it cant support RMVB file.. even the WD mini also can support RMVB but it cant
I have this device and even for it's price point it does not deliver as well as I would expect it to. Apart from a clunky interface, and limited remote functionality, this device is very unreliable when it comes to keeping a network connection. My wife cannot use this device because the troubleshooting needed to fix networking issues is hard for her to execute. I am hoping that WD builds and deploys a fix. While we're talking about fixes, how about adding Hulu as a new content provider?
Just get a netop or old mac mini and put plex media server on it.
Does hulu, Amazon video on demand, espn3, netflix, streams, music, and has a bunch of other apps to. Plus a really sweet interface.
I use seagate's freeagent theater plus (FAT+) to stream our personal backed-up DVD collection over wired network. It works great with full menu support. Does anyone know of a device that is capable of handling blu-ray files with menu support? I don't want to have to convert file types. Thanks
@Skeptic
Great Device - Great Value for Money!. Plays my ISOs smoothly (no IMG files though :-/ ).
Main drawback - their menu system is somewhat not intuitive - if you have a large collection (and nested folders...) it might take ages to find your media. I use the iPhone remote control application (I think by independent developers - http://www.wdtvremote.com). The app also allows playing Internet radio directly with TV screen off...
If you look at he specs of this thing, this can not bitstream/decode DTS-HD or TrueHD. It doesn't have anything unique over the competition other then being from a recognizable brand.
For something that plays 'HD'..it fails with the audio portion of that equation.
I got myself an HDI Dune. It plays everything I toss at it, even DTS-HD audio.