Just back from Sam's Club. In the tech aisle they now have the WDTV Live on a cardboard blister pack for $95. Lowest price I found googling was $109 shipped. This is,of course, the new one witht he ethernet port for network viewing, as well as the USB port por playing from USB devices or connecting a wireless USB adapter. Does 1080p video beautifully!
I bought mine in November at Best Buy for $120, and love it! A great replacement for an aging original XBox running XBMC.
In case this isn't everywhere, I was specifically at the Crestwood, Mo store. Doesn't appear to be on teh Sam's website yet. Also saw 750gig ($99) and 1TB ($149) pocket USB powered WD drives.
awesome price. I have a WD TV live also which I bought for $120 but looking forward to replacing it with the Popbox when it comes out. Unfortunately the Popbox was supposed to be released this month but seems to have gotten delayed. Hope it won't be too much longer.
It's on the SamsClub site, but the price still shows $119, even at your store.. http://www.SamsClub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=467616
dman6666
Happy Member
posted: Mar. 13, 2010 @ 8:27a
www.b-rad.cc has some homebrew firmware updates that are worth investigating. I originally tried the modded firmware out because the stock firmware would drop the network connection while watching videos. With the modded firmware you can setup shares that look like 'folders' inside the WDTV interface. Doing that I was able to connect to my network shares and stream without a problem. That was back when it first came out and I haven't tested with the lastest stock firmware so the built-in network browsing/connecting may have been resolved. (The problem was not in my network, and I'm using wired not wireless).
So, with that resolved, the only real gripe I have with this unit is the lack of functional skip forward/backward controls. You can only FF/RR in 1x/2x/4x/8x/16x type speeds. Playing back HD files the time index doesn't seem to match up with the content skipping FF/RR. When you stop where you think you need to be it's often quite a few minutes before/after the last image displayed (beyond any margin of error). All in all, it's NOT good for searching and while many folks have requested this functionality it's on a 'wish list' of features. That feature is part of the core WDTV application and not part of the underlying OS/Firmware that the mod'ers have been enhancing so it's unlikely to be resolved unless WD puts in the effort and that does NOT look like it's going to happen anytime soon--if at all.
So, all in all it's a very nice device, especially for the price, but it's definitely not without it's flaws.
elinks
Member
posted: Mar. 13, 2010 @ 10:19a
dman6666
There is one other function you can use:
start the functional skip forward/backward controls at 1x/2x/4x/8x/or 16x and press the next >>| or back |<< buttons to jump forward or backward 10 minutes. Not great but helpful!
I hope this helps
elinks
BTW I love my Live with custom FW!
SinijKot
New Member
posted: Mar. 13, 2010 @ 10:26a
With WDTV live if you want to search the file you can jump in 10 minute increments. This feature works very well.
10 minute skip Press Fast Forward/Reverse on the remote then Next/Prev to skip forwards or backwards 10 minutes at a time.
I have two of these and they do the job. I store my music in the lossless FLAC format and this version supports FLAC. It's nice to be able to play anything in my music collection without getting up. These will also play Blu-Ray rips from an external hard drive but not across the network. These also share their local drives on the network.
I have one, and I don't really like it that much. When researching this, I never read anything bad about it. So here's my $.10.
Pros: 1. Plays everything I've thrown at it, from h.264 to divx, avi to mkv. 2. Small and noiseless. 3. Works with my harmony
Cons: 1. Very difficult to make chapters work (you have to create an MKV, and then use the option button to select a particular chapter.) 2. I have to reboot it somewhat frequently; this stinks. (It'll just hang when it's supposed to play a video.) 3. No ability to make any kind of shortcut; you have to traverse your share's directory structure to get anywhere (very annoying.) 4. I have yet to figure out how to make subtitles work when encoded in. I don't particularly want to include a separate file with every video, especially when I took the time to include the subtitles in. This is nice when the dialog is low, and I don't want to turn the volume up high.
I have a handbrake profile for creating MKVs with h264, chapters, and subtitles (forced only) that works with the WD Live if anyone is interested.
chefchu
Member
posted: Mar. 13, 2010 @ 12:04p
Costco B&M carries the WDTV Live for $109, including HDMI cable. This is a better deal, just buy your own HDMI cable.
...is whether this will directly play a DVD ripped to an ISO or IMG, of if you have to unpack it on the remote PC or storage box to have the VOBs directly. Anyone know?
...is whether this will directly play a DVD ripped to an ISO or IMG, of if you have to unpack it on the remote PC or storage box to have the VOBs directly. Anyone know?
I've had no problem paying ISO's on mine using just hte stock WD firmaware. Although, most features fo the disc, like chapters and such, didn't seem to work for me. Watching the movie itself over the network, was not a problem.
As for getting disconnected on a wired network, there is/was a glitch in the firmware. Simply changing your network name to WORKGROUP on the media hosting PC solved this for me, and several others.
...is whether this will directly play a DVD ripped to an ISO or IMG, of if you have to unpack it on the remote PC or storage box to have the VOBs directly. Anyone know?
Yes for ISO and IMG, but you must rename IMG to ISO first
WD TV is a nice unit but the remote is missing many playback function like zoom, slow motion, A-B(great for porn), volume control, full numeric keypad. Check out these media player below for more choice.
$99 Cineamatube(BV-5005HD) Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support.
$99 Patriot Box Office Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 2.5" internal HD space(up to 500GB)
$109 Masscool MP-1372RS Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 3.5" internal HD space(up to 2TB)
Gadget38 said: WD TV is a nice unit but the remote is missing many playback function like zoom, slow motion, A-B(great for porn), volume control, full numeric keypad. Check out these media player below for more choice.
$99 Cineamatube(BV-5005HD) Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support.
$99 Patriot Box Office Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 2.5" internal HD space(up to 500GB)
$109 Masscool MP-1372RS Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 3.5" internal HD space(up to 2TB)
Also he doesnt know that the dawn thing IS PROGRAMMABLE. You can tell it to do what you want it to do with any remote ( a little picky on some of them due to range but all the popular remotes is doable)
I have the old WDTV. I programmed mine to respond to Toshiba remote with a couple macro buttons for changing audio channel and subt.
scubasteve said: Gadget38 said: WD TV is a nice unit but the remote is missing many playback function like zoom, slow motion, A-B(great for porn), volume control, full numeric keypad. Check out these media player below for more choice.
$99 Cineamatube(BV-5005HD) Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support.
$99 Patriot Box Office Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 2.5" internal HD space(up to 500GB)
$109 Masscool MP-1372RS Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 3.5" internal HD space(up to 2TB)
sholling said: These will also play Blu-Ray rips from an external hard drive but not across the network.
I play all of my Blu-Ray rips on the WDTV over the network.
dscrap
Senior Member
posted: Mar. 13, 2010 @ 8:50p
I have one, paid $100 with a price match at BB BM to BB.com. Works as expected. I do have a problem with networking it to a Windows 7 PC. It only sees some of my files, some of the time. There are several forums that are dedicated to the device and some solutions posted work, again, some of the time.
blueribb said: Roach19 said: Just a note, the quick info portion says WDTV Live is at BB for 99 which is not true. This is the std WDTV. The live is $120
You should have a quick chat with the original poster who specifically said it was the LIVE model (in his store).
blueribb said: You should have a quick chat with the original poster who specifically said it was the LIVE model (in his store).
Also check out post #8 in the SD thread.Might just be a different direction of our sort order (I didn't bother to log in), but in post #22 (3/13/10 @ 11:34), someone went to the Crestwood, MO S@m's Club where the original poster claims he saw the WDTV Live for $95 and attached a photo showing $119.86 as the current price.
Post #33 (3/14/10 @ 6:35) explains some shortcomings.
scubasteve said: Gadget38 said: WD TV is a nice unit but the remote is missing many playback function like zoom, slow motion, A-B(great for porn), volume control, full numeric keypad. Check out these media player below for more choice.
$99 Cineamatube(BV-5005HD) Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support.
$99 Patriot Box Office Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 2.5" internal HD space(up to 500GB)
$109 Masscool MP-1372RS Added feature: Full function remote, ISO with menu, BT download, RMVB support, 3.5" internal HD space(up to 2TB)
blueribb said: You should have a quick chat with the original poster who specifically said it was the LIVE model (in his store).
Also check out post #8 in the SD thread.Might just be a different direction of our sort order (I didn't bother to log in), but in post #22 (3/13/10 @ 11:34), someone went to the Crestwood, MO S@m's Club where the original poster claims he saw the WDTV Live for $95 and attached a photo showing $119.86 as the current price.
Post #33 (3/14/10 @ 6:35) explains some shortcomings.
Well, it was not just a claim-- other users verified it was at that price in some other stores too. And yes, apparently they have 'corrected/adjusted' the price back to the $119.86 mark.
So, deal appears dead. Sorry if you missed out, congrats if you got in!
Murph74 said: ...So, deal appears dead. Sorry if you missed out, congrats if you got in!Well, for me, the greatest benefit of your thread was that it gave me the incentive to research Media Players:
Before Saturday, my plan was to dump Comcast (~$60 for 3 'included' boxes feeding 3 Lifetime ReplayTVs, now with IR Blasters), switch to DISH (~$25) for ONE ReplayTV, and get a new OTA antenna and feed ALL the remaining old-but-still-functional analog devices through the stack of DTV Converter boxes that I picked up.
The NEW plan, pending further research, is to replace DISH with a Media Player (since I can NEVER give up broadband internet). The possible 'Stumbling Block' is that, after ~10 years of TiVo and ReplayTV, I NEVER watch LIVE TV anymore. If I can build a 'Season Pass' / 'List of Subscriptions' where shows that I like are automatically downloaded and sitting waiting for me to view them, bye-bye Cable and/or Satellite; hello Media Player / Streamer.
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