western digital TV live (WDTV2) shipped $112 with paypal & 5% bing cashback

http://www.jr.com/western-digital/pe/WD_BAAN0000NBK/

the page is not yet updated on JR but you can confirm that the part # here http://www.provantage.com/western-digital-wdbaan0000nbk-nesn~7WN...
or Amazon's cache here.

anyway, it's 119.99 at JR with no tax (to CA anyway). take off 5% using bing CashBack which brings it down to 113.99. also, if you buy something at JR over $100 using paypal they will credit you $10 until October 14. You can see it here paypal promo with the paypal promo, it goes down to 103.99 + shipping which was 8.92 to california which brings me to $112.91. not bad i think considering some places are still selling WDTV1 for $99.

btw, those unfamiliar with WDTV2, its a rework of WDTV1 + added networking + component out + DTS support.

thx

Well, it's no longer on the Amazon site.

yet still no RMVB support. WD is dethroned by the ASUS O'Play which support RMVB in additional to everything WD can do.

What is RMVB used for? I've never seen anyone complain about lack of support for it before now. MKV container seems to be all the buzz these days. H.264 stuffs.

sychang888 said: yet still no RMVB support. WD is dethroned by the ASUS O'Play which support RMVB in additional to everything WD can do.
Seems to me that the real missing feature is multi-channel flac in movies.
I don't think any of these hardware players support multi-channel flac, although most of them will do stereo flac.
But that's just checkbox marketing - no one who cares enough about audio fidelity to go with flac in a movie over ac3/dts is only going to do stereo - unless the movie was only stereo to begin with which is about 1 in a thousand movies nowadays.

Paperbag said: What is RMVB used for? I've never seen anyone complain about lack of support for it before now. MKV container seems to be all the buzz these days. H.264 stuffs.

Chinese porn.

OK, I just picked one up locally. The model # in that Sears link is the correct one for the new model, so that's a good price there. Best Buy has them in stock locally. Website has em on sale for $119.99, but they are $139.99 in store. When it scanned $139.99, I had the guy change it to the $119.99 on the website, then hit em with 10% reward zone coupon. They did it anyways but mentioned that coupon isnt really supposed to be used as it's supposed to be off of full price, so a YMMV there. End result is just as cheap as anywhere online including tax but without the wait.

WD Live TV @ Best Buy

Current reward zone coupons valid Oct9 - Oct12

poppagene said: sychang888 said: yet still no RMVB support. WD is dethroned by the ASUS O'Play which support RMVB in additional to everything WD can do.

ASUS O!Play doesn't play blu ray iso rips Anyone know if the brite-view.com/cinematube plays blu ray iso?

Actually the new WD Mini does support RMVB and Flac but at the expense of Hidef- no 720p, 1080p but it does do 1080i. Other expensive players do RMVB-HD.

JerryW said: sychang888 said: yet still no RMVB support. WD is dethroned by the ASUS O'Play which support RMVB in additional to everything WD can do.
Seems to me that the real missing feature is multi-channel flac in movies.
I don't think any of these hardware players support multi-channel flac, although most of them will do stereo flac.
But that's just checkbox marketing - no one who cares enough about audio fidelity to go with flac in a movie over ac3/dts is only going to do stereo - unless the movie was only stereo to begin with which is about 1 in a thousand movies nowadays.

does it now support DVD menus?

I'm a bit bummed that WD have been so lazy updating the firmware for the existing device. Seems they've been putting all their efforts into this device and neglecting us early adopters.

Etch said: $94.95 + $6.25 shipping at Sears right now ($5 off appears when you add to cart, appearantly some sort of sale). Looks like website only as the option isnt there for in store pickup. With tax price is about the same, but another option at least.

http://www.Sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00314206000P


edit--nevermind....it is the same model number you have posted above....but I think this is the old one still. I have noticed through some of the shopping engines, places even prominently stating the TV Live version still have the same part number as the old first gen one. Something is amiss here. Be carefull and make sure you are actually getting what you think you are if your after this new version.

The Sears link took me to a page for the WD TV Mini, which is entirely different from the WD TV Live. The Mini is like the original's baby brother, whereas the Live is an upgrade of the original.

The pic of the unit at JR looks exactly like my WD TV (the original), and the description does not indicate the features that distinguish the Live from the original. Caveat emptor.

If the two units look the same, it seems to me that WD marketing is new to the consumer electronics game. Looking at the product pics, there is little to visually signal to the consumer that the WD TV Live is an enhanced version of the WD TV, and even the product boxes look similar. And though the Live has been spotted at Best Buy, WD's own website does not show the new product. I'm not certain that the new features justify a 20% bump in the list price -- a more typical tactic would be to drop the price of the original by 15-20% (to clear out remaining stock in prepartion to phase it out) and add maybe a 10% premium for the Live. They might have even considered keeping the same list price as before, since the market is now crowded with many similar media players around the $100 price point.... something that the original WD TV did not have to contend with when it first came out.

fxfuj And though the Live has been spotted at Bes said: t Buy, WD's own website does not show the new product. I'm not certain that the new features justify a 20% bump in the list price -- a more typical tactic would be to drop the price of the original by 15-20% (to clear out remaining stock in prepartion to phase it out) and add maybe a 10% premium for the Live. They might have even considered keeping the same list price as before, since the market is now crowded with many similar media players around the $100 price point.... something that the original WD TV did not have to contend with when it first came out.

After playing around with the new one, I think that it is very much worth the 20% or so difference. These things have only been out for days now, so they havent had every last detail picked apart yet, but it has already been confirmed on AVS that it has a much better processing chip then the previous. I forget exactly what it was off the top of my head...it was a something 8655 in the new one if I recall right. At either rate, navigating around and stuff is MUCH MUCH faster despite having the same UI. The ethernet port is pretty big too. Yeah you can hack the original to do that as well, but your up to the same or more money anyways by the time you add in a USB network adapter. Works great for accessing stuff from NAS or another PC vs keeping a hard drive or thumb drive plugged into it. Also with the standard DLNA/Upnp compatability, you can pretty effortlessly set up Playon or Tveristy media server on a pc for WDTV to access and basicly have like a giant on demand library of stuff from Hulu, CBS, podcasts, etc you can stream. There are some other minor features with the new one as well, but the better internals and ethernet are the 2 big ones.

Basicly, are there other media players out there that will do the same thing for similar money? Sure. Is it worth spending a little more on vs the first wdtv though? Most defininently. At the end of the day though, I'm sure these will be found significantly cheaper before too long when they are out in force and the old ones fall to the side. These $110-$120 prices are only a deal for those of us who want one now...you know, compared to the whole new product/early adopter tax so to speak. haha.

glad i waited on the original. figured there would be a worthy update as a gen2 device.

Noob question - what does this do that my DirectTV HD DVR won't. When connected to my home network, it will play any image, audio or video file through my HDTV. About the only obvious limitation is the lack of a USB port on the DVR, but the media can be accessed through a PC.

shank said: Noob question - what does this do that my DirectTV HD DVR won't. When connected to my home network, it will play any image, audio or video file through my HDTV. About the only obvious limitation is the lack of a USB port on the DVR, but the media can be accessed through a PC.

If your DVR can meet all of your needs, then you don't need this.

shank said: Noob question - what does this do that my DirectTV HD DVR won't. When connected to my home network, it will play any image, audio or video file through my HDTV. About the only obvious limitation is the lack of a USB port on the DVR, but the media can be accessed through a PC.

If your DVR can play Hi-Def MKV files at 720p or 1080p that's awesome. Which model is it?

so does this play multi-part rar files over network?

Paperbag said: There is an official press release on this now from WD.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/13/western-digital-wd-tv-live-hd... and a copy of the release can be found there, or by digging on WD's website. Seems MSRP is $149. I love MSRPs.
Just wonder if they do a PM?

CRyPT99 said: Just realized I never commented about Playon. I did end up trying it, but sadly it only worked for me once, and never connected after that. When it did work, it was pretty cool. Hulu TV shows were sorted by letter in folders, and it was really easy to use. I might try it again one of these days with a newer version of Playon, but hopefully i can get another temporary registration.

Playon just released a new version and did allow me to test drive the new model. I received an email invitation yesterday. I think those that signed up for a trial and didn't buy will be getting this new invitation. They're asking $19.99 for the program in the email.