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Western Digital Wdtv Live

PNGinBKK

By PNGinBKK
in IT and Computers

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OriginalPoster Gold Member

OriginalPoster

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I've been reading about this WD Live and the Playon! HD.

Can you run a bit-torrent software like utorrent directly on the WD Live and download directly to it from the Internet by using a usb hardrive attached to it? Basically I don't want to use my computer.

Thanks

I have the Playon!HD myself, and that has built-in torrent download support. It has a webinterface for adding/managing downloads or you can add the torrent files to the hard drive and use the remote control to start the downloads.

I don't know about the WD TV Live, but I would imagine it has the same features, except for the internal hard drive.

Torrent download support and a nzb usenet client aren't installed the stock WDTV Live but are in included in 3rd party firmware: http://b-rad.cc . I've been playing around with that firmware and while it does do what it claims to do, I find that it's of no great advantage to download torrents and harvest from usenet groups on the WDTV rather than on a standalone PC. I have the WDTV mapped to my desktop computer as a shared drive anyway, so it's a trivial matter to copy downloaded material over to the drive attached to the WDTV anyway. More interesting with the 3rd party firmware software are the yet unrealized possibilities that it enables - since it includes ftp, telnet, and ssh servers it opens the door for people to attempt all sorts of hacks and to install other programs on the box.

Edited by OriginalPoster
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angiud Platinum Member

angiud

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I got mine yesterday by Invadeit.co.th (good service, fast, but parcel box very poor made) and now I'm playing with it. Cool, very easy to install, connected with the net and with the tv by hdmi, in 5 minutes work already and let me available all the files from my 1.5 Tb drive and the 1 tb internal drive from my computer upstairs.

The youtube function works nice and easy. The WD interface is nice and intuitive; also the movies in Matrioska (.mkv) run smooth without any problem.

Is a piece of machinery I can surely suggest!

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LivinLOS Star Member

LivinLOS

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Just to keep the topic going, as I'm still looking for a WD TV Live in Thailand :D

WD TV Drive Comparison Link

TL :)

Bought one of those for my Dad for Christmas (purchased in Singapore, not Thailand though) for him to use with his plasma TV. It's excellent, anyone who sees it in your house is likely to want to buy one for themselves. Compatibility with avi and mkv files downloaded from various sources has thus far been 100% and it can even do neat things such as playing DVD content straight out of an ISO file. Picture quality is excellent; sound quality is a little less so (it sounds fine playing back your typically movie but audiophiles will likely find it lacking in quality compared to a mid-priced CD player when playing back FLAC files that were ripped from CD's). The networking connectivity is cool but a bit quirky - it can be a battle to get it to see all of the computers on your network and if you intend to playback ISO copies of DVD's or BlueRay content off a networked PC you might want to use a wired ethernet connection instead of a wifi adapter as the latter can be prone to stuttering/freezing. My Dad has an old G wifi adapter that seems to be benchmarking at (only) about 8 Mb/sec inside his house and it's not up to the task of playing back uncompressed DVD content over the network but no such problems exist when playing mkv rips of the same content. With a wired connection that problem disappears. Overall, I'd say that it's a great product - not just good for the money but just plain good.

So this device is wifi also ?? I thought ethernet only ??

Could really help me for guest bedrooms if no cabling needed..

EDIT :: further in the thread stated its using Ethernet / wifi or USB / wifi dongles.

Edited by LivinLOS
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d0ndela Silver Member

d0ndela

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Yep they are PnP.

PS: I passed by BananaIT last night in Hua Hin, there the WD TV Live costs 5,890 baht, so once again proves that Bangkok is cheapest. BananaIT (Com7) is even the official distributor of the WD TV Live in Thailand, so they get a pretty good price themselves :)

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OriginalPoster Gold Member

OriginalPoster

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No Wifi, only lan connection. You can plug on one of the 2 usb port a special wifi key.

That's right. On WD's website they have a list of USB WiFi adapters that they've tested and verified to work.

Another option is to use a wifi bridge and plug it into the ethernet jack on the WDTV.

Edited by OriginalPoster
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jfchandler Ruby Member

jfchandler

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My friend just recently bought a WD TV Live unit from Pantip Plaza in BKK for about 5,700 baht.... He also got a Linksys dual band N USB wireless adapter to go with it, and asked me to set them up at my home first for him... So I was working on that last night...

A couple of impressions (after a very short exposure to the unit, and without reading thru the entire user's manual)..

--Since I already have a Linksys wireless router for my home network, the WD took the Linksys USB adapter and it self-configured on my network using the WD's built-in on-screen software... Very easy...no problem for that.... Just needed to select my SSID and then enter my networking password using the WD TV remote.

--I already have (and love) the Pandora online radio service, which won't work if streaming to a Thailand (or any non U.S.) IP address. There are easy ways around that, using a regular PC or laptop as your platform. The WD TV Live has support for Pandora built into its onboard software, presumably for a U.S. marketplace/user. But when I tried to access it via the WD TV Live, of course, it said it couldn't connect to an IP address outside Thailand. And, I saw no functionality in the WD TV that would allow the user to do things to obtain a U.S. IP when using the box.

The same kind of issue applies to a lot of other streaming media content, like Hulu and some professional sporting streams, where the systems require the user to have a U.S. IP.... If anyone who's used the WD TV Live more knows how to tackle that obstacle, I'd much like to know...

--It seemed to me that the WD TV Live's remote control/unit interface was pretty slow in executing commands...

--As someone mentioned above, I didn't see any built-in support for BitTorrent downloads on the WD TV Live, nor did I see any functionality for adding 3rd party software applications to the unit, that would enable other uses. There was a mention above of a 3rd party firmware package that would enable some things, but not everybody would feel comfortable ditching the WD's manufacturer firmware in favor of something from an unknown 3rd party...

--After playing around with it a bit, it still strikes me that a more useful, full-featured, functional approach is just to connect a small laptop with HDMI or S-Video out to the television of your choice. If the WD TV Live and such have any inherent advantage over using a laptop for the same purposes, I've yet to see what that might be...

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monty Diamond Member

monty

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-After playing around with it a bit, it still strikes me that a more useful, full-featured, functional approach is just to connect a small laptop with HDMI or S-Video out to the television of your choice. If the WD TV Live and such have any inherent advantage over using a laptop for the same purposes, I've yet to see what that might be...

One obvious reason would be price! If you want 1080P functionality you'd need better then the basic laptop (need HDMI and preferably hardware video decoding meaning a dedicated videocard) so probably looking at between 25,000 and 30,000.

And you would still need a central storage (NAS or another PC) as your main storage. Friend of mine has already 2 terrabyte of HD movies! Won't fit on your avrage laptop HD.

So assuming you have a PC with your media on already, an extra few thousand and you have it all on your TV!

And another reason is space. Many TV stands do not have the extra space to put in a laptop, and I'd rather not put one on the floor. Those media boxes have a pretty small footprint, so easy to find a little sport to fit them in...

Then you have remote control. My friend's laptop has a remote control, but it's a 17" beast of a multimedia laptop (34,000 Baht). Never seen the cheaper laptops come with a remote...

So there are some compelling reasons to use those multimedia boxes, and that comes from somebody using his laptop as one :):D

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jfchandler Ruby Member

jfchandler

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Those are some good points, Monty....

I think a lot depends on what media you're interested in using...

For me, I'm very interested/active in accessing streaming media sources... And, I don't have HD TVs at home. And of course, most even fast Internet connections in Thailand aren't going to do well with downloading HD content in streams. And I think most of the streaming media sources don't send HD conten, for the same reason...

So for me, I'm more interested in being able to access streaming media from a lot of different sources... often with the requirement of having a U.S. IP. So in that environment, the WD TV Live seems pretty useless and threadbare...

On the other hand, as in the example you gave, if I had tons of downloaded or ripped HD movie files and just wanted to play them and similar via a home network, then yes the WD TV Live and similar would work fine for that... But as is already apparent from my comment, that's not my profile or practice in these matters.

I guess the main difference is...the WD and similar are media players.... But the WD TV, at least, is not really an Internet access device... No web browser built-in... No ability in the stock unit to install other applications or software, etc etc... I think that's the nub of the issue...

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jfchandler Ruby Member

jfchandler

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I wonder if anyone at Western Digital considered the utility/sense of selling a unit (WD TV Live) everywhere outside the U.S. with one main built-in and advertised feature being its direct access to the Pandora Internet streaming radio service -- the only problem being, everywhere outside the U.S. including in Thailand, the box won't let you connect to Pandora... Because Pandora is designed to be only accessible from U.S. client IP addresses....

post-53787-1266316410_thumb.jpg

Oh well, Live365, the other Internet radio service built-into the WD TV Live's software is accessible from anywhere, though it's more heavily geared toward attracting paid monthly subscriptions ranging from $5.95 to $7.95... whereas Pandora is basically free or 99 cents a month for unlimited listening beyond the basic 40 hours monthly of free listening time.

But wait, I'm sure, someone here will say, we didn't buy the WD TV Live for listening to Internet radio... we bought it for playing movies via our home network. Which is a perfectly fine point... Except, you probably haven't listened to Pandora's "Rolling Stones" station... Then you'd understand... :)

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