WD TV Live Plus: Western Digital's Latest Media Player Reviewed
by Cameron Butterfield on July 29, 2010 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Media Streamer
- WD
- WD TV Live Plus
Online Content accessibility is a very desirable feature for this type of media device. The ability to access the likes of Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and other sources was once reserved for full blown HTPC systems, and more recently for Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 owners. While an ever increasing number of Bluray players, DVRs and televisions themselves have also begun to integrate Netflix streaming features, it serves to reduce some of the perks of building or purchasing a HTPC system vs. an integrated consumer media playing device.
Netflix
The Netflix portion of the WD TV is fairly straightforward. Upon using the Netflix menu option for the first time, the user is asked if he is a current Netflix member. If he answers in the affirmative, an activation code to link the Netflix account with the device is provided. To proceed further, the user needs to have access to an Internet enabled device. This shouldn’t be a problem for anyone who is actually wanting to stream video to this device over the Internet anyways. Once the code is entered on Netflix, there is no waiting and the user is able to watch movies instantly either from the “Instant Queue” or browse from categories that match with the categories one would find on the Netflix website. Menu navigation is straightforward. The arrow keys are used to choose a category and enter it, while the OK key is used to view a movie. One feature that would be nice to have, but does not exist here, is the ability to modify or add to your Netflix Queue, or see what is inside any of the queues other than the Instant Queue. The WD TV Live Plus will not be able to replace the complete PC Netflix experience.
The videos streamed from Netflix started playing as quickly as they would on a normal desktop PC. Within a few seconds from the time the movie is selected to play, the stream starts up. Obviously some of the experience a user has will depend on the speed of the Internet connection. Wiith regard to the actual video streams, there was no discernible difference in the buffering, video quality, or viewing experience from a PC Netflix video viewing experience.
YouTube
The Youtube experience on the WD TV Live Plus supports a wide range of features including:
- Signing in with your user accounts
- Viewing videos by the standard YouTube categories (favorites, top rated, most viewed, most popular, featured)
- Video Search
- Ability to rate videos
- Ability to change country/language settings
- Zoom and Pan
While this section of the WD TV Live works well, some of the features that a PC user is used to are absent. These include comment viewing and posting, changing the resolution and/or the quality of the video feed. Also, some videos on youtube are marked as not viewable on TV connected devices. This is a choice that is decided by the person who publishes the YouTube video. The YouTube video publisher must make a conscious decision to not allow their videos to be viewed on a device such as the WD TV Live, and most casual videos do not have this limitation. However some larger YouTube content publishers have restricted the ability to view their videos using television connected devices. Any potential user of the WDTV Live Plus must be aware that some of YouTube’s content will not be available on the device.
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Decaff - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I definately second this.Most of the commentaries I've seen around point to the PlayON being a far better player, though some people claim the WDTV to be better, but doesn't back it up.
Also, the Popcorn boxes are often regarded as being superior (probably due to the higher pricetag), but I haven't seen any solid confirmation of it anywhere.
So keep up the good work. I'm loving these articles.
jo-82 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Why would i want to let my normal machine run all the time? If i use a USB-attached one i have the mess auf more Cables and an additional device.Dear WD: Put a 2,5" Drivebay (Hotswappable would be nice) inside and we have a deal. Especially as a Device for Parents und and Friends...
probedb - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Some of us have these things called fileservers or NAS boxes. If you want an internal drive why are you even looking at this as that's not what it's for???dvinnen - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
These type devices are geared toward people who have media servers (i currently use a 7 year old machine running linux and a ton of storage and it works great). Also to get you to purchase a WD external HD.Internal storage wouldn't work unless they added NAS functionality to it. Hot swapping drives to put media on it and bring it back to the player just sounds like a bad idea.
saiga6360 - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
Did you happen to see the price tag? You want something like, you will have to pay more for like a Popcorn Hour or a Dune.Finite Loop - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I had been looking for the WD TV Live, but it was sold out everywhere and nobody had any backorders for it. I went with the AC Ryan Playon HD mini.It would have been nice if the article discussed playback over the LAN connection. The AC Ryan performs well over its (100Mb) LAN connection except for 1080p content where fast action scenes may exhibit block-effects. The only content the AC Ryan doesn't seem to play (whether from LAN or USB) is stereoscopic video which causes the player to freeze.
I was hoping this WD "Plus" version would have a gigabit connection. Without gigabit, the increase in price in comparison to the previous version doesn't seem to be justified. Additionally, the AC Ryan comes with an HDMI cable which I would have had to purchase separately had I gone with a WD TV Live model.
It's interesting the article mentions the chip(s) in the WD TV Live Plus however a comparison with chips used in other devices would be appreciated. Why does this device require 1Gigabyte of memory while the AC Ryan mini operates with only 128MB? What's the difference between the video decoding chip in this player and other players?
cbutters - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
You can get the WD TV Live Plus for 119 at newegg with a free 8GB thumb drive.I'm not entirely sure that gigabit is an important feature here, with bluray video streams maxing out at 40mbps and averaging less than 30, there seems to be little benefit of increasing the 100mbps connection to 1000 as the bandwidth would go unused. However this is something that we hope to examine further in future articles.
Saltbread - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I'm assuming that the Core 100 refers to the Asrock product reviewed before and the column should actually be labled Live Plus or something like that. My apologies if I am incorrect.ganeshts - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
This has been fixed. Thanks for pointing out.ned14 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
These low end media boxes mainly come with one of two chipsets: Sigma and Realtek with the former being more expensive. The problem isn't the hardware, it's more the manufacturer supplied firmware where the Sigma one is good, whereas the Realtek one was written by incompetent chimpanzees. Anyone who has used both types of box will know exactly what I mean.There is a brand new third option though - the Amlogic chipset. Its firmware is spartan, but due to its simplicity is seems to "just work" and it looks better than the Realtek's but not as good as the Sigma. The specs of the Amlogic I bought is detailed here at http://www.iboum.com/pr/nation2.php.
My first problem with the WDTV Live, as with anything costing more than US$70, is that for that price it really ought to have an internal drive bay so you don't have to faff around with external USB drive solutions. My second problem is with anything costing more than US$100 when for less or even not much more you can pick up a second hand P3 based quiet computer off ebay or a second hand games console both of which are far better media playing solutions. After all, Boxee and/or XBMC can be downloaded and installed on most things, so a DIY solution is often better here.
The only remaining argument is that these boxes are small and easily transportable e.g. to a friend's house in a way that PCs and game consoles are not. And here's my third problem with these boxes: top end smartphones are increasingly able to serve content either through HDMI or DNLA or both, and you can't beat a phone for portability.
Now if you can pick up a tiny light box for US$70 AND it has an internal drive bay AND it can play off of a DNLA server such as a phone - e.g. the Amlogic box I bought - then you might be on to something because it can act as a simple TV driver for media living elsewhere while still having the flexibility to act as a cheap NAS box too if desired. And what few bugs it has in its firmware have been fixed quickly as they seem to be operating a quarterly firmware release schedule. Personally I have been pleasantly surprised considering the price.
Oh, and it plays RMVB just fine. I have a huge collection of South Park in RMVB, and while they're a little blocky on my 1080p TV due to the low bitrate that is hardly the player's fault!
Cheers,
Niall