WD TV Live Plus: Western Digital's Latest Media Player Reviewed

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• ganeshts - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link

  Niall,
  
  Have you tried playing Blu-Ray backups in MKV or M2TS formats on the Amlogic chipset? I believe the Amlogic chipset uses IP from Chips & Media, and that IP is just not powerful enough to decode Blu-Ray spec encodes (high bitrates). Admittedly, the last time I did research on this was 6 months back.
  
  That said, we will try to get hold of such devices for review here provided they have a presence in the US. One of the Realtek streamers is up next :)

• Decaff - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link

  Care to announce which Realtek streamer that is?

• ganeshts - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link

  The only one supporting Netflix :) No guarantees when it is going to appear though :P

• tech6 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link

  Another great home theater review - keep them coming. AT is one of the very few sites that actually does any meaningful testing of HT devices beyond taking them out of the box and switching them on.

• EddyKilowatt - Monday, August 2, 2010 - link

  Agree. The tech-blog scene needs more *reporters* and fewer *stenographers*.
  
  I've read several reviews of the WD Live family, and this is pretty much the first time I've seen the Video Quality issues mentioned, at least in any objective way.
  
  I'll be picking up one of these gadgets in a few months, but sure hope they'll fix the networking bugs as I'll mostly be streaming from a Windows Home Server.

• Mumrik - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link

  "For those who value low power consumption this device certainly fits the bill, consuming almost 8 times less power than an HTPC at idle and 5 times less power at load."
  
  That kind of expression really does make no sense at all when you talking about using LESS. One time less would be zero - are you talking about 1/8 and 1/5 of the power?

• SlyNine - Monday, August 2, 2010 - link

  And yet, our amazing human mind made perfect sense out of it. Also it didn't detract from the article at all.
  
  But I guess technically you are correct.

• Ninjahedge - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link

  I have an older model. I primarily use it when going down to the shore.
  
  It is TINY and fits easily into a backpack. the only problem being file storage. Getting the external HD, power cord and other things can be a real PITA.
  
  But that may also be a thing of the past as SD gets cheaper. Carrying a few 32's and an adapter may make bringing Anime and the like much easier.
  
  The only problems I have with the older one was lack of network connectability. It is all USB. Having something that can be hooked up to a router and stream whatever you have (along with custom subs) is a godsend.
  
  I am just pissed that most of these guys came along AFTER I made my $700 Shuttle box a year or two back!
  
  I have not read the full atricle yet, but I am guessing the Pandora Playing is just their Pay service (like Slimline?)
  
  Has Logitech jumped on this bandwagon? Can we get comparitive reviews soon? Can you mow my lawn?
  
  ;)

• puckalicious - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link

  I noticed the test suite contains only 1 test for DVD playback, and only from an ISO file. What about DVD video_ts folders on a hard drive?

• ganeshts - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link

  puckalacious, We will add this in the next version of the test suite:
  
  1. DVD folder playback
  2. Blu-Ray folder playback
  
  Thanks for your suggestions.