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
The WD TV Live Plus is easy to setup, especially if you are utilizing the HDMI port that is capable of carrying all your audio and video signals at once over a single cable. Getting the WD TV Live Plus to lay flat after plugging in a heavy duty cable can be a bit of a challenge, as the weight and tension of the cable seems to make it flip to the side until you play with it for a while, but you can hardly blame WD for making such a slim and light device. However If you do purchase this device, you may want to invest in a roll of velcro or double sided tape to keep it in place.
Once seated and connected, the WD TV boots up quickly and you are provided with dark and light blue color scheme menu system that is very easily controled by using the arrow keys and a back, forward (OK) control scheme that is very reminiscent to the PSP, or PS3 menu system or Windows 7 Media Center. Western Digital did a good job of making the UI on this device familiar and easy to use for end users, they also have provided a screensaver mode that automatically blanks the screen and displays a WD logo in random areas.
When a USB device containing compatible media files is first inserted, the media library compilation process begins (if it is enabled), and media is sorted out into their respective media categories, namely Music, Video, or Photo. This feature allows you to use the search functionality rather than simply browsing around inside folders to find your media. In addition, the WD TV Live’s menu system provides file organization features as well, allowing you to move and copy your media and folders around on your connected storage devices. These are welcome features and gives the WD TV somewhat of a unique advantage over other media players that do not have these types of organizational features.
You can browse each of the sections (Video, Pictures and Music) using different viewing modes; thumbnails or list. The thumbnail view will show images for folders that have a FOLDER.JPG file within the folder, MP3 files with embedded artwork, photo files themselves, and mp4 files with user generated thumbnail images. This viewing mode works well for Music and Photos, but can be a troublesome viewing mode for videos. Since most videos do not have embedded images, the end result of viewing a folder full of videos is that you are unable to distinguish the videos from each other very easily, and when scrolling through the list of videos, the default thumbnail image is the same which creates a static visual effect where you can’t tell if you are actually scrolling through the video files or not. Sticking to the list or preview view on the video menu is recommended unless you are only viewing mp4 files that you have already generated the thumbnails for.
Western Digital also deserves some recognition for their efforts in providing a comprehensive manual for the WD TV Live Plus product. I was impressed with the level of detail and instruction on how to perform tasks on the device. Each step was outlined clearly with not only instructions but also many screenshots outlining each step and showing the action taking place on screen. This attention to detail makes a big difference in the user’s learning curve as it is much easier to translate screenshots into actual device usage rather than just text on a blank white page.
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bah12 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
But does it work? Or did you not try at all?ganeshts - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Cameron will try them out and update by today evening :)bah12 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Good deal thanks! Ripped my collection a few years back (old Media Center HTPC + MyMovies). MyMovies DB got corrupted so it basically just sits there. Waiting for an inexpensive streamer and some sort of software to catalog the movies. Easier to just grab the DVD off the shelf. Pity really, because it was a lot of work.Hoping something like this would do the trick, it would be nice to see the cataloging options. My project was a few years back, and getting the meta data (album art, genre ..) was a pain. Has it progressed enough today so that it can do it off of folder name? Or better yet even track sampling like .mp3's do when they auto get the album info.
cbutters - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
This test that was suggested is now updated in the article.AgeOfPanic - Sunday, August 1, 2010 - link
Does Blu-Ray folder playback also mean that you can hookup an external Blu-Ray player (e.g. the ones that you can buy for a laptop) and browse through the folders of a Blu-ray disk?ganeshts - Sunday, August 1, 2010 - link
This is usually not possible on most devices because AACS is unsupported in these type of devices (sub-$200). You need Blu Ray players such as C-200 or the Dune Prime for folder playback on attached Blu Ray drives.pjladyfox - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
You guys get major kudos from this girly geek and prove why Anantech is the first place I usually come to for reviews followed by everyone else. This has got to be, by far, the most detailed and comprehensive testing suite I've EVER seen regarding NMT's and media streamers. Now I'm dying to see a roundup from you guys, using this testing suite, to see how the other boxes stack up. ^_^To other review sites: THIS is how you not only build a testing suite but review a NMT and media streamer.
JNo - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Hi great review - love the detail on the compatibility and also video quality - that's rare.I would urge you guys to google then get and review the Xtreamer. It's made and sold directly by a Korean company but is really great value and powerful. It has a very active user community, some of whom who work directly with the manufacturers on the new firmware updates.
As for streaming - I'm all for it... in theory. Apart from being rubbish at understanding and setting up networks, I won't even consider wireless streaming of hd content with all the problems I keep reading about. And whilst wired network streaming is a lot better, it can still have issues and relies on your computer being on for this to occur (noise, power etc) - and not all of us are dedicated enough to have a home NAS system.
I simply put a 500Gb 2.5" HDD in my xtreamer which, while costly initially, allows me just to transfer films and tv shows to it knowing that I, or my wife, will be able to watch them stutter free whenever, whether or not the computer is on. Once you've got a bit of a collection on it, the streaming thing becomes irrelevant.
ganeshts - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
JNo, Thanks for your suggestion.Xtreamer has been on our sights for quite some time now. We are taking steps to see whether we can test it out, but no guarantees :)
docent - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
my one year old ASUS HDP-R1 can play DVD menus from ISO files, what's interesting it can even play menus from BD - functionality that is still not supported on WD media players. WD TV Live Plus is an inferior products - Asus HDP-R1 or newer model HDP-R3 ( with embedded WI-FI ) are much better