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
Within its class of devices, the WD TV Live Plus offers a wide array of features and compatibility. People who deal primarily with file types supported by this device will be quite happy with the value that it provides them at this price range. The online content available on this device (Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and others) provide a deeper incentive to buy the unit on top of the local media playback features. All the online content applications perform as advertised and are easily accessible to the average consumer. These additional features allow the media players to creep one step closer to crowding out the HTPC. However, in terms of versatility (WDTV Live Plus media compatibility score is just 57.74% compared to the ASRock Core 100 HT-BD's 97.62%) and picture quality (WDTV Live Plus HQV 2.0 score is just 43 on 210, compared to the ASRock HTPC's 133 on 210), it can be said that HTPCs still have a long reign ahead.
Pros
- Slim design
- Easy setup
- Has one of the widest feature sets of any device in its class
- Relatively inexpensive
- Low power consumption
- Silent Operation
- Expanded online content includes site(s) using DRM
- Great user manual (even though it is only a digital copy)
Cons
- Poor Video Post processing (deinterlacing and noise reduction)
- Some compatibility issues (WMAPro)
- Subtitle Issues (Stylized Subs, RtoL languages, PGS)
- Some users may need coaxial S/PDIF connectivity
- Lack of custom firmware mods (as of July 28th, 2010)
Western Digital has done a good job of adding value and features to their line of WD TV devices with the WD TV Live Plus. This unit feels mature and caters to the modern consumers' unique online content cravings. However, the introduction of Netflix has brought with it a locked down Linux box. Custom firmware developers have been finding it difficult to hack into the firmware to enable features which could be had on the WDTV Live. That said, the features, compatibility and value place the WD TV Live Plus around the top of the list for consideration by anyone looking for a media player device.
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Anubis - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
The 360 or PS3 combined with Tversity or PS3 Media Server can transcode ANYTHING, even real mediabeginner99 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Your PC is transcoding so that the ps3/xbox can read it. With wd tv live you do not need to transcode at all. Transcoding isn't exactly ideal especial for HD content. will probably use quite a bit of cpu juice.Alexstarfire - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
I think anyone looking into these is probably going to have a computer that's up to par for that purpose though. I might actually look into getting a used 360 for that purpose.BigDH01 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Can the 360 playback full bit rate blu-ray rips? What about audio? DTS support at all? I haven't tried TVersity or WMC lately from my 360, but last time I did I was extremely disappointed.http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/nxe/gamesand...
The 360 is great as long as your needs fit into that little world. As far as I know, TVersity simply converts your videos on-the-fly into the confines of the above limitations. Because of this reason, I use the WD TV Live to stream my media and am much happier as a result.
It'd be nice if MS tried to optimize the 360 at all for media playback, but dreaming for that is like dreaming for Softsled.
saiga6360 - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
OR they have NAS devices that do not have the CPU power to do transcoding. Not that they should. What's the point of a streaming device if you have to transcode?nonmiraj - Monday, August 2, 2010 - link
Even using TVersity with the 360 you're storing and playing movies through your computer and then streaming them. Streaming HD movies, that's a "Stupid" / awful idea, anyone that suggests that isn't streaming HD movies. And forget it if you're ever planning on fast forwarding, rewinding or pausing doing that.Get a media player like this WD and do it right.
gigahertz20 - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
Wirelessly streaming HD movies (4-15GB mkvs h.264 codec) using TVersity to your Xbox 360 sucks, just does not work. I messed around with TVersity at a friends house using my laptop to stream a few movies to his Xbox 360 and it just did not work that well. Maybe if you have a built in wired network it would work fine, but not wireless.Anubis - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
pretty sure streaming 1080p over wireless doesn't work for anything, even if everything is N based it still has issues, PS3 has the same issue as 360 does with it. Wired works fine for both.beginner99 - Friday, July 30, 2010 - link
for normal mkv's it woprks on n. I do it. but on a 5 ghz seperate network for streaming only.anachreon - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link
The idea that an xbox 360 is a replacement for any of these devices is absolutely laughable.