WD TV Live HD Media Player (Black)

Great Little BoxI have had this for just over a week now and it plays everything ive thrown at it. Connects semlessly to my Western Digital MyCloud and Western Digital EX2 NAS. Within ten minutes of having plugged it in it had indexed all my video & picture files, approx 2TB worth, very impressive. Picks up additions to my drive quickly. The unit has Wifi but i prefer to use it wired to my home network. Plays very large video files of all types with ease.Very little wait time between selecting a video and it starting. Has lots of the regular internet channels Youtube, BBC i-player etc. No netflix, but that was not an issue for me as i get that from another source. I can thoroughly reccomend this to anyone who wants the ability to play video files or show pictures on a TV. I am so impressed with this unit that i plan to purchase a second as a backup. The only negative point and its only a small one, is that you have to point the remote control directly at the unit for it to function. If this is an issue for you Western Digital have an app that will turn your smartphone into a control unit.

A mate of mine has owned a very early-generation little WD media player (with no networking ability) for several years, and it's a fabulous machine, with an excellent picture and nice menus and navigation, etc. So, when I decided to get a new media player I decided on a WD, and went for this one. Unfortunately, this one doesn't measure up in any way.As most of the negative reviews have stated, this machine is VERY laggy. I mean there are occasions when you press a button on the remote and the response time is 30 seconds or more. This is no exaggeration; photo viewing is the worst, but even with videos one is typically waiting 10 seconds or more between selecting a file and the movie actually starting, and that's not including the laggy process of navigating to the file in the first place. At first I suspected the lag may be due to the player scanning my external hard drives and building the media database. But, alas, there was no improvement noticed following the scanning.Apps are no better. The YouTube app is not only slow to navigate, but - incredibly - there is no virtual spacebar within the on-screen key pad, and so only single-word searches are possible. At least searches have some prediction, so one could, for example, enter "Sandy" and it'll offer up, say, "Sandy Hook," making searches a bit easier.On the plus side, the picture quality is A1. I already own a Boxee Box, and was able to cue up identical program material on both players (using the same collection on a back-up drive) and switch between this and the WD to compare picture quality, and they are essentially identical. The Boxee cost about two-hundred quid several years ago, and the WD just eighty-two quid, so on paper it's great value. If only it wasn't so sluggish.Of course one of the first things I checked was if there was a firmware update, but double-alas, no. All up-to-date.I really cannot account for the many 5-star ratings, and even one or two comments stating it's not slow at all. Are there maybe different batches, some with more RAM or faster processors? Or is it simply that different people have different ideas of what they consider to be sluggish? My Boxee Box responds almost instantaneously, so maybe I've been spoiled. But waiting 10 seconds for a response from the WDTV is just unacceptable.The WDTV is now reset back to its factory settings, boxed up and ready to be returned.

Excellent for streaming films or music from my NAS drive, or computer from another room. Also shows subtitles perfectly, which my Samsung TV has never done without hardcoding the film. Only thing is, it seems to automatically downscale the picture just a bit. I can notice that it doesn't look as clean or crisp, or colourful as streaming it through my smart tv. However, it always steams perfectly, with virtually no buffering at all, and never drops out halfway through a film, so it seems the small compromise in picture quality is worth it.Lack of apps, but who cares, get an android stick if that's what you're after... This is maybe the best for accessing your own files, with great compatibility and usability.

To start off my review i'd like to explain my reasoning for purchasing this media player. I'm looking for a way for my family to watch media without the need of a computer, through primarily a usb hard drive of 1TB which is also a Western Digital product. I'm not using this device for streaming from youtube and other similar apps that are installed already. If anyone is after Netflix or Amazon prime streaming, then please look elsewhere as this device doesn't have the ability to do that.Getting StartedWhen you rip open the box you'll be presented with the media player itself, remote control + batteries, power cable (British), composite cables and manual. If you require to connect via HDMI then you'll need to purchase this separately. I personally opted to buy the suitable BlueRigger cable that was recommended by Amazon at the time of purchase. Personally i would of liked a HDMI cable included for this price range and perhaps removing the composite cable if WD needed to cut the costs from doing so.Set Up and bootingUpon first powering it up my tv was unable to recognise any signal. After turning the media player off and on again it worked. Setting up was painless and pretty quick. You just enter the time zone, wifi information and you're pretty much done. After i connected a usb stick to the device i was asked if i wanted to updated the firmware, of which i did. All in all it was fast and wasn't as deathly as a windows update on a PC. I then proceeded to add a background wallpaper of Spider-Man. All very simple. On average it does just over a minute for it to boot up, though this shouldn't be a problem unless you happen to be 140 years old and watching the seconds tick by!Remote ControlThis works as you would expect. It feels nice in the hand thanks to the moulding on the back of it. As long as you point the remote control directly at the media player you should find no fault. This remote control has flown onto the floor from many daring heights over the few weeks and it's still alive and kicking. If this is ever to fail, i know that it can be controlled via smartphone if required but i would like to hope that replacement remote controls are available somewhere.SoftwareNot super responsive, but passable. I expect i would get disheartened if i was having to type a lot through the remote control (if youtube was my main desire, it would be a very big issue). I feel the software could be better designed and made to feel more fluid and eye catching. I'm also a user of XBMC and that has a lot of eye catching stuff going on and presents media beautifully. I'd like to see WD invest in creating visuals that all media collections deserve. I tend to use 'list' view since the media player works faster that way. Youtube app works ok, if a bit slow. I have not tested this much but i hear there are memory errors if you use some of these web services like BBCI Player. Personally i haven't got these errors as of yet nor heard complaints from my family. All in all, i think WD Media Player is trying to do to much with a slow, sluggish performance. Use for playing back local files instead which is its main strength, You cannot add apps or anything yourself, WD decide what apps are available for viewing.The Media player has some other features like FTP abilities, but these were all unused and i imagine for the average consumer these options won't be used. It's nice to have the feature available however.PlaybackPerfection. It played everything i have thrown at it. All sorts of files and sizes. It can play 30gb bluray video without any buffering. If you happen to have a large collection of high quality video, you'll not be disappointed. I literally cannot fault it... this is what makes the media player worth it and far better than the competition. Music playback was also flawless. Good work WD.Problems and Suggestions1. While having screensaver turned on, if i change to a different HDMI port or watch TV instead.. upon returning the tv would not recognise the WD Media player. I'd have to reset it for it to work. I turned off the screensaver and all was fine so it's worth keeping that in mind.2. Removed the hard drive so i can add more videos and upon reconnecting i get an error saying no storage device is found. The storage device is most certainly connected properly and the hard drive is fine, it was working just a minute ago on the media player. This has happened countless times and i feel this is where WD Media Player gets very temperamental. For example, it refuses to read a hard drive that i have just updated from my computer. So i disconnect it from the WD media player and then reconnect it to my computer. Computer recognises hard drive and then i disconnect hard drive from computer and reconnect to Wd media box, without doing anything at all... Then it works. I feel that this could be fixed and made more friendly and reliable, if not in a firmware update then perhaps in the next upgrade of WD Media player later this year (if one is released). Once the Media Player recognises the hard drive, it'll recognise it always even when turning the device off. Only time issues occur is when you disconnect it. To check to see if i was disconnecting it wrong, i have tried every method imaginable and still found the same issue, This is the biggest reason my family complain about.3. Not as much a problem, but on the remote control i'd of liked an 'i' button that easily shows information about the file and what is being watched.4. What makes XBMC strong is the ability for the community to customise their experience and find add-ons and themes. WD shouldn't be scared of allowing this to happen, for it will only add attraction to the serious media crowd which then would give more options to the casual viewer just wanting something pretty, powerful and practical. If WD has some fears of this more open platform approach they could at least review themes and stuff created by the users then decide if they want to add it or not through updates. More choice in stylish options is far more important than adding streaming services that are slow and done by other machines and smart tvs much quicker and more efficiently. More memory within the media player would help a lot.5. I select 1080p, but whenever the box is turned off and turned back on again it goes back to 720p default. This is very frustrating and probably an easily fixable issue via firmware.Final WordsI brought this to play back high quality mkv, avi and mp4 through a connected 1tb WD hard drive (my passport). Wd Media Player did this flawlessly and i am very happy with that. What lets the system down is a tendency to be sluggish in response to controls. The hardware could be faster to make menus and thumbnails/info load quicker and perhaps concentrate on including the community more when it comes to customisation. Other than the other problems i've listed, we're very near to the perfect media player. It plays back video perfectly so the core reason to buy this is flawless and pleasing.