WDTV Live (non Plus)

[jagabo]

Another firmware update, 1.02.21: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdfwdtv_live

[RdM642]

Another firmware update, 1.02.21: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdfwdtv_live

mkv delay from beta fixed, but new bug in jpg display for folders introduced. Previously WD recommended for folder icon either nameing jpg "folder.jpg" or having any name (example the name of the movie "ToyStory.jpg") now there is a bug where only "folder.jpg will display as folder icon.

[FulciLives]

Hey guys!

I haven't been around these parts in forever hehehe

Anyways I was thinking of buying one of these but I heard that a lot of people are having network problems. I have a simple 4 port wired router. I'm using Windows 7 64-bit (Home Premium).

Should I be concerned?

Also while I plan to use this for movie playback I am mostly going to be using it for streaming music ... most of which is FLAC but also some MP3 and iPod compatible AAC-LC so are there any concerns there like does it support gapless playback etc.?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[redwudz]

I've found the wireless and wired connections very robust and easy to configure. More so than many other network devices. But I don't have W7 64 bit, though that shouldn't matter with network connections. It is a bit slow to set up with the on screen keyboard, but if you are used to one finger typing, not that bad.

I've been able to playback BD>MKV converted high definition videos even over a wireless G adapter with WPA-2 AES encryption, just for experimenting, but the wired LAN connection is much better.

I haven't done much in the way of streaming music, but others here can probably answer those questions.

[CBC]

no gapless, but it can do shuffle and works pretty for tune-age. Some folks have had problems with Win 7 networking, but again some haven't.

[branch]

Seems to me the general consensus on the official forum is that netowkring is working very well, but that some people don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they buy a network streamer).

[CBC]

Seems to me the general consensus on the official forum is that netowkring is working very well, but that some people don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they buy a network streamer).

lol...well Win 7 64 bit is still a bit of an issue for more than a few. Mine was working fine for two days, didn't change a thing, now it can see my folders on the network, but no content inside any of them.

[jagabo]

I've found the wireless and wired connections very robust and easy to configure. More so than many other network devices. But I don't have W7 64 bit, though that shouldn't matter with network connections.

I've had no problems accessing shares on XP machines (except the WDTV Live wouldn't display certain share names on some computers). I don't know about 32 bit Win7 but Microsoft made many changes to the way networking works in 64 bit Win7. It was a terrible pain getting the WDTV to access shares on 64 bit Win7.

[branch]

Well, you can post bugs on their website. But you have to be specific, if its just ranting and raving it gets ignored. And if its not very detailed about what you are using and have done it gets ignored as well - they have to be able to reproduce the bug at their end for it to be fixed.

[FulciLives]

no gapless, but it can do shuffle and works pretty for tune-age. Some folks have had problems with Win 7 networking, but again some haven't.

No gapless is a deal breaker. Can anyone else confirm or deny this? Again the bulk of my music is in the FLAC format.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I thought the first version (the non networking one) had gapless music playback capabilities?

[jagabo]

No gapless audio playback that I've been able to find.

[RdM642]

Seems to me the general consensus on the official forum is that netowkring is working very well, but that some people don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they buy a network streamer).

The consensus is clearly that there are network bugs.
How do you explain that just a few days ago WD issued new firmware which listed several network problem fixes? And where users are being told by support that the next firmware will include more networking bug fixes?

Are you saying the WD engineers "don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they sell network streamers)"?

to be sure a lot of the network complaints are from people who don't perfectly understand networks and given that this is now mass marketed this will be a problem for WD -- and other makers, but WD does have some documented specific networking problems. The are not common but in fact they are there and the people with then often know more about networking than WD own tech and engineers.

Anyways I was thinking of buying one of these but I heard that a lot of people are having network problems. I have a simple 4 port wired router. I'm using Windows 7 64-bit (Home Premium).

Also while I plan to use this for movie playback I am mostly going to be using it for streaming music ... most of which is FLAC but also some MP3 and iPod compatible AAC-LC so are there any concerns there like does it support gapless playback etc.?

John, if you are stateside these are street price at about $100 and while they maybe more capable and less money in a year or so, they work pretty well.

For streaming music the software is pretty rudimentary, primitive when it comes to organization and I don't think you will find it gapless.

[jagabo]

From what I've read the Asus O!Play can play FLAC seamlessly.

[FulciLives]

From what I've read the Asus O!Play can play FLAC seamlessly.

Seems like a very kewl unit but it seems that it also does not support gapless playback (unless it was added in a firmware update but I've seen the list of firmwares and tried to read through the updates and I didn't see that feature added).

I looked at the Blue Jeans Cable website and then I called them and they said that their RCA stereo audio cords can go up to 200 feet without loss of signal / audio quality. I figure I would need around 35 - 40 feet (they cut their cable to the length you specify when you order) to get from my computer to my main stereo in another room.

So do I spend $124.50 for a 40 foot RCA stereo audio cable instead? That seems silly but right now I don't see much of another choice LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

40 feet isn't that far for RCA audio cables.

You might be able to use a player on the computer that supports seamless audio playback and DLNA "Play To" functionality. The WDTV Live will work as a Play To device with the most recent firmware update.

[branch]

Seems to me the general consensus on the official forum is that netowkring is working very well, but that some people don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they buy a network streamer).

The consensus is clearly that there are network bugs.

I didn't say there couldn't be bugs.

Are you saying the WD engineers "don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they sell network streamers)"?

I said no such thing.

Though, I'm not particularly impressed by the WD engineers, they seem to me to be fairly incompetent - or perhaps they only have 1 guy working on it every other month.

[branch]

No gapless audio playback that I've been able to find.

Oh, exactly what is gapless playback and why would you want it?

Are you saying you have a sound file chopped into a little pieces but you want them to playback as one long song?

[jagabo]

Gapless means there is no pause or click between songs. Many albums have songs that transition from one to another without silence between them (Beatles' White Album, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, for example). When ripped, each song becomes one file. When played back they should be played without gaps between the songs.

<edit>
I had a chance to try WMP's Playto feature under Win7. WMP plays songs nearly seamlessly, just a tiny tiny gap. But with PlayTo the WDTV Live the gaps were even worse than playing the songs locally on the WDTV Live.
</edit>

[branch]

I see.

Well rip them as a wavs and join them to one long file

[jagabo]

There are ripping tools that will rip the whole CD as one continuous song too. But people don't want to re-rip their CDs.

[FulciLives]

You can use EAC and other CD ripping programs to create one long audio file from a CD. Usually a CUE Sheet file is made which tells the audio playback software when tracks start and stop so you can skip around easily from track to track (if you want) or have the software tell you what track is currently playing etc.

Of course the problem there is that most of us have ripped our CD collection to individual files.

Now there is a program called "CUETools" which can take a CD Rip that is individual files and make it a CD IMAGE type rip (basically join the files into one file). It then creates a CUE Sheet file.

However the WD Media Players do not ... as I understand it ... support CUE Sheet files. So you basically have to listen to the album straight through.

You might argue that is the whole point of wanting GAPLESS playback but that only applies to SOME music like say Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

So if you do CD IMAGE type rips (or convert your rips to that format) then you are stuck with listening to every album straight through ... finding individual tracks would be hit or miss via the search function.

I have done more research and found out that the Logitech Squeezebox does gapless and it seems very nice but it is also $329 which is way too rich for my blood. It does support FLAC which is nice but at that price I'd rather buy the cheaper Apple TV (which does GAPLESS) and just convert my FLAC to ALAC (Apple Lossless).

OMG did I just say that? LOL

Actually I'll probably just buy the 40 foot RCA cable LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

found out that the Logitech Squeezebox does gapless and it seems very nice but it is also $329 which is way too rich for my blood.

I saw that while searching and thought it was over priced.

Actually I'll probably just buy the 40 foot RCA cable LOL

You could try RF but that probably won't sound as good.
http://www.amazon.com/RF-Link-AVS-5811-5-8GHz-Transmission-Repeater/dp/B0002EXJ8Y

[branch]

Interesting. I would say that a device SHOULD have a short break between playing tracks - because they are individual tracks. Its not the fault of the device that some people have been splitting up something they don't to listen to in a not split up way.

I wonder if those devices who play gapless have a setting to do use a gap as well

[FulciLives]

Interesting. I would say that a device SHOULD have a short break between playing tracks - because they are individual tracks. Its not the fault of the device that some people have been splitting up something they don't to listen to in a not split up way.

I wonder if those devices who play gapless have a setting to do use a gap as well

Well there are a lot of software audio players out there for computers but recently I've been using J. River Media Jukebox on my (somewhat new) Windows 7 (64-bit Home Premium) computer and this program has all types of options for playing gapless or with gaps (and you can even adjust the delay of the gap from .1 second to 1 second or longer).

I also have an iPod Touch (2G 16MB) and it does gapless but you can also adjust that as well (I'm not sure if you can adjust that using the iPod itself but iTunes allows you to mark an album as gapless or not gapless and this works while using iTunes as well as carrying over to the iPod).

Also an audio CD can be flagged to be gapless or not and CD players will recognize that do play back appropriately. Although my very first CD player (which I got in 1987) put gaps between all tracks regardless of what the CD said but that was my fault for buying a "cheap" CD player (and CD players were still sort of new-ish and expensive then ... you would be hard pressed to find a CD player now-a-days that didn't respect gapless CD discs).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[branch]

Wow. Didn't know any of that - you can tell i'm not a big musicophile, right

[RdM642]

Are you saying the WD engineers "don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they sell network streamers)"?

I said no such thing.
Though, I'm not particularly impressed by the WD engineers, they seem to me to be fairly incompetent - or perhaps they only have 1 guy working on it every other month.

My point was you said that

Seems to me the general consensus on the official forum is that netowkring is working very well, but that some people don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they buy a network streamer).

when the opposite is true, there are several network issues and I was pointing out that the new firmware lists several network bug fixes which makes the idea that the "consensus" of networking working well is not consistent assertion with WD stated ongoing fixes for network bugs.

[branch]

Are you saying the WD engineers "don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they sell network streamers)"?

I said no such thing.
Though, I'm not particularly impressed by the WD engineers, they seem to me to be fairly incompetent - or perhaps they only have 1 guy working on it every other month.

My point was you said that

Seems to me the general consensus on the official forum is that netowkring is working very well, but that some people don't understand networks (which is a bit of a problem if they buy a network streamer).

Clearly showing you where lying when you claimed I was supposed to have said WD engineers does not understand networks.

when the opposite is true,

In your opinion.

there are several network issues and I was pointing out that the new firmware lists several network bug fixes which makes the idea that the "consensus" of networking working well is not consistent assertion with WD stated ongoing fixes for network bugs.

You wouldn't be calling yourself "armand" on other boards would you? He doesn't understand basic English either.

"it works pretty well" - if you understood English you would understand that doesn't mean its perfect but that it works pretty well. And yes it is perception that most of the regulars think that 99% of problems are people who can't figure out how to do stuff. Your opinion, of which I don't care, may be different.

[stiltman]

pre-release beta firmware 1.03.22
http://www.wdc.com/wdtvlive_prerelease/

Adds DVD menu navigation support to the older Live version.
It doesn't include NetFlex

[jagabo]

pre-release beta firmware 1.03.22
http://www.wdc.com/wdtvlive_prerelease/

Adds DVD menu navigation support to the older Live version.
It doesn't include NetFlex

WD claims NetFlix support would require another chip. Probably for HDCP encryption of the HDMI output.

[branch]

pre-release beta firmware 1.03.22
http://www.wdc.com/wdtvlive_prerelease/

Adds DVD menu navigation support to the older Live version.
It doesn't include NetFlex

It does include MediaFly - I've been watching stuff for hours