WD TV Live Hub Media Center: Home Entertainment Center

Models

The WD TV family of devices comes in six variants:

WD TV (first generation)

In November 2008, Western Digital introduced WD TV. Multimedia player with Full HD 1080p resolution and AC3 support.

WD TV (Second Generation)

Updated device with support for 2-channel DTS

WD TV Mini

Released in the fall of 2009, it featured a Media Player with DVD quality, and enhanced picture quality to 1080i, playback of RealVideo and many other popular file formats without the need for re-encoding, but lacking the ability to play H.264.

WD TV Live

Release date: fall 2009. Supports Full HD 1080p resolution. The device has been updated with 2-channel DTS, video streaming and network support, which comes in the form of an Ethernet jack on the rear panel. Also compatible with select USB wireless adapters. Connect to websites: YouTube, Flickr, Live365, Pandora, Mediafly, Flingo, AccuWeather, Facebook or stream content from your home network. Supports a wide range of the most popular file formats. No recoding necessary. Mediafly and DVD menu added in updated firmware.

WD TV Live Plus

Implemented in early 2010 and having all the features of WD TV Live and support for Netflix with video streaming. In order to support Netflix, the Linux system is now encoded.

WD TV Live Hub

The new Western Digital product is equipped with a terabyte hard drive of a 2.5-inch form factor, supports high-definition video playback in Full HD 1080p format, and can connect to a 10/100 Mbit Ethernet network. There is also support for playing streaming video from the Internet. The player can work with web services. The device is equipped with many interfaces, including HDMI 1.4.

WD TV Live Plus Media Player Review

WD TV Live Plus Media Player Review

From its first appearance, the WD TV media player immediately won the sympathy of a huge number of users - simply because it was very cheap, and the built-in functionality could be the envy of much more expensive models. However, the first model also had noticeable shortcomings. For example, it lacked a DTS audio decoder, network support, and support for the latest version of HDMI.

But Western Digital did not stand still and released the next version called WD TV Live, in which these shortcomings were eliminated. I kept meaning to test this model, but somehow never got around to it. And then from the States they sent me a special new US version called WD TV Live Plus (this is practically the same WD TV Live, only with support for several specific US network services), for which many thanks to the online store Reader-Sony.ru, and Now we’ll just see what this player is.

So, the compact universal media player WD TV Live Plus.

WD TV Live Plus

Technical characteristics
Chipset
- Sigma 8655
Dimensions
- 126 × 40 × 100 mm
Weight
- 330 g
Network
- Ethernet 10/100
Wi-Fi
- using a special USB controller
Ports
- Ethernet, HDMI, composite A/V signal, component video signal, USB 2.0
Audio file types
- MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Video file types
- AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9, FLV (h.264)
Image types
- JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Playlists
- PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle formats
- SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI
Online services
- Netflix, YouTube, Flickr, Pandora, Live365, MediaFly networks
Drive
- missing
Hard drive
- missing

Well, according to the characteristics, it supports at least the devil of a bald man. But let's see how it will look in practice.

Equipment

The device itself, remote control with batteries, AV cable (composite signal), AV cable (component signal), AC power supply, quick installation guide and disc.

Appearance and Controls

There have been virtually no changes in the appearance of the player - a compact box the size of a pocket book.

Appearance

On the front panel there is a power indicator and an indicator for connecting an external drive.

On the rear panel there are the corresponding outputs: power, USB, HDMI, optical, Ethernet, audio-video, component.

Rear end

There is another USB port on the left side.

There are no control buttons on the body as a class; the player is controlled only by the remote control, which was small and primitive, and remains so.

Remote Control

Device operation

Compared to the old model, the software shell has not changed much visually. Scrolling application icons, when selected, submenu icons appear.

Main menu

View photos

You can select by date, by folder, last viewed. The list is presented in the form of previews or listings.

Preview images

While viewing a picture, you can call up a menu that contains zoom-out, rotation, and file information.

Menu

Also, if you are connected to the Internet, you can view images from your Flickr account.

Listening to music

Various types of selection: by artists, albums, compositions, playlists, recently listened to.

Compositions

Tracks and albums can also be viewed in preview mode or as a list.

The player is simple, but during playback it displays information about the artist, album and genre.

Playback

Network services

WD TV Live Plus supports many network services. The main one is Netfix, which, unfortunately, only works for the States. This service allows you to instantly access thousands of movies and TV series. WD TV Live Plus also supports streaming content from YouTube, Flickr, Pandora, Live365, the MediaFly network, which includes podcasts from CNN, NBC, MTV, ESPN and other content providers.

The player can play media data from shared folders on the local network and from UPnP media servers on the local network.

Regular resolution video

As before, everything is fine. The player plays almost any container codecs, picks up subtitles, understands DVD folders and DVDs packed in ISO. Moreover, ISO files are reproduced fully - with menus and so on. (I came across players that did not understand the menu in ISO.)

There is one subtlety with DVD folders. If you enter them by Enter, the player simply shows a list of files, which is why in some reviews journalists wrote that the player does not understand the structure of the DVD. But he understands. You just need to press Play, not Enter, on the DVD folder - then it will play it like a regular DVD.

The options button during viewing brings up a menu with which you can: scale the image, change the audio track and subtitle track, view information about the image.

Playback menu

Accelerated playback is done at 2-4-8 and 16x. You cannot jump to a specific time point - by the way, this is sad. The only “jump” that works here is jumping 10 minutes forward or backward when you press the “next chapter” or “previous chapter” button on fast forward.

Video with external subtitles

High Definition Video

Everything is OK as well. The player played all my test container codecs, up to 1080p resolution, without any problems or stutters.

High resolution video

However, here you also cannot jump to a given time position or to the corresponding number of minutes, which is not particularly convenient. Acceleration from 2x to 16x works, but on some container codecs (especially on Matryoshka) it’s a little crooked. Jumping 10 minutes using the previous/next chapter keys during fast forwarding works here.

The key point in my testing of HD media players is how they play folders with Blu-ray disc structures. Because modern players already play all sorts of rips decently, but Blu-ray folders - everything is much more complicated here. Players are divided into three categories based on their playback mechanism:

1. The player does not understand the structure of Blu-ray at all, and in order to play the desired stream, you need to select the appropriate file from dozens or hundreds. And since the vast majority of players do not yet know how to sort files by size (this is the only way to find a file with a movie), it turns out that you really can’t really watch a movie in this format.

2. When playing a Blu-ray folder, the player automatically finds the movie and starts it. In this case, menus and extras are unavailable, but you can watch the movie. However, if among the additional stages there is a sufficiently long film about a film, then the player may miss and start it - I’ve encountered this. And then the movie itself can only be started manually.

3. The player reproduces the Blu-ray structure like a regular Blu-ray disc - with all the menus, extras, and so on. This, of course, is the most convenient. But in all my practice, only Dune players reproduced Blu-ray structures in this way.

Some journalists explain the existing problems with the reproduction of such folders by the developers' concern for copyright - they say that pirated copies of BR-disks are distributed in the folders, so they do not reproduce them, so as not to quarrel with the copyright holders. The explanation, in my opinion, is at least strange. Because the same “Matryoshka”, in which rips of BR films are distributed, is reproduced by all these players without any problems. And they are embarrassed to reproduce folders. By the way, in these folders I keep copies of normal licensed BR discs that I bought with my own hands. It’s just much more convenient for me to play them from a hard drive.

High resolution video in MKV with subtitles

So how does WD TV Live Plus behave with such folders? Behaves badly. Well, that is, it pretends that it understands these folders and seems to play the movie, but in reality it just grabs the first stream file that appears in the list - as a rule, this is a license warning in a hundred languages. Therefore, there is no point in using WD TV. Just search for the movie file and run it manually.

Price

In the States, this player costs about $90 - that is, two pennies. Given such an ultra-low price, you are more than tolerant of its shortcomings. If you don’t need to watch Blu-ray folders, then the player is quite suitable for solving most light tasks of playing media content, including from the network.

conclusions

Well, the player is clearly developing - the developers have removed most of the problems of the WD TV model in WD TV Live. With the network, support for the DTS decoder and various Internet media services, the player has become very good. And if you also take into account that it really costs a penny, it simply turns out to be one of the best budget models on the market. Among the shortcomings is the inability to scroll through videos more flexibly and get to the desired point, and problems with Blu-ray folders. Otherwise, it’s a great player, just great.