WD TV Live Plus 1080p HD Media Player

lol... so many of these reviews are entertaining to me.In this review, I'm only gonna discuss things that others have not. I've been using WD's since they first came out. I own 2 Gen 1's, 2 Gen 2's, and a "plus" version. They were SUPER buggy back then, infact, at one point they were upgrading the firmware almost every week! It is a fantastic little box but requires tons of patience. Every issue you read in these reviews, either there is a fix for, or the user doesn't quite know what they are doing. You will read about a lot of people having network issues but I can assure you it is because they don't really know how to network a device and are relying on DHCP to solve all their problems. Like it or not, networking is complicated. Between TCP/IP (subnetting), Netbios broadcasting, firewalls, wired vs wireless, rj45 connectors, DHCP, elecro mag interference around lighting and conduit, network conflicts, and ignorance, soooo much can go wrong and any one thing will halt your device. It takes a lot of knowledge and research to smoothly run "media servers" over a network and have them ALWAYS work but if you do things right, this box works flawlessly. The biggest complaint I would have about this box is that when you view a movie folder over the network, you will see ALL files in that folder instead of just video files, even if they are hidden files (this doesnt happen when the drives are usb'd into it or if you browse them through the media server option. Got a stable media server running off win 7 64bit but it was super unstable with XP and Vista, AND with the media server option it will not use your thumbnails but rather it will create its own thumbnail clips from the video. Furthermore, scrolling through the network share option seems speedy but scrolling through the media server option is super sluggish. Learn to use the search button and be advised that firmware update will allow you to use a usb keyboard). It kinda sux if you have 2000 movies in a folder including .sub files and thumbnails (some might think it won't play the movie when instead they are trying to play a thumbnail). On that note, let me say that some of the greatest features of this box is it's subtitle support. It supports multiple languages, lets you move the subtitles to any screen location, let's you change the size and font, let's you adjust the subtitle up to 20 sec forward or 20 secs back in the case that they don't fit (this happens alot when you dowload subtitles from web sites rather than create them yourself), and it has a subtitle interface that gives you more options than any other. My girlfriend is chinese and speaks little Eng so this is crucial! The only way for her to watch a movie with me is to rip it and download the chinese subtitles. WD is just what every foreigner needs!!! Anyway, This is a really great product no matter how you slice it. I have mine hooked to 2 local drives, each 2TB and full (now switched to two 3TB drives and working gr8). With this config, first thing you should know is it takes a LONG time for WD to build an index of the files and will act buggy untill it finishes, so... When you turn it on, wait 10 min before using it if you are an impatient person. If it appears to be frozen, it's not! Just wait it out and it will free up after 5 or 10 min. Remember, this little thing does ALOT and it takes time. ALSO, be aware that the device does not yet support 3TB drives, though I'm sure a firmware upgrade will fix that one day (fixed). I know there are others like me that were super PO'd about not having Netflix on older versions but it IS on this one and it works GREAT as expected.So, below i will just throw down some things people might want to know:For those of you that said your WD won't save movie stop points, I can guaruntee it's because the .WD folder that stores that info has become "read only" for some reason (or corrupt). Change that and you're back in biz! If all else fails, just delete the entire WD folder on a computer then plug it back into WD and let it rebuild.If your drive is FAT32, it will become buggier as the drive fills. NTFS is a much more stable file system. Folks like to keep it FAT32 so it works in their XBOX and PS3 but they just have to let that go at some point (usually the point where the drive crashes, which happened to my brother). FAT32 was originally designed for 32gig max and you should stick to that idea because there is a reason for it. Also, fat32 has a 4gb file size limit which means NO BLURAY FILES CAN GO ON IT (nor can the larger DVD's) unless you dumb them down and in the world of HIDEF TV's, you don't want to do that. For DVD's, the dif between an 800 res and 600 res is HIGHLY noticeable on a high def TV. Dumbing the bit rate down will also effect the noticeable quality of the video. Fat32 with a 2TB drive is HIGHLY slow, unstable, inefficient, and Microsoft says, "DON'T DO IT". FAT systems were invented at a time when it was unfathomable to have file sizes and hard drive sizes like we have today and that should be all I need to say. Furthermore, MS insists that you should leave 20% free on any hard drive or it will become unstable, not to mention that you can't defrag it once it goes below 15%.WD runs at it's heat capacity so can easily overheat when on top of a cable box or HD so keep it away from anything hot. When it over heats, it hangs.I find that rips work best as avi's using xvid with mp3 audio. If your vids don't fast forward and rewind smoothly or they hang up when you try, your format sux and you need something with less compression. The harder a device has to work to de-compress files, the less resources it has to manipulate them. avi with XVID and MP3 seems to play in everything... xbox360, ps3, samsung TV built in media player, media player for XP/Vista/Win 7It DOES support thumbnails if you simply give the file the same name (case sensitive). If you change a thumbnail but it doesn't update, just go into the \wd\thumbnail folder and delete the old one, then it will auto update the new one.A corrupt video will totally freak the wd out. If it just starts to act freaky as you're scrolling through the vid menu, there is a corrupt video prob causing it. In my experience, it only freaks when the corrupt video appears on the screen menu so it's kind of easy to weed it out.Also, if the WD freezes constantly, it will surely be a troubled network connection. If it senses the network connection going up and down constantly, it will use all its resources dealing with that. try to wiggle/jiggle the connection or change cables.This is a biggie... If setting up multiple WD's on a network with the intent to stream from each other, you MUST give each WD a unique name ie, WDTVLIVEPLUS1/WDTVLIVEPLUS2/etc... Each network device requires a unique name or can not be seen on the network.One thing about WD TV that totally confuses me is that when you plug the WD in, it turns on. Therefore, if your power goes off then back on, the WD will leave itself on. I wonder if that's the reason they tell you to unplug it if you're not gonna use it regularly.ok I'm tired now, I will continue on later. I could obviously right a book on this thing!UPDATE: On 5/12/11 they did a firmware update for the original WD and WD gen2 that now allows for 3TB drive support. V1.05 update is a must! But I'm told that if you do this update on the plus ver you will lose your netflix so be aware of that. My plus has not auto updated yet.Shawn Spector, MCT

I bought a Mediagate MG-350HD probably about 6 years ago. It was great. It played just about everything you could throw at it over wireless from your networked computer and if it couldn't (mainly high quality HD video) you could copy it to the hard drive and play it off of that. Nothing I've come across could replace it's simplicity of showing you what files you have and playing them. The problem was that it was old and more and more file types are getting more popular that the MG-35HD can't play like MKV and MP4. I tried the Logitech Revue (navigation and interface problems, doesn't play all file types), Roku (wouldn't stay connected to my wireless and NO STREAMING at all from home network), PS3 (does not stream all file types over wireless), and a Mac Mini (limited remote and you still need a keyboard and mouse). Granted, I didn't stream a whole lot of content from the internet back then as it wasn't as common as it is now.I have finally replaced the MG-350HD with the WD TV Live Plus. Bought 1 to test it out, then bought 3 more after I saw that it worked way better than anything else.True, it doesn't come with wireless built-in, but for about $15 you can buy a wireless adapter (Airlink 101 Wireless N 150 Mini USB Adapter AWLL5077). As soon as I upgraded the firmware to the latest version (1.04.31_B) the wireless adapter was recognized and it saw my wireless network. On a couple of the units, the automatic IP configuration didn't work, so I had to manually input an IP address. That was the only hiccup I had during setup.Once everything was setup, I started testing out every video file type and quality type I had in my possession. It played everything except WMV videos encoded with WMV8 (which it states clearly on the box that it only plays WMV9). It even streamed 1080p HD video over wireless. I don't know if you've tried this, but some COMPUTERS can't do this very well over wireless. Admittedly, this does depend a lot on your wireless router and wireless adapters. I have a fairly new dual band N router, but still using the 2.4 Ghz band. The AWLL5077 doesn't have the best range, so for better range you might want to pick up a bigger size adapter. On the farther unit, I'm using an old Airlink 101 AWLL6070 (discontinued) that I had lying around. It just happened to work with the WD TV Live Plus. The bigger size made a difference in the wireless signal reception.The one criticism that one might have is that the WD TV Live Plus doesn't have as much Plus (internet channels) as other players do. It basically has the main ones (Netflix, Pandora, Facebook, YouTube) and some other random ones (Deezer, Flingo, Live365, TuneIn Radio). However, the latest version of firmware (1.04.31_B) does work with the latest version of PlayOn (3.3.4.1869) giving you tons more internet content like Hulu, CBS, MTV, CNN, Comedy Central, etc.I have not tested it with music or photos very much. It is connected to my TV, so my main use is to watch video.Pros:1080pSimple interfacePlays just about anything from your home network or internetCan play everything over wireless or from connected hard driveWorks with PlayOnCons:Wireless not built inNot as much internet content as other playersUPDATE: There is an issue with this box and Panasonic Plasma Viera TVs (which I have). If you let it automatically pick the video resolution over HDMI, there will be audio drop outs and video stuttering. Apparently, it has something to do with the HDMI connection. The work around is to manually force the video resolution to 720p 60Hz. This solves the issue, but it is not playing at 1080p. This is only a problem if you're playing a lot of 1080p video, which I am not.