WD TV Live (2011)
Western Digital Corp.
MSRP: $99.00
Price Range: $89.99 - $112.00
Overview
CNET Editors' Rating: 4.0 / 5
The good: The WD TV Live features industry-leading format support and built-in Wi-Fi. Its broad selection of streaming services includes Spotify, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, and Pandora, among many others. The interface is friendly, and video and sound quality are as good as you'd expect.
The bad: The best streaming channels require paid subscriptions or pay-per-view fees. There's no support for Amazon Instant. The remote buttons are rubbery, and the onscreen keyboard is a pain to use. DLNA support is spotty, and the software still has a few bugs to iron out.
The bottom line: The WD TV Live (2011) offers a solid combination of must-have streaming services and excellent USB and network file support, making it one of the best devices of its kind available for under $100.
Design, Features & Performance (out of 10)
Design: 8.0
Features: 8.0
Performance: 8.0
Review
Editors' note: As of December 2011, the WD TV Live reviewed here has been updated to add a variety of new channels, including Vudu, Flixster, XOS College Sports, and SEC Digital Network. Western Digital has also released compatible iOS and Android remote apps.
Following the success of the WD TV Live Hub, Western Digital has now introduced the diskless version in the new WD TV Live (2011). The new Live adds a couple more killer features, namely built-in Wi-Fi and support for the Spotify music-streaming service, to the already long list of services and file formats handled by its predecessors. And all for only $99--the same price as the Roku XS, the Apple TV, and the Logitech Revue (Google TV). It has one of the prettiest interfaces of all the streamers, even if it can be hard to use at times, but its main appeal over those other devices is its broad file support, an extra that should appeal mainly to people who make heavy use of downloaded video files. The only thing we wish for, aside from Amazon and Vudu support, is an App controller. The WD TV Live isn't yet the ultimate streaming device, but it comes pretty close.
Design
The box shares the same footprint of 3.9 by 4.9 inches as the original WD TV Live HD (fall 2009) and WD TV Live Plus (summer 2010) but sheds their rounded "bookishness" for something blockier yet sleeker. It's also much lighter at 6.72 ounces, which is actually a negative in our experience; the collected mass of cables and USB keys can make it rear up like a seesaw ridden by one person.
Then there's the remote. That wonderful, hateful remote. It's decently ergonomic with indents underneath that enable it to sit naturally in your hand. All of the buttons are well-marked and, interface aside, easy to use.
Our problem was with the buttons. They're tall, rubbery blighters that take some effort to press quickly in succession, making inputting anything, especially long lists, tedious. We'd swap this out for a quality universal remote as soon as possible.
Features
The addition of Wi-Fi to the WD TV Live is crucial, since its lack was the weakest point of the Live Hub. Western Digital has also made sure wireless setup is straightforward. When you turn the device on for the first time, you are greeted by a language screen, and are then asked to choose your wireless access point and input your password.
With the newfound wireless freedom, Western Digital has been sure to boost the number of services offered compared with the Live Hub, more than doubling them from 9 to 19. Joining Netflix and Spotify are the streaming services Hulu Plus, YouTube, Blockbuster, CinemaNow, DailyMotion, Pandora, TuneIn Internet radio, and Shoutcast, among others. The major missing items are Amazon Instant and Vudu, both of which are available on Roku. The WD's apps include Facebook (but not Twitter), Picasa, and Accuweather.
The Live inherits the Mochi interface from the Live Hub, and it's friendly even if the small "colored button" icons used for some navigation are a little indecipherable.
The reason you'd buy this over the Roku, though, is if you have a large library of digital files. The laundry list of supported types misses very little and includes notables such as FLAC, AAC, MKV, DivX, and even ISOs. The small Dolby TrueHD logo on the top suggests that the device will also play Blu-ray "rips" with full-quality sound (although we didn't test this).
Where the Live Hub had the real estate for a wealth of connectivity, the Live is more modest. It eschews its forebear's extras, such as a component output, for just HDMI, a composite AV breakout, two USBs (one front, one back), optical digital, and Gigabit Ethernet.
The device features an onscreen keyboard but text input can be laborious because of the clunky remote and the keyboard being alphabetical and not QWERTY. Thankfully the WD accepts USB keyboards, which makes setup much quicker.
Performance
As a DLNA device, the WD TV is a cut above the norm, though perhaps not in the realm of dedicated music devices. The Next and Previous Page buttons do speed navigation of large media collections once a content source is cached by the device. We also liked the "Now Playing" bar that appears at the top of the screen.
If you use a lot of WAV files, you will probably use the Files option a lot to find your music, but be aware that you need to press "Play" instead of "Enter" to play a whole folder full of music. If you have a large music collection and use an external DAC or receiver, then the WDTV is a good option to listen to high-quality music, especially because of its wide format support.
Streaming movies via DLNA is also a highlight of the device, as it will also pull salient details about your movies and will even display DVD menus from ISO backups. We watched a 720p copy of Australian horror flick "The Tunnel," and it looked great with no stuttering and plenty of detail.
But it's the newfound streaming capabilities where the WDTV really hits its stride. The device has one of the strongest lineups for the price--Roku notwithstanding--and most online subscribers should find their service provider of choice. We liked the newly added Spotify, though it is still a little impenetrable for new users, but at least it uses the device's Mochi interface.
Netflix was quite slow to load--and even looked like it had crashed--but with perseverance we found the familiar Netflix interface from other connected devices and quickly found the content we were after.
We did find some random crashes and glitches including slow menus. Since they occurred while it was caching the content on an attached drive, perhaps the device finds it hard to walk and chew gum at the same. However, as this is a brand-new device, we expect that the bugs will be ironed out with further firmware updates.
The only other downside was its lack of interplay with other devices. DLNA support from Windows 7 was as buggy as ever--though probably Microsoft's fault and not WD's--and even third-party DLNA apps for the iPhone refused to work.
It's here where we think Western Digital is missing a trick with the lack of a dedicated iPhone/Android app. The company introduced WD 2Go last month, an app that remotely controls content but only works with the My Book Live. Perhaps a WD TV app is coming soon?
The WD TV Live also competes directly with the Apple TV, a device with the big advantage of AirPlay--which does away with the poor intercompatibility of DLNA and just simply "works." Where the WD soundly trumps Apple, though, is in the wide variety of supported files and streaming services.
Conclusion
The WDTV Live is a further distillation of the ideas introduced two years ago, as it offers a wealth of services and enjoys wide format support. If you want a device that will stream and play back your downloaded files, this is one of the leading models. Only a couple of operational issues prevent it from being the best media device yet.
Basic Specs
| Product Description | Digital multimedia receiver, WD TV Live WDBHG70000NBK |
| Product Type | Digital multimedia receiver |
| Dimensions (WxDxH) | 4.9 in x 3.9 in x 1.2 in |
| Weight | 6.7 oz |
| Audio | Stereo |
| Remote Control | Remote control - Infrared |
User Reviews
Average User Rating: 4.0 / 5
User Rating Breakdown
5 Star: 11
4 Star: 10
3 Star: 3
2 Star: 3
1 Star: 7
WD products are generally better than this little dump!
Rating: 0.5 / 5
on December 22, 2011
8 out of 8 users found this review helpful
Pros: Seems to be capable of playing all files.
it's very small.
easy to connect.
Cons: would freeze up daily, and would have to be reset often. Firmware updates seem to destroy the functionality. Would lose account (pandaora) information, which is a huge pain in the ass because you have to use the arrow keys to type in your info.
Summary: CNet seems to love WD, and generally I liked WD too. But this thing is a complete dump. Not only did I return this piece of trash, but after talking with their understaffed, broken english, under trained, irresponsible support staff, I sold every penny of stock I had in the company. If your main responsibility is to talk to people, and you can't speak their language, you are hiring the wrong people WD!!! I used to be a huge fan of their products, but this encounter has completely killed my opinion of this company.
BUYER BEWARE!
Rating: 3.5 / 5
on December 8, 2011
3 out of 3 users found this review helpful
Pros: Amazing file format support! Compatible with Mac HFS drives, which is GREAT because I can take my Time Machine drive and just plug it in. You can see the device over wifi network as a networked drive so you can just drag and drop files.
Cons: CUSTOMER SUPPORT WORTHLESS. Access over my home network had to be setup several times. IF YOU PLUG TWO DEVICES INTO THE USB PORTS, they don't always both work. Slow for file transfers over wifi. HORRIBLE playback of highdef quick time files.
Summary: Completely worth it if you are a mac user and want to play all kinds of media formats and want the ease of a networked drive that you can share media with.
WDTV is Awesome!
Rating: 5 / 5
on October 27, 2011
3 out of 3 users found this review helpful
Pros: *Supports almost every format (in other words, completely unrivaled format support)
*Subtitle switching support
*Audio track switching support
(The above two are not found on the Revue, the box that I replaced with the WDTV)
*Runs 1080 video like a champ
Cons: *Sometimes the subtitles are a little messed up for shows with subtitles for more than one character simultaneously.
*Not a lot of different outputs
*You really need a keyboard for certain things
*The Netflix app is inferior to the one on the Revue (speci
Summary: I watch a LOT of foreign shows that require me to activate subtitles and alternate audio tracks in MKV files. I initially bought the Revue and was extremely happy with it except for two fatal flaws: network streaming support was limited to DLNA only and it didn't support switching subtitle or audio tracks in MKV files (or any files for that matter). Before I returned it, I did some research and found that, from every corner of the net, the WDTV's name came up in relation to anime streaming over the network. I also noticed it had a dedicated button to switch subtitle and audio tracks. As such, I decided to buy the newest model of the WDTV (in my Best Buy it was located with the HDDs for some reason, even though the Revue and the other WDTV models were located with the TVs).
Once I got it home and unboxed it, I was surprised that such a small box could support so many different formats. I have read several places that the WDTV will play more formats than any other streaming box out there. So far, I've not run across a file it couldn't play, and that seems to be the norm. That's more than I can say for the Revue, albeit a lot of it had to do with my DLNA servers.
The WDTV doesn't have as many features as Google TV, but if you need a solid streaming box that can play any file any way you want, this is the box for you. If you mostly just need streaming services like Netflix or Amazon and would enjoy your box being able to control your entire entertainment setup in a very cool way, then the Revue is definitely for you.
I subscribe to the former. I just need a box that will play any format I throw at it (via Samba!) any way I want it (along with Netflix or Crunchyroll occasionally). I really love the WDTV for this reason and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy a streaming box.
Note: I have 20mbps internet and a 1gbps router, cables, and network cards as well as a custom-built gaming computer streaming files. As such, your experience might be a bit slower on the streaming side of things. I also have not tried plugging in an external HDD or flash drive to play files off of it.
Updated on Oct 27, 2011
Excellent Media Player if in Working Order
Rating: 4 / 5
on December 7, 2011
2 out of 2 users found this review helpful
Pros: 1080 capability
Playing multiple file formats
Very good user interface
2 USB's, wireless/LAN connectivity
Multiple applications
Small
Very convenient subtitle button and well designed remote
Got it for around $88 at WD Web Store using WDCARES code.
Cons: The first unit was a firmware update nightmare. Tried to exchange it but I was offered only a refurbished unit for my 7 days old one.
Needed to order a new unit and return the old, malfunctioning one and pay for shipping???
Summary: After receiving my second unit watching movies and listening music from USB attached drive is nothing but pleasure.
Netflix works as good as on my old Roku or PS3.
Was great!
Rating: 0.5 / 5
on April 27, 2012
1 out of 1 users found this review helpful
Pros: Played EVERYTHING very well. Easy setup and very small.
Cons: When it updated to most recent firmware it stopped working completely. Now it is in the mail and will not be replaced until I read that WD has gotten their collective $hit together. The toll free line for help is awful, they don't speak english.
Summary: This thing was awesome until it updated. Think about that for a moment.
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