Customer Ratings & Reviews

My intended usage is primarily Hulu Plus, PlayOn (for internet streaming of shows not on Hulu Plus), and video streaming from my Windows 7 x64 machine (rips from DVD and BluRay discs which can include .wtv, .mp4, .ts, .m2ts). My home network is all wired gigabit with Cat6 cable so it is as fast and as stable as you can get. Since I have everything cabled, I am not testing the wireless capabilities, and I am not testing with a USB hard drive since I stream everything over my home network from my Windows 7 machine. Pros: - Easy setup. - Connected and found shares on my network including direct network shares and windows media center shares. - Played 720p videos well and some 1080p well (10Mbps video bit rate or lower) - Upgrading firmware was easy. Cons - Does not handle HD .wtv files. These are the files that Windows 7 uses for recording over the air TV. They are 1080p, 60 frames per second (all north American digital TV broadcasts are 60fps so this is a valid format to test), and 24 mbps video bit rate - same video bit rate as a Blu-ray. The WD TV Live could only play each file for about 5 seconds before it would go to slow motion and lose the audio - just couldn't keep up with this file format. - Since I read that the unit could handle Blu-ray image files, I tried streaming .m2ts files which are direct uncompressed copies from some Blu-ray discs - so straight content from a blu-ray disc itself. The unit did better with these files, but if I fast forwarded or backed up it then had problems when attempting to resume normal playback speed. Sometimes it would lose audio, and twice it hung up the unit. - For lower quality files (10mbps video rate or less) the unit play fine with no stuttering or artifacts; however, the picture quality really looked sub-par compare to my Sony PS3 and a Sony SMP-N200 I am also testing. - Other reviewers stated that you can play ISO images of DVDs and Blu-rays with the unit, but it didn't by default see these files from my file shares, so I guess there is something extra you have to do for these show up. Since it didn't handle my HD files very well, didn't handle .wtv files at all, and since the picture quality was not up to par with the Sony units, I decided against keeping the WD TV Live.

So after getting a 2TB external hard drive on black friday (for $80 BTW), I needed something to connect it to, so I could hook it up to my 50" Sony Bravia and play my massive media collection. I did alot of research and for the price this WD TV Live gives you the best bang for your buck. ALTHOUGH, I do have my issues with this thing. I'll start with the good: First off, It plays loads of different formats and i have yet to have any issue with it playing anything that i have. Ive got mine connected straight to my external hard drive and it runs smooth and quiet. it read every single file and added it to the media library for quick access and works really good. Ive streamed media to it from my laptops as well and it works fine also. It did seem a little slower in buffering and loading up but thats normal on a home network with multiple devices and gadgets connected and running. As far as files go, this thing will play them. No worries. 2nd, its TINY and is simple to hookup. I think the remote is almost the same size as this thing and is probably heavier. i travel alot and need a streaming device with my hard drive to play my media when I want and this thing is perfect. it only needs the power cord and the hdmi cable or composite cable and your good to go. Its got 2 usb inputs so you can use them for hard drives, mini usb sticks, or even wireless or wired keyboards. I use my mini keyboard via usb input to sign up for my accounts or mess around on facebook. (more on facebook later) Its super fast too. I plugged mine in from the box and was up and running after a few firmware updates in minutes. Now that the firmware is updated it boots right up almost seconds after i turn it on. boom. done. 3rd, overall its really speedy when streaming media through one of the apps and watching anything. i havent experienced any buffering mid-video yet or any sketching viewing. Its been clean and nice. The HD that plays via Netflix, Skype, CinemaNow, etc looks really good too. The music apps run perfectly. i dont have the fastest internet in the world but it runs great. Now here's where things get a little funky: I consider myself a fairly tech savvy person and I think the interface and OS is a little 'dated'. Or just too clunky. In the standards of Windows 7, iOS, Android overlays like Sense or Motoblur, HP, etc, etc. They could have adapted a better looking and smoother interface. More menu options and a better looking presentation. Its not bad but I would have liked to see an interface like the Logictech Revue. its much more impressive. the WD TV Live looks like a Roku box with a few extra menus. cheap. Next, the app selections.... who picks these things? they are about the same as all the rest of the media boxes. There's like 7 movie/tv apps - Blockbuster On Demand, CinemaNow, HuluPlus, Netflix, SnagFilms, Vudu, and Youtube. (Blockbuster On Demand and CinemaNow are virtually the same app. same selections, same interface) 6 music apps - Spotify, Pandora, ShoutCast Radio, TuneIn, Live365, and Deezer. (Deezer is only available overseas so you cant use that one. its French or something...) and a couple random video, weather, and picture apps. most of which you wont use and consist of so little content other than short mini clips of video and stuff you just dont need. Vudu, Netflix, YouTube and Pandora stand out among all the apps just due to their amount of content and ease of use and customization. Facebook could have been a real winner on this one but the interface is complete junk. Images do not load at all and the interface as a whole just looks bad. its hard to navigate with the remote control and is a pain to even try to use. As I mentioned, i have a wireless keyboard hooked up to it as well it still doesnt help in using this thing seamlessly. skip it. Overall tho, for what i need it for: quick use and viewing, playing media via external hard drive, streaming movies and HD via Vudu, Netflix, and Blockbuster, and listening to music via Pandora, Live365, and Spotify, and watching web shows via YouTube, its a must buy. I got mine on sale for $89.99 and its def the best bang for your buck. Cant wait to see the next verison. Buy it.

Media Playback: I bought the player primarily for its media playback capability (i.e. streaming my DVD collection from a network attached file server), and it does a very good job at this. At first, I was playing back from a share on a Windows server. The setup seemed pretty straight-forward, but the WDTV would occasionally forget how to connect to my windows box, requiring that I remove all configuration from the network share, reboot the device, and re-connect. Eventually I had it connect to a shared drive on a WD Mybook Live, and this works perfectly. It seems that it was having an issue with the username/password required on the windows share. Once you get past the network config, it's a breeze. It can play just about every file format known to man, and has a very decent interface for browsing through your media collection, which is laid out using the same folder structure as on your media share. Playback via WiFi has no problems at all for DVD quality videos, connecting to an 802.11G WAP. One of my favorite features is that it will give you the option to return you to the same spot from the last time you viewed the video. I haven't encountered any limitations on the number of videos it will simultaneously track last-location details for. It also gives you the option to fetch media art for your movies, and gives you some very visually appealing displays when scrolling through your movies. It can be a little sluggish at times, but is completely usable. Be wary of the firmware updates. There have been a few that have really broken/impaired functionality. I have been running on version 1.12.14, which has been very stable. Streaming Services: I don't use the WDTV Live much for streaming services, greatly preferrring to use a Roku2 instead. Overall most apps are slow and klunky. They're slow to load, slow to close, and slow to use. The Netflix app is so slow that it feels almost unusable (at least compared with the Roku). It's a shame, because they have an awesome "Netflix for Kids" version, which is also slow, but not at slow as their general Netflix app. I've used the HuluPlus and Spotify apps, and they're actually quite good, and not at all sluggish like the Netflix app. I definitely prefer them to the HuluPlus and Spotify apps on the Roku. The HuluPlus app also has the nice feature of letting you browse the movie/tv selections while watching a video. It keeps playing the audio and displays the movie in the upper-right corner. Overall: It's a bit sluggish. It's simply awesome when it comes to media playback. It's not so great (compared to Roku at least) when it comes to the streaming services.

The first thing that happened after I installed this unit was it wanted to do a firmware update so I proceeded with that as prompted. It apparently hung up on reboot and I had to unplug the power cable and then plug it back in and it completed the firmware update. This is not mentioned in the user's manual and at first I wasn't quite sure what to do. It also kept asking me for my Netflix login info every time I tried to access Netflix, but after the firmware update apparently took, it now no longer asks me for that login info, it just goes right into Netflix, no problems at all. Or this could be due to the fact that when I logged in to Netflix on my computer I checked the box that says Remember Me On This Computer, I'm not sure. I connected my 1 TB external drive and was playing .wmv, .flv, .iso and .avi files with no problems. But when I tried to play some .avi files it gave me the 'unable to play selected file' business and told me to check the file compatibility list. I am guessing that those files must use a codec that is not supported because they play fine on the PC. I could always convert them to some other format but it's not that important. It streams everything from the Internet with no problems. I can stream music and video from my PC wirelessly using Windows Media Player, which is cool. The photo slideshow feature is nice as well. I also like the way you can go to your music files and start playing an album or folder of MP3 files and then go to your photos and watch them in a slideshow with the music playing in the background. I have mine set up to play through my surround sound system and it sounds GREAT! The included games are kind of cheesy but I didn't buy it for games, I bought it primarly for Netflix and it does fine with that. When I do need to enter data the onscreen keyboard is a b***h to use so I connected a USB keyboard to it and that works fine. Flash drives work fine too! I am very pleased with this device!!! Much better than the Sony SMP-N200 which I had bought and had to return due to defects.

Well... this one was a minor upgrade to the WDTV live plus I had before. If you are looking for the "out of the box" experience, this is a very good upgrade from the previous iterations of the WDTV Live product line. For the same $99.99 you now get a wireless device (live plus required an Ethernet connection), additional services like the brand new (to the U.S.) Spotify, plus Youtube, Huluplus, Netflix and other streaming services and you also get the ability to add content from your local network without requiring transfer to an external hard drive. It uses an almost identical user interface and the same remote as the WDTV live hub, so if you have one of those, this device will not be a good bang for your buck, but for those who have the older live devices, the new remote is a welcomed change since it is better spaced and not as tiny and easy to misplace. Where things get tricky is for those who have used custom firmware to have access to movie sheets in their previous live devices. All the work put into those sheets will not be rewarded in the new system, as it uses a different template based on xml. While it can be great for new users since it will autopopulate information on movies and tv shows (as long as the file name is easy for the system to recognize), the information already contained for those who have already cataloged their media will not be imported. Finally, it is important to point out that this player can take care of almost any video and audio format, at any frame rate and at both 720p and 1080p as well. The only important exception is H.264 files encoded in Hi10P mode, which seems to be the new trend for techno-savvy users since it decreases color banding (bad thing) and reduces file size.

sent the first one back hope to have better luck with the replacement

My desire for a device to play ALL my media has been fullfilled. This will play anything I have thrown at it...anything ! Just hook up your hard drive and This device reconizes all your videos whether it be from the net, or home movies and photos. Or put in a flash drive, and will play that too. The picture quality is absolute HD! One thing I am not happy with though is the remote control. It has ff, reverse, next/back, and pause, but there is NO SLOW MOTION or STEP( frame by frame). All you can do is pause, then play, then rewind, and so on if you want to catch something going by fast. Anyways, I would recomend this device if you just want to plug and play any movies.

Only problem I had setting up this unit was everything came out in French when first turned it on. Took me a while to navigate to the Language change screen. I got this for my parents so they could quit cable. Liked this product over the other more popular ones because of it's ability to stream from a folder on a PC. This is a great feature because if you have any DVD's backed up or recorded TV on your PC you can just send it to you big screen through this box. The picture is excellent and the streaming works without any stutter. Netflix is pretty good, first time playing with it. Think my parents will miss their DVR and being able to catch all their favorite shows, but they will also be saving 100 bucks a month. They've had it about that long and it's already paid for itself. I would consider this one of these for myself, but I'm a little more tech savvy and would rather just build an HTPC so I can do more on the tv than just stream netflix and what not. One major problem with this is that if you lose power or have to restart or something it seems to reset all your passwords. Just setting it up I had to re-enter everything about 3 times.

I bought this specifically to play my video files in MKV containers. It does a reasonable job of doing this, supports full 1920x1080 HD, DTS, and 5.1 surround, as well as FLAC formats. It plays these reasonably well when it recognizes the format. Sometimes there is a encoding error that the unit can not determine what is in the file and it will blank screen, drop the audio or refuse to play the files. WD suggests re-encoding the file in the forums. Optical bitstreaming for audio if you have older AVR without HDMI. The streaming apps are OK, the YouTube is two applications, one random play and one that you can setup to play your subscriptions. The rest of them are not that much different from what any decent Blueray player or HDTV has built iinto their interfaces. Bluerays may do a better job since they usually upscale.. There are a ton of odd streaming services here, many with a monthy charge beyond the well known ones like Hulu Plus, Netflix etc. None of the major services are 1080, and are only 720p HD. The most recent firmware allows you to have multiple shares for media library from the same server. This is important as you may not want the system to index the entire set of shared files on a computer. There is also Linux share folder (samba) support, as well as DLNA server support. The problem is that the service is limited to a finite number of files that it can support, as well as requiring write access to any shared folder/drive so that it can write an index file. The Media Library compilation is the only place in the system where you can sort files and search; leaving you to have to scroll through the files if you should have more files than it can support. I have more than 10,000 video files collected over ten years, and over 40,000 photos. Too many for this device. While it supports ""N" 2.4Ghz it's not 40mhz "N". Needs 5Ghz "N" support to be useful. Have it hooked up by wire to a 5Ghz bridge.

I bought this as a replacement for my Gen2 WDTV. It was more of an impulse buy since I had a Best Buy gift card, but I was also interested in the updated features. In short, this has surpassed my expectations. With the exception of some AVIs I have (that play fine on my PC), this unit really performs well. The streaming options for NetFlix is nice (though the font is a bit harder to read than on my Wii) and some of the other pre-loaded apps/services are nice. I use this along with a 1TB Seagate drive that's plugged into it, and a 2TB "MyBookLive" network drive. It sees both devices and allows me to update files on the "wired" Seagate drive (even when the WDTVLive is off). It's smaller than the Gen2, and the second USB port is in front (easier to see) and you have the option of turning off the LED (which is great when it's re-compiling the media library....that flashing is a little annoying). The remote is an improvement, though the keys have a somewhat spongy feel to them. Overall an excellent unit, and one I recommend over the Live Media Hub since this unit has wireless built in. I give it a solid A (the only complaint is the aforementioned AVIs - which I can probably convert to a different flavor of AVI or a different format altogether). One side note, relating to the MyBookLive... I made my life easier by creating a new "WDTV" user on the MyBookLive, and gave it access to a Public folder, rather than the whole drive. It's nice how both WD devices play nicely together.

When I unboxed this little guy, I was skeptical. It promised to play my library of files, but I had yet to find one that streamed MKVs correctly. This one does just that, with caveats. It streams most files that I would want to play from my network, and works well with Netflix, and on this I have no complaints. The interface is nicely organized and attractive. It obviously works well with my Western Digital Mybook live. The Downsides: Does not play well with hidden wireless networks on the quick setup. To set up a unbroadcasted network, you cannot use the quick setup function. Cancel out of it and set it up via the setup menu otherwise you will get caught in an endless reboot cycle which is really annoying. They also need a few more MHz on the processor or a more optimized MKV codec. This little unit CANNOT, repeat CANNOT, as of this review output surround sound to either the HDMI or optical ports AND play softsubs in MKVs at the same time without getting horrible lagging and skipping. So, if you want subtitles AND surround sound in your streamed movies/shows (as I do since my father in law is hard of hearing), you're out of luck. One or the other is okay, but not both. So, if you're using subtitles, you have to set the output to stereo in the config menu or your experience will be... unpleasant. Hopefully WD will read this and fix the issue.

I purchased this product because it supported 1080p HD video & 5.1 audio through an optical audio output and it had built-in WiFi. I returned my older WD TV Live Plus HD player that was very slow on startup, had no built-in WiFi and had a very poor & buggy GUI. I did extensive reviews of similar products from the following mfr's: Apple, D-Link, Logitech, Roku, Seagate & Sony. None of them received as good of reviews as the WD TV Live Media Player did and it had all the features I needed for streaming Netflix 1080p HD video/5.1 audio. The player's startup time is very fast and has a very good GUI. HD 1080p streaming is very good. So far, I haven't seen any performance buffering issues. However, there are a few issues: 1) Player doesn't auto-switch between stereo and 5.1 audio on Netflix which is kind of a pain. So you have to find the movie you want to watch and make sure the audio has been set correctly in the setup menu to either stereo, digital pass-through optical or HDMI only. And I've also noticed a few times that I had to power off/power on the unit in order for the 5.1 audio to work. But mostly, switching audio mode in setup works without the need to power off/on. In any case, it's kind of annoying to have to navigate back-and-forth between the Netflix movie and setup menus. 2) I have yet to get my network shares from my computers (WinXP & Win7) to work properly to play media files. I can see the network shares and folders, but no files are listed. I can take the same files from the network shares, copy them to a USB drive and play them when attached directly to the WD TV Live Media Player. When I have time, I'll contact tech support to see what can be done. Other than these two issue, it's a great player.

I bought this product so that I could watch the shows that I want to watch, when I want to watch them, from the comfort of my couch. I was initially very worried that it would be inadequate. I have a lot of video files in a lot of different formats, so i was worried that I would not be able to play a large part of my collection. I was wrong. Of all of the file formats that I have on my network only 1 of them wouldn't show up on the WD TV Live, Amazon Unbox files. Of course in my case this was only a handful of videos. Setup of the unit was simple, I plugged it in, connected it to the TV, then my wireless network. It prompted me to install a firmware update and I have been happily exploring the user interface ever since. So far the things which I don't like about it are: 1. The interface could be smoother. It just doesn't look as nice as I would like. 2. There is no volume control option on the remote. If I want to lower the volume without muting it then I have to reach for my TV remote or open the WD TV Live app on my phone. 3. I wish that video playlists were easier to create. On my PC I have a program set up to automatically create a new randomized playlist of my video files every day. However, those playlists would not play on the WD TV Live. I had to manually create new playlists, and then use the WD TV Live's shuffle to play the files randomly. I am still in the process of recreating all of the various playlists which I shuffle daily on my PC.

I bought this unit after having returned the roku hd. roku wants your credit card on file...so I opted not to keep it. WD does not ask for such a thing. first of all being able to access any computer on your network is a huge advantage over the roku units. they can't connect to a computer to play your movies, music, or pictures. you can also hook it up to a keyboard, a external hard drive, or a usb thumbdrive. (has 2 usb ports) roku has none of these options. but this unit lacks a lot of other "choices" for content providers the roku has. but, netflix and hulu plus are pretty much all you'll need. I've tried a few of the other stuff on the roku and there really isn't much worth watching on all the other stuff. so netflix and hulu plus are pretty much all most people will ever need. the unit also has many other features not really mentioned. like you can add favorites, the remote is programmable, it has the time and temp displayed in the home menu. the menu...oh the beautiful menu. I really like the menu. easy to navigate and looks nice and modern. the only real issue I have is it's a little complicated to work all the settings. you will have to download the manual from western digital. it's 299 pages long...so yeah...there's a lot to take in. but that just means this thing is so feature packed, you get more than your money's worth from it. the unit had to do 2 firmware upgrades. required a restart of the unit 2 times. it took about 20 min before I was up and running. It also took me a little bit of reading the manual before I got it to finally access my files on my computer. once sorted out, windows 7 still didn't want to let it access the files even though I followed the instructions to the T. and once I finally got it to work, navigating my documents wasn't a easy as it is on the computer. there are not icons or thumbnails. so if you don't label all your files so you know exactly what they are without any thumbnails of it, you're going to have a heck of a time finding your files. bottom line, I couldn't be more happy with this thing and I really did cancel my cable this time.

I am a huge digital media guy and for a while I was using my blu ray player to watch video that I had ripped to my hard drive. Unfortunately if the disc wasn't in the player it would cut the audio out. So I had to connect my old computer to my TV. Horrible sound... Now with The WD TV Live I am in digital media heaven. I can play all my ripped files through it with full 1080p and great crisp audio. Never again will I have to get up to change a disc when with the push of a button on a super easy to navigate remote and user interface I have all my media at my fingertips and in front of my eyes. Everything is listed for me to browse through easily, I use Netflix as well and the interface is simple. I still have a lot of exploring to do with it but for now. I am in love with this little black box.

I bought the WDTV Live to work with Slingbox, and it does this pretty well. The only issue I have there is with the remote--the WDTV takes several seconds just to send keypresses to the Slingbox. I'm not talking about the expected network lag, the actual act of sending the signal to the network takes longer than it should. It got faster after a firmware update, but is still pretty slow. Much much slower than using the Slingbox app on the phone or over the web. Not a dealbreaker, but annoying. Video quality is excellent using the built-in WiFi. Other than Slingbox, I've only used the TV Live with Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, Tune-In Radio and Pandora. They all work really well. It would be nice if there was an Amazon Prime app, but there isn't. Video quality is again excellent, using the built-in WiFi. My biggest complaint is using the WD TV Live to view shared media from my PC. I have yet to get this to work. Other devices see those media shares with no problem so I'm not sure what the issue with the WD TV Live is. Since that isn't what I bought it for it isn't a dealbreaker for me, but beware this could be a problem if you want to use that feature. The remote feels pretty cheap, but it gets the job done. You can also set various universal remotes to work with the WD TV Live. I've never used a Roku box, but I hear they are faster (startup on the WD TV Live is slow, and moving in and out of apps can be a little slow, though it isn't bad). Roku also includes Amazon Prime, if you subscribe to that. Roku does NOT do Slingbox, though, and that was the reason I opted for the WD TV instead.

This is my 3rd WD Media Player. I have the basic one and 2 WDTV Live players in my house. Kids love going to YouTube, Netflix and Facebook on the big screen. I love it for the ease of watching our vast collection of movies stored on computer drives wirelessly. Perfect for traveling due to small size and being able to plug in a flash stick or external drive. Don't forget to take a nice long ethernet cable with you in case where you are going doesn't have wireless connection. I have bought this as a gift for family and friends and recommended it to so many.

I was using an old pc as a media server to stream my DVD collection that I ripped into digital files on my pc. I could stream them to any TV in the house so we wouldn't need to play the DVD etc. and could watch the same movie if we needed on several TV's at the same time. The problem I was having with this solution was that some videos would be choppy when streaming and if it was a Blu-Ray movie some wouldn't play at all over the wi-fi from the PC. So I was looking at either using Apple TV or Roku to simply plug my external HD (1TB) that had all my video files on and plug the drive into the Roku device and plug straight into my TV or use itunes to stream them via apple tv. I instead found this device which I wouldn't have to be limited to itunes or would i be limited to the few video formats that Roku uses. so I purchased this hoping it would solve my problems and it worked better than I could have imagined. I just plugged it in, did initial set up and connected my external HD to the device and I can watch any of my movies and they look just as good as if I was watching straight from the DVD itself whether it be Blu-ray or not. Seemless display and no lagging or choppiness at all. I If you can afford it, I would highly recommend it. I have 3 TV's in the house and am going back to purchase 2 more along with 2 more external HD's (it may be expensive at first, but what I'm using it for is well worth the investment) I will then be able to watch any of my 200+ movies on any tv at anytime with zero lag or hassle of using a DVD player or Blu Ray player. Just select the movie I want to watch from the list and sit back and enjoy.

The WD TV LIve is a great home media player. Installation was a breeze, the update was quick, and it found my network storage DLNA drive immediately. I can play all movies and TV shows from my drives as well as music and view pictures. The only thing the device is lacking is Amazon on demand support. It has supports for many other services (Vudu, Netflix, Crackle, etc), but no Amazon. The supplied remote is easy to use, and they have an android app that lets me control the device from my cellphone. Outstanding value!

I originally bought the NeoTV MAX however it didn't do everything I wanted it to do and it didn't do everything this one does! The setup was super easy! I bought this to watch all of my digital copies of my movies I have made and it plays all of them perfectly without much delay. Pulls videos from my WD Live NAS. So far I have not noticed much lag. Netflix works great as well! I am super impressed with this little device!