| Brand Name | Western Digital |
|---|---|
| Item Weight | 10.7 ounces |
| Product Dimensions | 3.94 x 4.94 x 1.57 inches |
| Item model number | WDBAAN0000NBK-NESN |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
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WD WD TV Live Network-ready HD Media Player (Old Version)
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.
| Compatible Devices | Television |
| Platform | Windows |
| Connector Type | RCA, USB, HDMI |
| Brand | Western Digital |
| Connectivity Technology | Ethernet |
About this item
- Play Full HD 1080p video, music and photos on your HD TV
- Supports widest variety of file formats and devices
- Network capable for easy access to the newest content from PCs, network drives, internet favorites
- Play network and internet content
- Full-Function remote control
There is a newer model of this item:
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Product Description
Product Description
The WD TV Live HD Media Player from Western Digital has everything you need to play your HD media collection and the fun stuff you find on the web in brilliant HD 1080p on your big screen HDTV. Because it supports a wide variety of file types, you can instantly enjoy all your home digital media, regardless of the file format. Get direct access to a huge selection of video, photos, and music from popular internet sites like YouTube, Flicker, Live 365, and Pandora (U.S. only) right from the beautifully easy WDTV navigation screen.
From the Manufacturer
WD TV Live - Play a world of HD media on your TV.
HD video, photos and music - they're on your computer, on your USB drives, on the Internet, but how do you enjoy them on your TV? Now it's easy! Play a world of Full-HD, 1080p media on your big screen TV with the WD TV Live network-ready HD media player.
Play network and Internet content.
Stream content from Internet sites like YouTube, Flickr, Live365 and from your home network.
Full-HD 1080p resolution.
Experience spectacular Full-HD video and crystal-clear digital audio.
Enjoy your media instantly.
Supports a wide variety of the most popular file formats. No need to spend time transcoding.
Full-HD 1080p video playback and navigation - This is the real thing; Full-HD 1080p playback. Sit back and enjoy the spectacular picture quality of brilliant high definition video and the crystal-clear sound of digital audio. Use the included remote control to make your entertainment choices using our crisp, animated navigation menus.
Play a wide variety of file formats - WD TV Live supports a wide variety of the most popular file formats. No need to spend time transcoding.
Play videos, music and photos from the Internet on your big screen TV - Explore and watch YouTube videos and Flickr pictures on the big screen. Rock out to thousands of radio stations via Live365 and discover new music with Pandora radio.
Access files anywhere on your home network - Play movies, music, and photos from any PC or drive on your home network. The Ethernet port connects this player to your home network through a wired connection or via popular, supported WiFi adapters (sold separately). Ideal for use with WD's My Book World.
Turn your USB drive into an HD media player - Play content from most popular USB drives, and digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized as mass storage devices. Optimized for My Passport portable hard drives.
Collect without limits - There's no limit to the size of your media collection; just add more USB drives for more space.
Play media seamlessly from multiple USB drives - Two USB ports on the player let you connect multiple USB storage devices and access them simultaneously. Our media library feature collects the content on all the drives into one list sorted by media type.
Transfer files easily - Copy, move or delete files stored on a USB drive, a network drive, your camcorder, or a camera to the attached USB drive using the on-screen menus.
Show photos and movies directly from your digital camera or video camera - Works with digital cameras, digital video cameras, in fact, any digital imaging device that supports Picture Transfer Protocol.
Advanced navigation options
- Thumbnail and list views – Browse your content by filename or by thumbnails of photos, album covers and movie cover art.
- Media library – This unique feature lets you view all your media by media type in one menu regardless of its location in folders or drives. You can view your content by categories such as genre, album, artist and date.
- Search – Search by genre, title, artist, filename and partial filename.
Photo viewing
- Create custom slide shows with a variety of transitions and background music
- Zoom and pan
- Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
Movie viewing
- Fast forward, rewind, pause, zoom, and pan
- View subtitles
- Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
Music playback
- Fast forward, rewind, pause, shuffle, repeat
- Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
File Copy
- Copy files between USB drives
HDMI 1.3, composite video and component video output - The HDMI port lets you connect to the highest quality HD TV or home theater. Additional composite (RCA), and component outputs ensure compatibility with virtually all television sets.
SPDIF digital output - The optical audio output sends digital signals to your AV receiver for the best surround sound experience.
Online ServicesPlay a world of media on your TV!
WD TV Live supports a list of popular online services that delivers Internet content onto your HD TV.
YouTube - Broadcast yourself. World's #1 video sharing website.
Pandora - Free, personalized Internet radio playing only the music you love. Enter your favorite songs or artists, and enjoy stations created just for you. Rate songs as they play, because Pandora caters to your tastes and adapts stations to your feedback on the spot.
Flickr - Share your photos. Watch the world.
Live365 - Listen to thousands of commercial-free Internet radio stations! Live365 has broadcasts from Radio Disney, Santana, David Byrne, Pat Metheny, and Paul Oakenfold, as well as stations created by music lovers just like you!
Easily browse through popular genres such as rock, hip-hop, jazz, and new age. Or discover treasures in some of the less-traveled styles such as gospel, comedy, anime, Hindi, trip hop, 30s, glam, tribal, Celtic, and 100s more.
WiFi ready- Supports wireless network connection with optional USB wireless adapter.
Ultra-compact design - Fits easily into your entertainment center.
File formats supported
Video:
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
Photo:
JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG
Audio:
MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Playlist:
PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle:
SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI
System Requirements
- My Passport portable hard drive or other USB storage device with supported video or audio content stored on it.
- Standard or high definition television with HDMI or composite video connections.
- Home network and broadband connectivity for online services.
Compatibility
HDMI, Full HD (1080p), AAC, MP3, JPEG, USB 2.0, H.264, SimplayHD™, Energy Star®, Dolby Digital, DTS, DLNA, Bonjour, AVCHD, Windows Vista®
Note: Compatibility may vary, depending on user's hardware configuration and operating system.
What's in the box
HD Media Player, Compact remote with batteries, Composite AV cable, Component AV cable, AC adapter, Quick Install Guide.
Videos
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WD TV Live: How to use your WD TV Live HD Media Player
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Customer Review: It gets the job done.
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WD TV Live: Setting up your WD TV Live HD Media Player
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WD TV Live Overview
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Product information
Technical Details
Additional Information
| ASIN | B002KKFP9Y |
|---|---|
| Customer Reviews |
4.2 out of 5 stars |
| Best Sellers Rank | #2,091 in Streaming Media Players |
| Date First Available | October 13, 2009 |
Warranty & Support
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Ok, now on to what makes the WD TV Live so awesome:
1) Codec support for virtually any media file. I've thrown Xvid, divX, MKV, .AVI, FLAC, mp3, etc. files of various sizes at it and all work perfectly. I've played Blue Ray rips at full 1080p streaming from my NAS and the picture is truly fantastic. Dolby Surround decoding is flawless. This thing just works and I've yet to find a CODEC that I use which it doesn't support.
2) Ease of netwrok set-up. I don't understand people having issues with network connectivity. I plugged this into my network switch, turned it on, ran the auto network configuration, and was all ready to go. If you are not able to stream files from your Windows PC, the issue is almost certainly with permissions on the files (assuming you have them shared). Even if you share them you sometimes need to set the permissions to 'everyone' for them to be accessible (right click on the shared directory, go to 'permissions' and select everyone). You also need to make sure you either turn off 'password protected sharing' OR configure the WD Live with the correct password for each PC you want to stream files from. I am currently streaming from two different windows 7 PCs (a notebook over wireless and my personal PC over LAN) as well as my NAS and all work seamlessly. If you don't know how to properly set up a home network and are having issues with connectivity, don't blame it on this device. Do some reading first before assuming that the WD Live is to blame.
3) HDMI out with full audio pass through. No need to attach all sorts of audio cables. 1 HDMI cable to your receiver and you're done.
4) Easy to navigate connectivity to your network shares. The WD Live sorts by directory NOT meta tags, so if you want to be able to search your media files easily use iTunes or Windows Media Player to auto-organize them into files. A good naming structure is something like Music\Artist\Album. Another tip would be to download mp3tag (freeware) and use it to not just tag your files correctly, but rename the files themselves with a good naming architecture so that the file name INCLUDES the meta data. This is advice for media file management in general, but if you do it, it will make using the WD Live even more enjoyable. Since my music library and video collection is already organized and named correctly, my experience using the GUI to find and play files has been great. If you put all your files in one massive directory, you will have to sort through a long list of files to find what you want to play.
5) Support for USB hard drive/flash drive. It's not essential to have a network connection. You can use a hard drive or USB drive full of you media files. This is a great option for those who just want access to their music/video library and don't care about web streaming capability.
6) Responsiveness is great. Playing and pausing media files is instant, even a massive 12GB Blue Ray rip. Menu navigation is smooth and glitch free. It's nice when things work well, and the WD TV Live just works.
A few complaints:
1) It would be nice if the GUI supported a search function. It would also be nice if it supported meta tags. It would be even nicer if supported a keypad so that typing things in wasn't the tedious process that it currently is.
*****CORRECTION*****12-13-2009*****
The WD TV Live DOES support Meta Tags if you upgrade the firmware AND you are streaming from a NAS or PC that supports media extension. Currently I am using a D-Link DNS-321 upgraded to the most recent firmware and I am now able to sort media files by artist, genre, etc. Unfortunately the way the WD Live displays files inside these categories is by the ACTUAL file names, so for example everything in my Alternative Rock Genre is lumped together and sorts by file name. It's not broken down by artist or album, so it's really not that useful. If you rename all your files so that the first word of the file is the track number, you can at least sort by album and have songs play in the correct order instead of alphabetically. The real weakness of the WD TV Live is it's poorly designed sort features when using META tags. However, as I stated earlier in this review, I sort my media by file location, so for me it is virtually a non issue.
2) I wish the WD Live supported HULU and other web pages. The problem is that there is no built in web browser (Firefox, IE, etc.). That would require a lot more code--what is supported (Flickr and Youtube) are API applications that don't require a full browser. My guess is that WD pursued specific licensing with both Flickr and Youtube to allow their applications--that's why there isn't more diverse support for online content. My recommendation is that if this is a deal killer for you, you probably really need a HTPC not a media streamer. It would be awesome if some intrepid coder would make an alternative firmware with an API plug for HULU and other media streaming pages. Not sure if the firmware WD puts out is open source or not. My gut tells me not.
3) No external power buttons. This isn't a big deal, but I really like to be able to turn things on and off when the remote is absent.
Conclusions:
This is not a perfect device. It won't bring about world peace or solve the US budget deficit. It doesn't come with every conceivable feature that anyone can imagine. It won't troubleshoot your network or let you browse the net from your recliner. Metatag sorting is not great, and if you rely solely on metatags to sort your media, you will likely be unhappy unless you take the time to properly name/sort your media files. On the other hand, it will allow you to play just about any media file known to man with breathtaking video and sound quality. It will make streaming your media collection from a PC or a NAS easy. It will provide you with wonderful versatility in your AV set up. For the price, I personally believe it is well worth buying, and while not perfect, it's very, very good.
4.5/5 Stars.
Networking: works great wired. Easy enough to configure or let DHCP auto-assign an address off your network. Would be nice if it had a Gigabit Ethernet port -- but even with a full 1080p stream, GigE isn't necessary (100Mbps is enough).
Setup/Configuration: There are a lot of options here for cataloging your connected USB drives, how you want the UI to behave, etc. As well, there's a feature to save a userid/password (if you have your network shares permissioned such) for quick connection. You'll want to do this, as "typing" on the on-screen keyboard with the small remote is something you only want to do once. A good number of people have complained about the WDTV Live's ability to connect to Windows 7 (or even Vista/XP) shares, but I and others who have similar setups, both with and without actual Active Directory domains, do not have problems. Thus, I'm chalking that up to user error and misunderstanding of share-level and file-level permissions. I just have a share that's wide open for the WDTV and it's a non-issue (everything else stays locked down).
Music/Audio features: Pandora works perfectly, as does pointing it at a slew of MP3s or M3U playlists. I haven't tried Live365 -- I hear it requires a subscription, and with >150GB of music already sitting on my network, Live365 has no appeal for me. The one thing that impressed me and actually triggered the second WDTV Live purchase, is that it will natively play 6-channel (DTS 5.1 Surround) WAV files, DVD-Audio ISOs and even VOB files containing 5.1-encoded audio (SACD or DVD-Audio). This is a very cool feature, as I don't need a second <something> sucking down power to spin a disc.
Video features: This tiny little box will play nearly everything you should care about, including WMV9s, AVIs with DivX and XviD inside, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 streams, MKVs with h.264 and others inside, and even M2TS files straight from a Blu-Ray disc or a HD camcorder! It does have iffy support for Quicktime (MOV) files, and there's a well-known no-go with Windows Media Audio Pro embedded in a WMV9 -- but that's not a dealbreaker for me at all, since MKV has already trumped all those formats and more. One caveat in full disclosure: there's no RMVB support at all, so if you need that, I'd still suggest buying this box and converting them to something better. It does have Youtube support, though it's a pain to do any useful searching via the remote -- and the latest (v14) firmware update killed off some of the Youtube stuff after Youtube changed their policy. Stick with the .11 firmware and you'll be fine.
Photo viewing: you can easily put digital pictures up on your TV either through your home network, from Flickr, or off a USB drive/stick. This is pretty handy after a family event or photo shoot so everyone can see. I'm by no means a Flickr fan at all, but I have to say the Flickr features on the WDTV Live are pretty useless -- you can't scale the images being viewed to a useful size.
User interface: out of the box with the older firmware, the UI is a bit slow. You won't know that (i.e. it's very tolerable) until you upgrade to the v.11 or later firmware, which makes it even faster. The menuing is clean and easy to navigate. If you stop a video and restart it later, it will ask if you want to restart from beginning, or resume from where you left off. Fast forwarding or rewinding video/audio is easy to do, but I wish it had a faster jump than 16x sometimes. That it doesn't is likely more a constraint of the network speed than anything else -- trying to do a 24x rewind, for example, on a wireless 802.11b or 10Mbps wired network would probably cause the space-time continuum to implode.
DLNA/Media Player support -- works fine with Windows Media Player 13 or 14 (or whatever's bundled in Windows 7). You can right click a media file on your Windows box and select "Play to ..." to send it to the WDTV Live without having even touch the WDTV remote. Just don't try doing it while something else is already playing on the WDTV Live (like an MP3), as it will try to play both at the same time and fail [well, fail in the sense that it doesn't seem to know that you probably shouldn't listen to MP3s and watch an unrelated MKV at the same time -- it will play both anyway, and you'll have to figure out how to shut one of them off).
The remote control: It's small (smaller than your palm). This is both a blessing and a curse: on one hand, it's not bulky and does everything you need. On the other hand, it's small, easily lost, and is not back-lit which makes it a bit difficult to use in the dark until you memorize where the buttons are. Unfortunately none of the buttons have a 'nub' on them to give you a reference point, and many a time I've hit Stop when I meant to hit Play/Pause.
The box itself: Very small, silent, and fairly power-reasonable (though it does constantly eat 2-4W when turned "off"). Power brick is fairly small, but clearly not a high-quality brand... I fully expect I'll be replacing one of them within a few years as they die off from actual normal use.
Despite a few grievances:
- needs a better remote with backlight
- UI should allow for faster rewind/FF
- FTP transport support would be nice for some...
- ...and so would NFS support for the *nix geeks
- add Netflix and this little box would RULE THE UNIVERSE
...I love both of my WDTV Live's, and you will, too.
Top reviews from other countries
The unit does not feature an on/off switch, and is entirely operated by a remote control. You CAN however turn off the unit from the remote control, but the unit still generates some of the heat even in standby mode, so if not using the unit for extended periods of time it is strongly recommended to unplug it.
The user interface was easy to use and navigate through and I was quite impressed at the file format support . It even managed to play some formats that were incompatible with my Smart TV now used in another room, that was purchased in 2012 !
I use this unit on an older CRT in another room with RCA output coming out from the box. I have played both standard definition and high definition content without issues. This unit was used a lot before, on a daily basis, for hours at a time, before I purchased a Smart TV years later, aside from unit eventually becoming hot, it has not failed me yet.
Here are some of the cons however other than not having an on/off switch, the support is poor. At the time firmware updates to address known issues where infrequent - I have updated a few times the firmware since purchased, but many of the often reported bugs or feature requests were not addressed. While the picture and sound quality coming out of this box is well beyond my expectations, for a unit this size and price, navigating playback is difficult and slow - The unit lacks search and go to function. If you would like to jump to specific areas of a video you must start from the beginning and seek forward to your target, even with fast seeking the process is painfully slow. The lack of a search and go to was a let down.
As far as I know, the WD Media Player supports the most video codecs at the moment, so that is useful. The resolution for the output to the monitor depends on the quality of the video you download, so it is not the Media Player that is at fault.
The convenience of just sitting back with access to hundreds of movies and TV shows on a hard drive is such a luxury. I haven't connected the Media Player to my network yet, but I'm looking forward to that, and having access to more video content online. No regrets.
It's now been about three months since I purchased my new media player and it is one purchase this year that I've had no regrets about at all. It truly is a superior piece of kit and now that I can play HD files on my big screen tv, I'm a very happy person. 10 out of 10!!
The picture is amazing. We have a DLNA Blu-ray player attached to our main TV and the picture is better when showing through the WDTVLIVE player.
My kids love that they can now watch their 'shows' on any TV they want. (So I can kick them off the main TV when it's time for hockey.)
I may in fact get a second unit to use on the main TV.
**************************
(2 months after purchase)
I should have used it for awhile before I reviewed this product.
After about a month of use the connection to our network disappeared.
I had to set it up again, from scratch.
Any time that a network cable is unplugged (Not the player cable) from our router the connection is lost, again requiring that the player be setup AGAIN !
I returned the product and bought a DLNA capable blu-ray player which works perfectly.
All-in-all, very frustrating.

























