Product ReviewsWestern Digital TV Live Digital HD Media Streamer - Black

Western Digital Media player [HESN Model]

Unit came with all the original accessories to hook up to a tv, but all my AV inputs were all already used up, so I decided to get an HDMI cable to hook up the box. The Instructions to set up for the Internet & play digial media files takes a while to read. Once its done, however, the procedure is pretty easy for viewing video & photos files on usb connected hard disks & thumb drives. Viewing video on the Internet is a little awkward with the remote. It was much easier to navigate the menu options on the WD box using a typical pc plug-in usb
keyboard to control those functions.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: hivit11

Disappointed

Unfortunately this is one of those units that get through QC and sold to an unsuspecting buyer.
So I think I know why this player eventually came up for sale on eBay.
This player freezes occasionally, requiring a reset which in turn forces me to have to re-enter
dns and Netflix info to enable it to stream again. All my personal settings are also gone.
Worse or equally as bad, the player will stop playing a movie from the hard drive at any time,
no pattern to it or warning. This was an expensive buy for me with freight and dollar conversion
so I am not happy. To those reading this and contemplating purchasing the same make/model,
I advise going the safe way and buy new only. That way you get the manufacturers warranty.
You may need it. ..... or buy a Roku.
annoyedRead full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: lvelar0179

Very good alternative to Cable or Satellite. Youtube works well on this.

I bought this to replace my "Gbox Midnight" when it stopped outputting video and recognizing my hard drives. This unit is much easier to navigate than the Gbox but it seems to crash more. If you run Youtube, it will stream it very well but on occasion it will freeze up and act like its buffering even though it isn't. The main gripe with this unit and the only real one I have is the lack of a volume button on the remote. I have heard excuses like "it doesn't need one because you can get the android or apple app and just control the volume there." While this IS a solution (kinda) it randomly will not let you control the volume from the Android version and also the app stops detecting the WD Box requiring the app to be reinstalled to get it to recognize again. Its a cool app by all means and its free but its far from perfect and the remote SHOULD have a volume button! The GBox did and it worked with ALL videos not just some. Now about the good parts. Youtube can sync with your account via pc or phone and you can setup playlists and search for everything and play it extremely well. You can even have the videos show up on the phone and select them from there if you link the phone. It was very easy to setup while the Gbox was not as easy since it was Android. WD has their own operating system and it will update Firmware painlessly when they release them with a simple click. It has 2 USB ports and you can put 2 hard drives on it BUT you have to select which hard drive you want to play media from every time. Its not hard but its kinda silly and annoying when you keep your toddlers media on one and the rest of the families on another hard drive and you have to tell it to switch to the other via menu and then wait for it to redetect all the media on the hard drive. It does lag when switching between the different menus but so did the Gbox.
All in all this is a much better alternative to a cable or satellite bill especially with all the integration of media services. I bought this so my toddler could watch all her Youtube kids videos and it does it extremely well. I would very much recommend this unit to anyone but be advised that the remote does NOT have volume control and the unit come in PAL format instead of NTSC. A very simple fix is when the unit it turned on take a paperclip and push the tiny reset button until it restarts and it should be in NTSC. Worked for me.Read full review...

Small, simple, versatile with a couple quirks. Great addition.

Smaller than I thought, which is good. Remote is easy to use, but hideous (not a huge deal). Easy to hook up, on first boot it took a while but did well after that.

At first boot, I noticed there was firmware available for update. I did this, it took a little while & erased my settings but was worth it.

Used mainly for Netflix, Spotify & streaming from my home theater PC (HTPC). Performance is good over 802.11n wireless. One strange behavior is that every once in a while when streaming files from the HTPC, the player will randomly begin to play in a FF-like mode, skipping frames & no audio. It eventually picks back up to normal after sometimes 1:00 of play time, and sometimes requires a power on/off of the system. This only has happened maybe 4 times over the month I've used it. I've streamed dozens of files without a hitch, aside from those few times.

Plays ALL of my files/formats! Overall is a great little box for someone looking to cut the cable/satellite bill out completely, and who doesn't already have some sort of streaming box like an Xbox or PS3.Read full review...

Overall good media player with some minor issues. B+

Overall I like the unit after using it for 2 months and would recommend this product as long as you are willing to deal with some possible network issues.

Pros:

The WD TV Live has a easy to use menu and will display a very large file index from a network or usb location, currently I have over 5000 videos, pictures and music in hundreds of different sub-folders. I found that most TVs, blu-ray players and other media players have index limits (they would only recognize around 1200 files and or folders).

The WD TV Live has been able to play / open all of the media file formats that I current use with my PC, Playstation 3, iPhone 4s and iPad Air.

The WD TV Live has great picture and sound, better then our local cable service.

Automatic reminders about firmware and software updates.

Cons:

The WD TV has had some problems with my home network (WIFI), sometimes I have to unplug the unit to reset the network connection. I'm not sure if it is the media play or my wireless router that is causing the issue, but my other WIFI devices are not having any network problems. I'm hoping that a firmware update will soon be available to resolve this issue.Read full review...

Great product but a little slow.

Getting it setup was super easy and I really like that it has a remote control App for my iPhone. I used it with YouTube because the App has a keyboard but the remote doesn't.

The built-in "Services" or Apps are also good although I don't use them much. These tend to change from release to release though so I hope they keep the ones I like to use.

I've used it with a network share from a windows machine, a usb key, an external drive, and a SD reader. All worked fine. It supports windows and linux shares, but doesn't say anything about Mac.

The only downside I see is that it is kind of slow -- getting into YouTube takes time and then going through the menus takes time. For the price, it's great. I know others say use Boxee because it is faster and can support a browser, but that is twice the price or more.

I'd definitely get another one if I had the choice.Read full review...

Not good for Netflix and streaming

If you need a media player to play music and video files from your hard drive...this is the one...it plays just about any format I have. Love that part of it.

The wifi connection was seamless...no problem there.

So why only 3 stars...well, if you get this for streaming, especially to use netflix...don't bother. Connecting to netflix only works one out of 10 tries and often takes too long to do anything. In the once in a blue moon occasion that it plays a video from netflix, it works OK but good luck getting to connect to netflix and if you can, good luck navigating through the choices (you wait a minute to change something). Before you think it, it's not my wireless connection, my other netflix devices (bluray players) streams netflix without a single pause. It's definitely the WD. If you asked me to rate just for the streaming part, this gets a zero star from me.

Edit 7/11/13- I upgraded to a new wireless router (Netgear N600) and netflix is working perfectly now. I guess the WD is not compatible with certain router...I changed from 3 to 4 stars.Read full review...

A convenient substitute to play stored media to HD TV via a HDMI connection

Media player is a convenient device for feeding stored media to a TV without much hassle of connecting a laptop. This player can not decode some popular encoded data, such as FLV, WEBM, MP4. The remote control is bare and slow in response. The media streamer is wireless, but seems not at par with WDWBABX TV Live Plus in functionality. Both players are defaulted to 720P. Once power line is disconnected, you have to perform a setup to 1080p.
The descriptions are exact and precise, I still own and use both TV live and TV plus units, and really like them. In the interim, I brought three players of other brands made in China, either not function at all at the beginning or broke down soon after a short while (norm for products made in China). However, I only paid $60-
-70 for brand new items several years ago.Read full review...

Verified purchase: No

TV box

The box works well when it wants to. Sometimes the wifi stops working and I have to unplug it then plug it in to get it to work again. Many off the add-ons already installed are obsolete but instalation of new ones is fairly easy after minimal research. This box is worth the price, of course there are better ones. They will cost more.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: eforworldshop

Fabulous and no longer in production.

If, like me, you have a lifetime invested in DVD, converting to STREAM movies was a waste of money. I REFUSED to lose that investment. So, I spent 5-years converting all of my DVDs to MP4. Just over 3,000-titles. This box is the best appliance out there for playing them. Because, it has the QUEUE. With the QUEUE, you can select a series of movies, at random, and put them into the QUEUE. Then you just press PLAY, and "viola", you have your own personal on demand channel - and NO STREAMING of any kind needed.

It also does a FINE JOB of pulling the movie DVD cover and descriptions from TMDB and TVDB.

Best "Appliance" out there - bar none. I've tried several, like Roku, Netgear, and Amazon. None compare to the WD TV Live 1080PRead full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: refurbished | Sold by: grassroots-comp...