WD TV Live Streaming Media Player

[DaGaffer]

Anyone got any experience of these? Missus wants a TV in the kitchen, but there's no easy way to put an ariel in and portable ariels suck donkey balls in our area. However, what is in the kitchen is a nice ethernet socket thanks to our lovely 100MB Fibre connection. So I was thinking of getting one of these and a little flat screen portable so she could watch the media library, but I also wanted to understand how it does catchup telly, is it apps or can you do it via a browser? Problem with apps is that for obvious reasons iPlayer and ITV Player don't work here (although 4OD does in part) and the local RTE and TV3 catch up services are browser based only. There's also a streaming service that does all the terrestrial channels, but that too is only browser-based. Question is, can this box deal with that, or is access only by onboard apps?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/tech-data/B005NYOKC2/ref=de_a_smtd

 

[Raven]

Can't you get any room remote and have the kitchen TV display whatever is on the main box? I know you can do this with Sky...I don't know what you get on in Ireland.

If you have a network at home what you posted looks excellent though...actually tempted myself as the PS3 is not really that great, it stutters far too much sometimes.

 

[DaGaffer]

Can't you get any room remote and have the kitchen TV display whatever is on the main box? I know you can do this with Sky...I don't know what you get on in Ireland.

If you have a network at home what you posted looks excellent though...actually tempted myself as the PS3 is not really that great, it stutters far too much sometimes.

Don't really want to do that - I'd prefer to be able to let the missus control her own programming, otherwise I'll only end up stuck with what she wants to watch even when she's not in the room.

What I really need to do is put the whole network on a VPN so I can access all the UK services, but that's not as straightforward as it looks because I'd have to stick everything through the router, which is a bit a waste of all the FTH sockets (I tend to use wireless n for the internal network but let devices get out on to the internet directly through the FTH where possible)

 

[Trem]

Do the WDTV streamers not have the Cinavia protection on them now, you know, in case DaG were to want to stream movies?

The Asus O!Play would be my choice for a budget streamer luv. Having said that I haven't really been impressed with internet tv on my streamers, a bit toss in all honesty.

 

[Moriath]

i got one of these the other week and its played everything i have thrown at it.... also has web radio and lots of other stuff on it... I love it and it plays everything upto including 1080p DTS movies without a stutter wired network ofcourse .. 1080 wouldnt stream well over wireless.

 

[DaGaffer]

Do the WDTV streamers not have the Cinavia protection on them now, you know, in case DaG were to want to stream movies?

The Asus O!Play would be my choice for a budget streamer luv. Having said that I haven't really been impressed with internet tv on my streamers, a bit toss in all honesty.

Doesn't have to be super quality, just good enough to have on when she has a toddler running around, a four month old demanding attention and she's trying to make their lunch. I'll take a look at the Asus.

 

[Yaka]

i had the exact same issue we have 3 ethernet connections in the kitchen but no aerial. mrs tried a friends apple tv 2, and kept on yapping on about so i got it hooked it. simple thing did netflix and love films preety well. till i realised you could run xbmc on it and going by the xbmc forums you should be able to get iplayer, itv player, 4od etc working fine. if you hate apple 100% then place an order for raspberry pi and wait a bit for it to arrive that also runs xbmc fine

 

[Moriath]

if you want something out of the box that you dont have to hack around the wdtv will work fine for you

 

[Hawkwind]

i got one of these the other week and its played everything i have thrown at it.... also has web radio and lots of other stuff on it... I love it and it plays everything upto including 1080p DTS movies without a stutter wired network ofcourse .. 1080 wouldnt stream well over wireless.

Same experience, I have 3 of them around the house and they work great over a wired network. Plays everything, even a ripped DVD in ISO format with menus. For a cheap item it is still the best around for the price. The DLink Boxee is also good.

 

[DaGaffer]

i had the exact same issue we have 3 ethernet connections in the kitchen but no aerial. mrs tried a friends apple tv 2, and kept on yapping on about so i got it hooked it. simple thing did netflix and love films preety well. till i realised you could run xbmc on it and going by the xbmc forums you should be able to get iplayer, itv player, 4od etc working fine. if you hate apple 100% then place an order for raspberry pi and wait a bit for it to arrive that also runs xbmc fine

I was given to understand XMBC for raspberry pi isn't actually ready yet? Then again neither is Raspberry Pi itself by the looks of things; you have to get an invitation to buy one!

 

[MYstIC G]

I was given to understand XMBC for raspberry pi isn't actually ready yet? Then again neither is Raspberry Pi itself by the looks of things; you have to get an invitation to buy one!

You can get them from RS Components, though I did have to register my interest. On the plus side they've switched things up now and RS actually fabricate them now so the RaspberryPi foundation can't fuck up the fabrication processes anymore.

Took my RaspberryPi and plugged it into my TV via HDMI. It runs OpenELEC (basically a pre-wrapped XBMC and barebones linux) and yesterday it was playing 1080p files on my television directly from my NAS. It does audio over HDMI as well which was a double bonus for me as I was never sure if my TV actually handled that (because it's a Medion) but it does.

 

[Yaka]

yep its anifty thingie. tho i got one through farnell first got a 2nd coming from rs in weeks time. shame how the raspberry foundation cunted things up. oh yes stirr up interest by doing tons of press event and then fuck things up when half the world wanted to order one