Western Digital WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player

Pros: Plays almost any media format, had this model since it first came out..stil the best out there, my brother in law got himself a sony hd player(not a match for this model)...I did buy him the newer model of this product..but that one sucks...it stutters at high frame rates when it heats up...the problem with that one , I notice is it has no ventilation holes...heats up very fast..tried to look for this model ..but it's not being sold anymore...A very good product for WD ...

Cons: no wifi..simple graphics..but who needs them anyway...

Other Thoughts: Definately a keeper.. . worth every penny you pay for it...and more...the best one out there..

Pros: This thing plays any type of video file I can throw at it. MKVs, VOBs, AVIs, MP4s, Blueray m2ts, etc. etc. The one time it refused to play a certain new file, I easily updated its firmware, and then the file played! I was impressed.

I use it all the time and it's still working great. I used to use my Xbox 360 for streaming video from my PC, but it can't play nearly the variety of file types that the WD TV Live Plus can.

Cons: The GUI could be better. It's clunky, and can take a long time to scroll through your files if there are a lot of them in one folder. The Netflix GUI on Xbox 360 is much better.

Pros: Small form-factor, plays full HD with no lag, basic configuration is easy, works as advertised for the most part, Netflix & Pandora.

Cons: Slow boot-up, slow menu response, very little documentation on setting up playlists. VERY slow loading playlists. Random/Shuffle is not very "random". Unit became defective after a year of casual use. No wifi. No favorites or shortcuts. Boot time is probably over 60 seconds and video cuts out half way through boot up so it is a little deceiving. It takes a long time to navigate to where you want. There are no favorites or shortcuts to things you access regularly. Playlists for music are a joke. If you have more than 500 songs, playlists can take minutes to load, sitting in silence with no activity. This is assuming you can figure out how to configure your playlists to locate songs in your library (assuming you don't keep everything in one huge genre-unspecific directory). Downloading album art is not friendly, smart, or even available through the device itself. Unit now stops playing media files after about 30 min. Have to reboot to get it to work again. I won't buy another one.

Other Thoughts: This unit is okay. Configures pretty quickly if you don't have a very complex library. In a word, it is clunky. However, it serves its purpose at the price point. I wish it didn't have a 1 year 1 month time-bomb in it though.

Pros: nice and small; plays iso's (and most other stuff) from my server (although at one point it was flaky and didn't recognize them - only happened once so far).

Cons: Either this or my WD network over powerline is causing stuttering in videos. Will need further testing on that. The UI and remote combo is sluggish leading to a bad experience in menu navigation. The "channels" included are mostly whack.

Other Thoughts: need to test the "skipping" in movies.

Pros: A post holiday sale lead me to buy a new 5000 series Samsung "smart" TV. In some ways the WD is surpassed but in shear versatility it is not. The Samsung has better "image area management". The Samsung seems always to more correctly display maximum image area with least stretching. The WD TV, on the other hand, will play any format I throw at it. If I back out of a movie it will return to that same frame later. Much more smarts than the smart Samsung. Please see more details under other thoughts.
Both do Blu-ray recordings perfectly.

Cons: WDTV stumbles and hesitates and loses video-audio sync when running movie across wireless G network. Have not tried wired or N.
Better than the original WDTV version 1 but image geometry remains less than optimal.

Other Thoughts: smart TV = SMT; WD TV Live = WD; SMT/WD
All video formats SMT/WD no/yes
Remembers where in movie no/yes
Easy home network setup no/yes
internet access firmware up/limited
Intuitive remote and menuing no/yes
Image area optimization 10/6
USB power sufficient for HDD no/yes
Blu-ray MKV audio+video yes/yes both beautiful
(STV requires both USB for sufficient power to 2.5 inch 500GB Hitachi - WDTV will handle on 1 USB 9 tries out of 10)

Americans are more accustomed to fat stretched faces and likely the WDTV stretched formats are acceptable. STV images are generally maintain more realistic proportion.

Despite WDTV superior versatility, the STV image is more correct. WDTV used when the smart TV cannot read a file or for web access.

Note: I live in Malaysia. International 5000 series Samsung may have different firmware compared to US version. WDTV Live is US version from Newegg.

Pros: Plays most typical media formats (exceptions, see cons), from both NTFS and FAT32 drives. Nice menus, easy to navigate. Usual fast delivery and value from Newegg.

Cons: Description is flawed. Does not include WiFi. Is WiFi capable with external adapter, not included. Description is misleading. While this will play MOV video, will not play the audio from them, at least those with embedded PCM audio (from our camcorder).

Other Thoughts: Would have given it 5 stars if it weren't for the misleading and flawed items in the description mentioned in the "Cons" above.

Pros: plays anything I have,including iso. files

Cons: haven't ran into one yet

Pros: Plays MKV/H.264/AAC videos flawlessly over a gigabit CIFS line, does Netflix flawlessly

Cons: It takes a while to boot and be ready to start streaming

Other Thoughts: Honestly I love this thing. For what I do (streaming video playlists over a GigE network via CIFS) its awesome. It works with Samba (I use a Linux host), and practically never has any network issues. It seems like it caches the entire current video in-memory so even if there are hiccups in your network, it doesn't translate to the video. It streams 1080p MKV video without any issues whatsoever. I'll have this thing running for days at a time without any issues. Getting playlists working is a bit of a challenge, I have to create them in a tool like VLC, then open up the M3U playlist in a text editor and change the absolute paths to relative paths, but that's honestly not a huge deal (more of my software's problem than WD's). WD keeps the firmware up to date and things are just smooth.

Pros: This little player is awesome. Plays everything I have thrown at it so far. Could not be happier. Have it on my home network with a network accessible folder to watch all my Downloads on the living room TV. Watching H264 on a 56 in screen is quite a site. And this player plays everything flawlessly.

Cons: None that I can think of. The UI is a little cumbersome but once set up is complete it's easy peasy.

Pros: This little box has played everything I've thrown at it. No problems at all. None of my movies or music lag. Netflix works very well with this product also. It supports my 3TB external hard drive after firmware update. Easy to use interface. If you have to stop in the middle of a movie, it does give the option to resume or restart.

Cons: It does have slow boot time when it is first turned on. Remote is too small.

Other Thoughts: I have recommended this to several family & friends. A few have bought it & have not had any problems with it. It's a must have for any movie or music buff.