Question 1

Is there a monthly fee that has to be paid for this to work properly?

Accepted Answer

Not sure what you mean by "properly". Its a media box that connects to a tv / projector to bring audio / video / pictures to that output. There is no fee if you use the USB port or your internal network to send the file it needs to display. If you want to use another service like Hulu or Netflix you will need an account. (with that service, Western Digital isn't into streaming media, that I know of)

The web page says the following:

File Formats Not Supported 
Does not support protected premium content such as movies or music from the iTunes Store, Movielink, Amazon Unbox, and Vongo

So be aware that it can't talk to all the online services out there.

Another way to think of it is its like an X -box if you took away the video game portion.

Question 2

If i plug a usb hard drive with videos on it into this media player will i be able to see this hard drive from a computer on the network?  I want to be able to delete or add videos to a drive plugged into this thing.  is that possible?

Accepted Answer

Daniel, just tried it with a USB thumb drive.  I created a folder, wrote 1 gig .MKV file to it.  Then I deleted it.  One thing I did note, and it may be becasue I used a thumb drive, it was hands off the file until it was written to the WD share.  Another words I could not cancel the the transfer.  Transfer did transfer at exceptable speed, Windows 7 made it seem stuck. However it transfered fine.  I really think this issue is a buffering thing with a thumb drive.  I just checked with a hard drive.  Works a lot better.  I would say you will be fine.

Question 3

will this device play videots files from an external hard drive to a flat screen tv?

Accepted Answer

Yes, of course.  One of its functions is to play videos from an external source (USB flash drive or hard drive).  Just plug your external hard drive into the USB port.  Note: the USB port is USB 2 so it's on the slow side but should play fine.  This WD TV Live box connects to your flat screen TV (AV or HDMI) so anything you play from this box will display on your TV.

Question 4

Does it have a web browser?

Accepted Answer

No not that i know of but there is some chatter about how to add chrom [was going to add a link but newgate wont let me . Do a google serch thers a link on how to add a chrom app. For the price it works for what I want.  I have had a Sony and a rykio? Sorry bad spelling.  And I didn't like them on locked up all the time and Sony had such small font I had to get up close to read most text cumbersome. Wd is not perfect but does everything is want. I also have a chrome cast Donegal that I like a lot.
hope this helps

Question 5

I have all my movies saved on an external hard drive (mix of avi, mp4, mkv, etc.). Are there restrictions to the size of the hard drive you use to plug into the WD TV Live Media Player? I know some products I have seen will not recognize a drive of a certain size. Thanks for the help!

Accepted Answer

I have two of these I have 3TB NAS as my storage spot for all of my media. As far as I know, there are no restrictions on drive size. I should point out that my drive is a 3TB MyBook Live, so I would not think that WD products wouldn't work together.

If your drive is something other than a WD, I would make sure it's compatible (it should be), but I have not heard of anyone having issues with the WDTV Live not recognizing drives of certain sizes. Usually when there are drive size compatibility issues, this refers to internal drives (formatted in NTFS on Windows). Externals are usually standalone and formatted in Linux so they don't have that issue.

Hope this helps.

Question 6

Does this compress the videos it streams from a network connected computer or do they look just as if they were played directly from the computer. Also does it lag when pulling the list of videos? thanks

Accepted Answer

We may be struggling a bit on terminology here, but let me give you my view.

I don't really think WDTV Live can "compress" anything - it has the ability to decode/play many different formats.  It will convert that format to whatever resolution you tell it to, up to 1080p (thru HDMI).  You can't tell that the source video is coming from a computer.

Whether there is lag or not depends on (1) where your video files and stored (2) speed of network connection (including wired vs wireless) and (3) the number of video files you have (4) probably some other stuff that I'm not aware of.

Hope this helps

Question 7

If i have a TV, and i buy this one. can i watch Free channels? or do i still need cable service to watch some specific channels? such as HBO, etc. please help.

Accepted Answer

This is a nice web box, you can watch live tv only if you already have a Hauppauge Card on your home PC, a Sling Player or something called Skitter TV?  It has no inputs other than a USB
for hard drives etc.  I'v used it to watch HULU and Netflix on an old 24 CRT Toshiba, I know, that's so 1990's! but it works, video is excellent... controls are a bit slow, and the tile info in netflix is hard to read.  This is really good if you have movies on a hard drive, this is not like TIVO at all...
Hope this helps

Question 8

I have a Seagate Backup plus 6tb drive that I have hooked up and it is not reading the whole disc? Very slow to respond? Any suggestions

Accepted Answer

Use USB... works faster, more reliable. This little box is great but does have it's limitations.

Question 9

can it handle a 6tb exturnal hard drive ?

Accepted Answer

I only used 3tb external HD on it so far with no problems because that's the biggest I own , if I had a 6tb I know there wouldn't be any problems.  This WD media player performs flawlessly.

Question 10

Does this product stream movies, HBO, and Showtime programming?

Accepted Answer

I'm not sure about HBO and Showtime since I don't subscribe to either of them.  But it does a great job streaming Netflix, 
I'm actually using an older version of the WD Live Media Player.
My version only shows, among the other options, Netflix, but not Showtime or HBO.

So I can only tell you that Netflix works great.

Brand	Western Digital
Model	WDBHG70000NBK-HESN

TV Standards	NTSC
Remote Control	Remote Included

Interface	Wireless
Video Format	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, FLV (h.264)
Audio	MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Image Format	JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Ports In	USB 2.0, Ethernet
Ports Out	HDMI, Composite A/V, Wi-Fi, Optical audio

WD TV Live Media Player WDBHG70000NBK-HESN

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Item#: N82E16822136997