iboum.com : Future Entertainment Technology : WDTV Live

WDTV Live (WDTV2)
The successor to the highly successful WDTV. Similar to the original in interface and external design. Uses the Sigma 8655 chipset. The WDTV Live Plus was released for the USA in 2010 and offers additonal Netflix support.

The WDTV Live was one of the first Sigma 8655 players and has managed to maintain it's position as one of the best throughout the 865x chipset lifespan. It offers great format support, an attractive interface, and more power than many players of similar price. Add in the availability of unofficial firmwares via B-RAD (see link below) and you have a classic player.

Specification Summary

Launch Date October 2009 1346 days ago

Country USA

Ranking 109/580 ?

Player Type Media Player (Sigma)

Chipset Family Sigma 865x (2009) ?

Chipset Model Sigma 8655 @ 0.5Ghz Single Core

Chipset Rating 3 /5 ?

Storage USB (2)

Network 10/100 Ethernet Optional Wi-Fi(n) ?

Size 126 x 100 x 40mm Fan No

Video Outputs HDMI Component Composite

Audio Outputs HDMI Stereo Analog TOSLINK

DVD ISO Yes Blu-Ray ISO Yes. Simple (BD-Lite)

XBMC No ?

HD Audio	DTS Dmix	TrueHD Dmix	DTS-HD MA Dmix
HD Audio	DTS Pass	TrueHD Pass	DTS-HD MA Pass	?

Page last updated: 31-May-13

Links
• Offical Website
• Firmware Updates
• WDTV Forum /Live
• AVSForum /Live
• B-RAD Custom Firmware
• Thumbgen thumbnail generator
• Pre-release Firmware

Reviews
• Youtube GUI Video
• LegitReviews [Nov-09]
• TrustedReviews [Oct-09]
• Gizmodo Comparison [Nov-09]
• Customer Reviews

Places To Buy
• Amazon

• Amazon

• Google Shopping

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WDTV Live Discussion

Leave a Comment

1-30 of 66 Comments

ayyo

March 20, 2012 - 04:12

as little as i know about media players, i own both the live 2009 and live 2011 wdtv and i wouldn't trade my 2009 for 5x2011. the after market firmware really makes it special, it's lacking proper live sport streaming (for now, who knows what a still thriving independent community can do) but it does everything else from streaming porn to playing full bluray rips to a recently launched WDFlix channel. so with that i say it's still the best price to performance ratio.

Beryus – Germany

January 25, 2011 - 09:11

Does someone of you know where i can buy a WD TV Live for around 70 Euro in Germany? I only get offers for more than 90 Euro. If there are no offers for around 70 Euro so you can change description to 90 Euro on this site.
Btw, would you still recommend to buy a WD TV Live in 2011? It's more than 1 year old so i think there will come out some new nice WD players this year. I'm thinking about buying a WD TV Live but i also think about the future players. I really need a good advice what i shall do now. Thanks.

Reply to Beryus

marsak – Romania

February 04, 2011 - 13:50

My advice ... wait a little bit ... the new products will be better because of the processors performances.
All the best.

mrm2k7

December 02, 2010 - 16:26

Does this player support internet Radio?

outlaw – UK

October 26, 2010 - 17:35

WDTV live hub announced.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=891

Meth – UK

August 10, 2010 - 15:27

Anyone know the boot up time of this device? From cold.. I wanna know if its quick enough. Also I hear the custom FW is 25s faster to boot which kinda implies this is slow to boot. Time to boot custom'd box is also helpful. Thanks

Noble – Uk

August 09, 2010 - 21:20

There is new WD element Play Out.

www.wdc.com

Looks promising.

Reply to Noble

iboum

August 10, 2010 - 09:56

Added today. Odd device, doesn't look too great overall:

www.iboum.com

Outlaw – Uk

July 19, 2010 - 01:44

A quick question if anybody can answer that.
Has the new firmware resolved the subtitles size and position options?
wats the maximum large size can be set for subtitles with the new firmware?

cheers

Hristo – Bulgaria

July 15, 2010 - 05:05

Is it really capable of downmixing Dolby True HD and passing it to a TV as stereo? I would really love to have that feature.

Dave

June 10, 2010 - 14:33

Shouldn't it say "DVD ISO: Yes. With menu." now? Apparently the latest pre-release beta firmware 1.03.22 finally adds this feature, though possibly they did this just so existing users of the Live wouldn't get pi**ed off that the Live Plus was released so soon. Otherwise I'm sure knowing how shameless and useless WD/WD Support is, they'd have never added this feature to the Live ever.

Also, kindly update the firmware updates list above, 'cos it stops at 1.01.24.

June 10, 2010 - 09:36

WD you are not on my top 1 any more......
you are starting to be just like xtreamer . promise something from your player and when it is coming , you come out with new player with all the support that was promise , and leave people out in the cold that bought your player be for thish version .. shame on you WD

I bought WDTV (mk1) it was ok player but FW from you stop...
then you came with WDTV Live. i bought that one and it is really nice player but still no dvd menu and still have some problems and so little fw support
now you come out with new wd-live just call it WDTV Live Plus. and fix things from live that need to be fix, in stead of come out with new fw for live and fix the problem
again leave us out in the cold
i am not going to by more media players from you. after this stunt of yours

May 17, 2010 - 06:45

Nice mediaplayer but when i bought it i thought it could play
DTS-HD MA audio not down mixing it to DTS

But live works pretty good

chirag – India

April 20, 2010 - 05:11

if i supports ISO files without menu, how do we choose different Audio streams? Like Dolby 5.1 , Stereo etc

Reply to chirag

xmenpt

May 04, 2010 - 16:11

Did you try the subtitles or audio button when the movies are playing to see if it change.........?

Reply to chirag

xtream – spain

May 10, 2010 - 21:04

can someone confirm if this can select diferent subtitles or audio streams from iso or folder movie ?????

thx

Reply to chirag

Yak

May 12, 2010 - 17:57

Yes these settings can be selected with the "Option" button on the remote while the movie is playing. It's very simple.

vlad – iasi

January 21, 2010 - 12:43

AVC TrueHD movies with sound dd
truehd not hear. why?

Reply to vlad

Nelson

March 02, 2010 - 00:13

Do you have a compatible receiver or DAC to decode the Dolby TrueHD signal?

Note the SPDIF interface, optical or coaxial, does not support TrueHD or DTS-MA due to the bandwidth limitation. The HDMI interface is required to support the TrueHD or DTS-MA passthru.

Reply to vlad

Megachip

March 31, 2010 - 17:35

The HDMI interface is required to support the TrueHD or DTS-MA passthru.

Did it have DTS-MA passthru?

WDTV ThumbGen

January 19, 2010 - 09:30

In order to generate thumbnails for any WDTV player you can try the ThumbGen app ( thumbgen.blogspot.com); was written specially for WDTV Players

sjk

January 15, 2010 - 15:34

Based on what I've read WDTVL only supports 480i using composite, not component, connections. Any idea if it could be added with a future firmware update? If not, any recommendations for a comparably priced media player that currently supports 480i over component? Or maybe it's better to wait to upgrade my old EyeHome (and suffer with it's lack of H.264 support) until after eventually upgrading my TV, then reevaluate which products are available then.

Useful site, btw, especially the "Chipsets in Media Players" page. Thanks.

James Taylor – California

January 13, 2010 - 21:16

I will never buy any of these media players unless they get this blu-ray menu and subtitle thing sorted out.
I think the HDI Dune player can do this though. So it can't be a licensing problem. Western Digital should really sort out their act and make a machine that works, so using a PC to play this media, becomes a thing of the past.

matt

January 12, 2010 - 22:02

Like I wrote on October 15th (below), I've not been having much luck getting a network connection from my WDTV Live. I now convinced it's due to the unit's incredibly heat sensitive network hardware.

Reply to matt

matt

January 12, 2010 - 22:03

Should point out though that most people seem to have no such problem. Maybe I just got a lemon...

ano – Thailand

January 11, 2010 - 03:32

When shut down by remote control, does the machine completely turn off power to the USB external HDD?

Reply to ano

Yak

May 12, 2010 - 18:00

Yes, the connected USB hard drive on my unit powers off and on via the WDTV Live player.

tony – california

December 31, 2009 - 16:12

anyone got issues with blu ray mpg4 compress files? mine play fine for the fist 28 minutes and then went into fast forward.

Reply to tony

Manu – Canada

March 23, 2010 - 04:15

Hello Tony
Were you able to figure out this issue of mp4 files automatically ff's after 28 mins

Thanks

Erik DK

December 27, 2009 - 14:48

Nice Box but it looks like menu support for dvd movies isnt gonna happind. To big a compromise for me, I returned mine.