I've absolutely had it with my WDTV SMP. It has been an absolute piece of shit from day 1. The latest firmware update has taken away my ability to browse network shares and removed ABC iView.

After 5 hours of tinkering to try and get a basic form of networking going on the unit I decided to take it out the back and put it out of its misery. Three slams against the brick barbecue and that was that. For good measure I gave it a hit with a crate and that really did a good job. I can now see inside and all the leaking capacitors and general destruction make me feel really good. Photos provided on request.

I'm not adverse to building a HTPC but would much prefer an all-in-one (simplicity of use for the Mrs). The only requirements are (working) network connectivity (preferably 802.11n), ABC iView and SBS on Demand.

Only one rule: no Western Digital crap.

Cheers

WDTV Live

Another WDTV Live user here....I wanted something simple for the wifey to use. Only gripe is the lack of quick browsing of the large movie folder with letters i.e. T doesn't auto jump to say Terminator. Next page.....Next page.....Next page.

WDTV Live. I've got one and plays everything I throw at it.

Grimy, set up your movies folder to have: A-M, N-Z or something. That helps heaps.

I have a WDTV Hub Live and very iffy on it. Sure it plays damn near everything you throw at it but fuck me the UI is ugly as hell. I can't even find a nice skin for it that doesn't require you to spend hours upon hours screwing around with a thumbgen going through your movie and tv files. I wanted to just use Plex but all it seems to load is the thumbnail and nothing else.

sony blu ray player, under $100, and it will stream no problems, and the media player is good, and the menus easy to use (also, all your net channels are there, iview etc)

oh, it will also play blu rays

yeah I went the Sony Wifi enabled blueray player ~2 weeks back from JB Hifi.. though I'm a little ticked off that I have to select 'Video' before choosing a machine on the network to play videos from, instead of just browsing the network. (( *edit - to be clear here.. unless I choose this path, the player allows me to search through folders yet finds no playable files :/ )

I do like that it's DLNA enabled, though it drops out. My kids don't like that much.


Still no firmware update available to fix the bugs which is surprising given it's 'a Sony'.


Oh... and for some reason the volume function doesn't work (*edit - on the Sony remote). I'm guessing it's only there if I was silly enough to buy a Sony TV as well.


Still, all content plays perfectly off USB external HDDs and USB sticks.. though I expected more from a machine with the Sony label on it.


I wouldn't recommend this over a semi decent HTPC for anyone who's OCD about the quality of their equipment, but most consumers would tolerate it. Personally I'm thinking it's a cheapie mass produced POS that Sony picked up from another market and paid a pittance for and told their tech support people to tell callers to 'RTM' knowing they'll get away with it.


still - great blueray player.. I just wish I could change the volume with the Sony remote instead of the TV one.

last edited by koopz at 22:40:09 20/Dec/12

last edited by koopz at 22:46:32 20/Dec/12

my tv plays stuff straight off my DLNA server. I'm not sure about iview but I think it has sbs on demand as an app or plugin or whatever you'd call it.

I've only used WMC and XBMC and they both suck, and frustratingly what one does right the other does wrong and vice versa.

I'm gonna go down the raspberry pi + xbmc (with Openelec) soon. I'm sick of not being able to resume/pause/skip/seek with the wdtv live or xbox360 with TVersity.

But, you can do all that with WDTV Live? At least my one can, am I magical or something?

But, you can do all that with WDTV Live? At least my one can, am I magical or something?

If I try it with anything remotely high res, doesn't work.

Is XMBC easy to set up?

I keep putting off rebuilding my parents old machine, so I currently play my movies/tv shows through my crappy Netbook, onto the tele.

WDTV would suit if I didn't want to build this PC.
But if I did, go with something like XMBC?

Is XMBC easy to set up?

Well, it depends on what operating system you host it on (if any), and the hardware you use.

I'm current running openelec ( http://openelec.tv ) on my Asrock, which is a completely pre-packaged thing. You get a USB stick, use a program to write the OpenElec software onto the USB stick, plug the USB stick into the Asrock and then boot off the USB stick. Its pretty darn simple, but thats only because I specifically bought this Asrock because I know openelec supported it.

From that point, its just a (comparitvely expensive) dedicated media player; all configuration is done from within XBMC itself.

I think OpenElec will also work on general PCs , as long as the CPU is fast enough to do the decoding.

If you run it on Windows, then its no harder than installing any other Windows software. If you want to do HD, make sure the hardware has a supported h264 decoder (eg, my Asrock) or a fast enough CPU.

http://www.eyo.com.au/253495_asrock-ion3d-152d-mini-barebone-atom-d525-nvidia-gt218-ion-dvd-rw-gbl-vga-hdmi-black.html is the Asrock I'm talking about. Add in the cost of a memory stick and a USB thumbdrive and its just short of $400

Thanks for the suggestions. That asrock box looks like a great solution for the main theatre. I'll be taking a look at building a mini itx htpc first but if the asrock unit is cheaper (most likely) then I'll go in that direction.

I'm looking at a the Astone A108 (Android Smart TV) which looks to be very flexible. It doesn't have apps for ABC iView or SBS on Demand (yet) but the PS3 can take over those duties for now.