WD TV Live owner confused about upgrading... Please help!

[spoonman]

Hey,

I've owned a WD TV Live (WDBAAN0000NBK-NESN) for a couple of years now and I really want something better

(Faster loading, better shared folder options, Netflix/Amazon VOD support).

I was lead astray with a Roku 2 XS box. I really love the channels, app support, and more, but no shared folder streaming

was a terrible idea on their part. So now I have to return that, but I am confused to what is Western Digital's newest model and I want to be 100% sure that they still have the old stuff available on my WDBAAN0000NBK model such

as Flingo, and all of the codec support.

I also can't figure out the newest/best model because of the pricing and details don't add up IMO.

Western Digital WD TV Live Streaming Media Player - WDBHG70000NBK-HESN is $99 on Amazon

Western Digital WD TV Live Plus 1080p HD Media Player is $185 on Amazon (This is the older model, right?)

Western Digital WD TV Live Network-ready HD Media Player is $189 on Amazon.

Any advise would be great. I need to let Amazon know what I'm exchanging this for ASAP. Thanks.

[Techflaws]

Live Streaming is the most current model with the most features.

[spoonman]

Thanks for the info.

Do you know if there is a chart somewhere that shows the differences between all of the WD models?

I also can't find out if the new model has the same stuff I like from the WD Live TV (Flingo, Revision3, etc..).

I can't find any mention of Amazon VOD on it either so I'm guessing WD and Amazon aren't playing nice.

[stoney1973]

Erm...the roku does actually stream content from shared folders. install plex media server on the pc,point it towards your movies/tv/music folders and then install the plex app on the roku, and thats it.

[spoonman]

Thanks for the reply.
Is Plex similar to the other PC based Media Center programs?

I have the PlayOn streaming program already, but the problem is my PC is too slow to transcode 1080p MKV streams.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I'm assuming Plex handles media the same way as the others, as in it doesn't use the processing power of the Roku to decode anything, but instead relies on the PC/program to handle the decoding/encoding.

The Roku is more than capable of decoding these formats at high bitrate+1080p resolution, but my PC is not.

[vango44]

The latest version of Playon has a setting to pass selected types of files directly to the device if it supports it.

I can confirm it works on the WDTV  with 720P avi & mp4 but I haven't tested with 1080P

[stoney1973]

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spoonman wrote:

Thanks for the reply.
Is Plex similar to the other PC based Media Center programs?

I have the PlayOn streaming program already, but the problem is my PC is too slow to transcode 1080p MKV streams.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I'm assuming Plex handles media the same way as the others, as in it doesn't use the processing power of the Roku to decode anything, but instead relies on the PC/program to handle the decoding/encoding.

The Roku is more than capable of decoding these formats at high bitrate+1080p resolution, but my PC is not.

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Thats something you would probably be better off asking in the roku forums(partly so as to not derail this thread, partly because I'm not sure, because I only stream 720p content). All I can say is that I've had no streaming problems so far, as in it plays 720p mp4,avi.mkvs no problem.

[spoonman]

I tried it and it was extremely laggy so it must be reliant on the PC for transcoding.

It's no big deal. I returned the Roku 2 and will buy the WD TV Live Streaming.

I'd mainly like to know if the WD TV Live Streaming supports the internet stuff that my WD Live TV has
(Flingo, Revision3, etc..).

And if they have or plan on adding Amazon VOD.