The WD TV is a consumer device produced by Western Digital that plays videos, images, and music from USB drives. It can play high-definition video through an HDMI port, and standard video through composite video cables. It can play most common video and audio formats.

Models[link]

WD TV devices come in six versions:

WD TV (1st Gen)[link]

In November 2008 Western Digital introduced the WD TV.^[1] with full HD 1080p multimedia player with DTS pass-through only.^[2] The hardware starts with a 300 MHz TangoX MIPS 4KEc from Sigma Designs, which has 100 MB of memory.^[3][4]

WD TV (2nd Gen)[link]

Updated device with 2-channel DTS support.^[5] Uses the same Sigma SMP8655 Secure Media Processor as the Live.

WD TV Mini[link]

Released in Fall 2009,^[6] it was a Media Player with DVD quality, upscales to 1080i, Plays back RealVideo and many other popular file formats with no need for transcoding, but lacks the ability to play H.264 encoded video.

WD TV Live (1st gen)[link]

Released in Fall 2009^[7] with Full HD 1080p resolution. An updated device with 2-channel DTS, streaming and network support, which comes in the form of an Ethernet port on the back. Also compatible with certain wireless USB adapters.^[8] Connects to internet sites: YouTube, Flickr, Live365, Pandora, Mediafly, Flingo, AccuWeather, Facebook or stream content from a home network. Supports a wide variety of the most popular file formats. No need for transcoding. Mediafly and DVD menu support added in firmware update.

The Sigma Designs SMP8655 SoC inside the WD TV Live features a 500 MHz CPU, a 333 MHz coprocessor, a 333 MHz DSP, 512 MB of DRAM, and 256 MB of NAND flash memory. Western Digital has tweaked the original Sigma SMP8600 Family design slightly by including 6 video Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) which should give it the ability to handle high-def content with ease.^[9]

WD TV Live Plus[link]

Released early in 2010^[10] and having all the features of the WD TV Live along with Netflix streaming support. In order to support Netflix, a macrovision enabled SoC was required (Sigma Designs SMP8654) and the Linux system is also now encrypted.^[11] However, actual user experience has lagged for some. As of April 12th, 2011^[12], Netflix Canada works on a WD Live TV Plus as long as the firmware has been upgraded to version 1.04.31_B or newer (versions 1.04.18_B or older are *NOT* compatible with Netflix Canada). It is also known as WDTV Live Plus (Model number WDBABX0000NBK, WDBREC0000NBK, WDBG3A0000NBK).

Reviews:WD TV Live Plus was met with generally positive reviews. Review Horizon names it a worthy successor of WD TV Live.

WD TV Live Hub[link]

Released in fall 2010,^[13] this is a WD TV Live device with an internal 1 TB storage disk. It uses the same Sigma Designs SMP8654 found in the WD TV Live Plus with four 64 MB Nanya NT5TU64M16GG DDR2 667/800 MHz modules (256 MB total), and a 2 GB Samsung K9F2G080UB flash chip.

WD TV Live Streaming[link]

Released in October 2011^[14]. It has customizable themes, a larger remote control, can get content information from the internet, plays DRM protected services, has a built-in wireless adapter, and is the first WD TV model to include the Spotify service. It is also known as WDTV Live Gen 3 (NTSC model number WDBHG70000NBK, PAL model number WDBGXT0000NBK).

Hacking[link]

The WD TV has been hacked to enable further options, including using external optical drives, Ethernet connection via USB to Ethernet adapters, bittorrent downloading and improved thumbnail preview images.^[15] The newest versions of the WD TV (Streaming Media) have encrypted firmware and there are efforts to continue hacking them ^[16].

References[link]

17.wiTV: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.wellink.nettv

External links[link]

• Official website