Amazing WDTV Live Box!!!

[blueskydriver]

Hey Everyone,

Okay, le me start by saying "have you ever purchased something and just put off setting the thing up or installing it?". Well, I purchased a WDTV Live Box over 2 years ago (yes, 2 years ago) and left it in the box all that time. Funny thing is, I kept it about 3 feet from my chair and under the desk; thus, I looked at it every day, yet I did not touch it.

Tonight, I decided to open it up and install it. Mind you, I bought this device to use with a laptop and a external USB drive, so I could put all of my DVD movies (almost 500 DVD's) onto the drive and watch them via this setup. I knew this thing worked with watching YouTube Videos, as well as other online video services, but I didn't know how well until now!

Yep, I hooked it up to a 40 inch LCD Screen via an HDMI cable, hooked up the network cable and went through the settings menus to initalize everything. After two firmware updates that were automatic, I was enjoying a whole new world of YouTube, let alone the DVD movies I've yet to transfer onto the drive...

Anyway, I wanted to tell you all this because if you ever wanted to learn anything about cockpits or anything else for that matter, you can use this box with a large screen in High Definition (HD) and you will see more than you could ever imagine. I just watched a real cockpit video and I could see textures and even dirt in the grooves in the knobs...sounds silly right? However, I could tell you how many lines were in the knob itself by visually counting them, or I could eve see the wear marks on many other things...that is how amazing this all looked!

Here is the actual link:

HD Cockpit Scenes - 737 Start Up

I know there is another member on CB that has this very same box, but I cannot remember who it is or his post (I will search later). Anyhow, he touched on the same idea of this. Furthermore, it was he that got my mind going about getting this thing setup. After all this time I cannot believe what I have been missing! Forget desktop computer screens, Ipads or laptops, they have nothing on this setup!

Finally, I even watched some of the CB builders' youtube videos already (like Nat's post from today)...talk about incredible! I could go on and on, but I will just finish by saying this:

"YOU SERIOUSLY GOT TO GET ONE OF THESE THINGS!!!"

John

[blueskydriver]

I have to add more info to this post already! I have been going through all the other internet channels beyond youtube; there are countless channels of videos, pictures, music, radio stations, tv stations, and just about anything you can think of. Not the stuff you see on the satellite dish or forced too you from a cable service.

Instead, you can watch series shows that people like you and I would make, but make them just as good as Hollywood. At this very moment I am watching the "Flying" channel. It has all kinds of videos just to do with Aircraft. There are company videos from Cessna and many other shows, like this past years Air Venture at Oshkosh presented in a real, non-commericalized version of it. More like watching a movie about the show and it not being overhyped to sell ads.

Anyway, I cannot believe what I have stumbled onto and yet, it sit here for all this time! Goes to show that sometimes putting things off can be good and bad. Good because what I've found, bad because I could've been watching from two years ago...geesh!

John

[Maurice]

I too got hooked on my AppleTV until I saw the bandwidth usage on my Internet bill. So I have seriously curtailed its use especially since it does nothing to improve my productivity or my flying around in the sim as I seem to enjoy the flying videos more than I enjoy my sim 

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Maurice,

I didn't think of that yet, but I have two seperate DSL accounts and one is a business account (for a home user, only way to get dedicated static ip address in my woods), so thanks for mentioning it because I will plan to spread it out over the two connections.

Otherwise, I had Karen looking for another one of these units at Walmart tonight, but no luck. We're going to order another one just for her from NewEgg here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136997

For anyone thinking of this or why you might want one? Besides the internet items I mentioned, you can load up all your DVD movies or downloads to an external drive and watch them anywhere on your home network. Or, you could carry the bix and the drive with you on trips and have access to all kinds of stuff while away...the box is very small. A good example is your going visit family for the holidays and you have a ton of home movies and photos to share; well, you take the setup with you and plug it in at that person's house your visiting and everyone can see your media files...of your sim! lol 

John

[rprather]

I know there is another member on CB that has this very same box, but I cannot remember who it is or his post (I will search later). Anyhow, he touched on the same idea of this. Furthermore, it was he that got my mind going about getting this thing setup. After all this time I cannot believe what I have been missing! Forget desktop computer screens, Ipads or laptops, they have nothing on this setup!

Twas me!  Yet another victim of WDTVLIVE has joined! I've talked no less then 10 people into buying that little black box and they all love it! It reads EVERY movie format I throw at it.

Movies: AVI, MPG, MP4, VOB, ISO, MKV, M2TS, etc.
Audio: MP3, WAV, etc.
Pictures: JPG, BMP, PNG, (Camera RAW I think) etc.

Some of my BluRay movies are 20 GB+ (like Avatar) and it plays them seamlessly. 95% of the time, I don't use the streaming features since all our movies are on a connected 3 TB external drive, so it uses virtually no bandwidth for me.

I absolutely recommend to anyone trying to digitize their movie collection!

[fsaviator]

One question for you guys...  I notice on the WD site that it mentions it comes with the Slingbox App.

That is what interests me.  Right now I am terminating my slingbox/Directv setup in my house in Colorado, here in Germany over a PC in my living room which is hooked to my AV receiver.

I'm looking for a box (other than the cube, or whatever it's called) to replace that computer.  This seams to fit the bill.  I've already got all the streaming and stuff through my TV and my receiver via VPN.