Uh oh.... Storm on the way!

[Dee_Ann]

What he said..

It runs totally stand alone. If you have a pc with saved files like videos of any kind, photos or music it will see them as long as the folders are shared and let you play them on your TV. You can plug it into a network wire (what I did) or you can buy a wifi usb stick thing to plug into it if you don't want to run wires.

You can also use a wifi keyboard on it which I plan to purchase in the near future, such as this one, Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard (Built-in TouchPad/Laser Pointer)

If you upgrade the box with the hacked stuff it becomes extremely powerful and much more useful ! I'm very impressed with this little gadget and feel that it was money well spent.

Here's some info about hacking it.

WikiDLXTV

WDTV plus B-Rad Firmware equals Many New Possibilities « Merric Reese

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD_TV#WD_TV_Live_Plus

http://www.google.com/search?q=wdtv live plus hack

http://b-rad.cc/1231/wdtv-live-plus-undressing/

Here's a video about hacking it. (the video is out of date by a YEAR and doesn't really do the NEW hack justice at all!)

[video]www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqsdSTLV9ik [/video]

It's extremely simple to hack it. Hey, I did it! If I can do it certainly you guys can.

 

[avenger]

More questions, how much hardware did it come with. How much extra items did you had to buy to make it work as what you wanted. There are several units with different numbers/models? the most common one seems to be WDBABX0000NBK, is that you model number?

Thank You.

 

[Dee_Ann]

More questions, how much hardware did it come with. How much extra items did you had to buy to make it work as what you wanted. There are several units with different numbers/models? the most common one seems to be WDBABX0000NBK, is that you model number?

Thank You.

This is the original info screen on mine.

I had no idea what I was purchasing originally, I just saw the thing and bought the one with the best price I could find. I saw a few guys mention the WDTV Live Plus as being a cool gadget so I sort of set my mind to finding one on sale. I ended up buying a refurbished / returned unit for like $45 I think it was plus tax and shipping, that added another $10 since it came from Dallas.

It came with two sets of cables, the remote control and the power wart. Both cables have a plug on one end that looks like my iPhone headset plug.
On the other ends, one has a red/white/yellow set of plugs and the other has a red/green/blue set of plugs.

Those are the only things it came with. A brand new unit may have other things with it but I do not know.

I did have to go to Big Lots and buy a video cable for it, that hdmi cable that looks like an enormous usb cable. It did not come with that.
It also did not come with the laser sound cable, I couldn't find any in town for under $20 so I found some on ebay for $2.25 w/free shipping !
I needed the video cable right then but the sound cable was not a big deal. I get sound through the TV speakers but I want it to go through the 5.1 stereo speakers, I have a separate stereo for that and it uses the laser cables.

How you connect it I guess depends on what sort of TV you have. You may or may not need different cables.

To hack it all you need is a thumb/pen drive to put the hack files on. After that you can remove the drive and you're good to go.

Oh, and if you want to connect it by WIFI you will have to get a WIFI thing to plug into it. I do not know which ones are approved so I would check the WD site before buying one. I didn't want to go with WIFI so I ran a wire from my LAN hub to the WD box and it came right up on the internet and saw all the shared files on my satellite theater pc. It plays back EVERYTHING I have saved on it like a champ.

I can not complain at all, I'm very pleased with how this thing turned out and the potential of it, so much so that I immediately contributed to the tip jar on the author's website to help support the effort. It was well worth it and much more. I'm very likely going to buy two more of these little jewels. These things are neat!

 

[osu1991]

That is what comes with it new too. It uses a proprietary cable for composite video and L/R audio (yellow, red,white) and a separate proprietary cable for component video (red,blue,green). If you use the component cables then you also have to use the cable for composite with L/R audio in order to get audio or you have to get an optical cable to output sound with the component cable. You can also get an HDMI cable that will output audio and video, but it doesn't come with one.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Back on the topic of the storm.

We are getting some strong winds here, I'm guessing gusts of 40mph or more. My 10 foot dish was getting buffeted around and I was losing MeTV so I used the controller to bump it west a little into the wind and it's holding rock solid now. Heavy wind and rain and you would never know it. C- band is great stuff!
Now I'm suffering through an episode of the Odd Couple waiting for Svenghoulie to come on with the Invisible Man. While I'm waiting I'm reading up on my new WD gadget...

 

[avenger]

Thanks Dee_Ann and osu1991,

I just ordered a unit at E-bay it will come from California about the 8th to the 14th of this month. I am looking forward to play with this new toy. In the mean time please keep me posted on what you are accomplishing with your unit.

Going back to the original subject, it looks like tomorrow I will be taking down my 6' special dish. According to the local news, this coming storm will hit my area sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning. So far we have had alot of rain, and more to come. It also looks like your area might get spared from much of the rain.

Take care.

avenger.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Thanks Dee_Ann and osu1991,

I just ordered a unit at E-bay it will come from California about the 8th to the 14th of this month. I am looking forward to play with this new toy. In the mean time please keep me posted on what you are accomplishing with your unit.

Going back to the original subject, it looks like tomorrow I will be taking down my 6' special dish. According to the local news, this coming storm will hit my area sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning. So far we have had alot of rain, and more to come. It also looks like your area might get spared from much of the rain.

Take care.

avenger.

Avenger, I hope the storm chills out before it hits your area. BTW, I have one of the 6' WSI dishes and it has held it's own, amazingly enough through this though I think that the highest winds we got were about 40mph. But several months ago we had some very nasty storms blow through and we got winds well in excess of 60mph and the dish weathered that storm much to my amazement! I was certain it was going to be trashed. Proved me wrong!

But where you are you might be getting stronger winds and sustained winds at that. It wouldn't hurt to store it inside for a few days just in case.

And congratulations on your purchase! I think you'll like the WD thing. I'm amazed at what this thing can do. It appears to be a miniature computer, it does so much stuff! That B-rad guy is a genius.

I still don't know yet what I'm doing with this thing, I only got it this week and just hacked it. Most of the things on it's new menu I don't know what they do or are for but obviously the new options are there for a reason so I've got a LOT of reading to do. All I really wanted to do was add Whitesprings.tv to it but now it looks like I can do a lot more than that. So I guess over time I'll learn and add to it and modify features and add apps and what-not..

Here's the WDLXTV forum where I am learning and discovering tHere's the WDLXTV forumhe what and how of my new toy..

Stay dry and safe and good luck with the storm and your new WD toy!

 

[Dishman Dan]

So is this WD more "flexible" than the Rokku box I have been looking at???

 

[digiblur]

So is this WD more "flexible" than the Rokku box I have been looking at???

If you are looking for a really flexible box that will play anything you throw at it..get the Boxee Box. I have two rokus and I wish I had another boxee to retire the roku for good. Its a good product but just very limited.

 

[digiblur]

To stay on topic staying a hotel in galveston. They have a rack of dishnetwork receivers for the cable system in the hotel. There's no rain..just a bunch of wind. I can see the two satellite dishes flapping back and forth in the wind. I go talk to the front desk and she tells me the clouds knock out the system all the time. I told her I would go fix the dishes but she argued and said satellite doesn't work unless it is a pretty day.

Really!! Hahahahaha.... oh well I will just call the main office and get a discount. Thank god for slingbox so I could watch TV before bed.

 

[Dee_Ann]

I looked at the Boxee but it was way too expensive and that crazy case really ruins it. I considered making a ~fill in corner~ for it out of something, maybe like pottery, I'm pretty good with crafts but still, I shouldn't have to do that. I can't imagine what they were thinking when they made that weird thing except they intend for it to be a sore thumb that doesn't fit in anywhere, can't hide it so everyone is forced to look at it. If that was the intent then that turns me off and makes me NOT want one.

I tried the Boxee app on my pc and it didn't do too well at figuring out what all my files are, it couldn't categorize anything properly, it put movies in the tv section and tv shows in the movie section, got the wrong icons for shows, etc.. Potentially, it could be a great app, it even has direct iPhone support built in, that was cool.
Also, there are a TON of apps you can plug into the Boxee, even user generated apps so you can do a lot of things with it and add pretty much anything you want to it. But they really need to work on it some more, drop the price a lot and fix that kooky case to be more normal.

 

[avenger]

Checked the news this morning and noticed that about 25 miles northwest from where I live, these poor people had more that four inches of rain and flooded out, so far my neighborhood is pretty well dried. No clouds in the sky. We are not out of the woods yet.

I will prospone the taking down of the dish for right now, and wait and see what happens later on.

In the mean time I will do some more research on my future toy, I do not have any ideas on how am I going to use it. I am sure that it will be a learning experience. This thing does not come with a paper manual instructions, and have to go research it at the website.

Have a very good day.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Checked the news this morning and noticed that about 25 miles northwest from where I live, these poor people had more that four inches of rain and flooded out, so far my neighborhood is pretty well dried. No clouds in the sky. We are not out of the woods yet.

I will prospone the taking down of the dish for right now, and wait and see what happens later on.

In the mean time I will do some more research on my future toy, I do not have any ideas on how am I going to use it. I am sure that it will be a learning experience. This thing does not come with a paper manual instructions, and have to go research it at the website.

Have a very good day.

Oh wow, you're right, it did not come with a paper manual at all. Or a disc of any kind.
But I just plugged it in and started using it despite that. I guess they made it to be simple for simpletons. :

But after hacking it with the cool upgrades, well now it's a different game! There is a lot of reading to do and lots of stupid questions to ask. For me anyway.
Some of the new features, I understand what they are ultimately are supposed to do, my problem is understanding how and why and the configuration of the new stuff. It's hardcore geek stuff and you need to be a hardcore geek to understand a lot of the new features.

It's going to take me a good while to figure this all out. I'm a sloooooow learner...

 

[Stargazer]

I looked at The Weather Channel earlier and they are saying 6-10 inches of rain up through West Virginia through Wednesday. That's a lot of rain. Sounds like eminent flooding to me.

 

[Tron]

Well, I ended up gambling the 6 footer and thankfully nothing happened to it. It has withstood 60 mph winds during cold fronts, so I wasn't particularly concerned with Lee, other than the possibility of a tree limb falling on it. New Orleans really didn't see any extremely heavy winds, just tons of rain. We needed the rain, so Lee wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Isn't that WDTV Live thingy fun?!

 

[digiblur]

I looked at the Boxee but it was way too expensive and that crazy case really ruins it. I considered making a ~fill in corner~ for it out of something, maybe like pottery, I'm pretty good with crafts but still, I shouldn't have to do that. I can't imagine what they were thinking when they made that weird thing except they intend for it to be a sore thumb that doesn't fit in anywhere, can't hide it so everyone is forced to look at it. If that was the intent then that turns me off and makes me NOT want one.

I tried the Boxee app on my pc and it didn't do too well at figuring out what all my files are, it couldn't categorize anything properly, it put movies in the tv section and tv shows in the movie section, got the wrong icons for shows, etc.. Potentially, it could be a great app, it even has direct iPhone support built in, that was cool.
Also, there are a TON of apps you can plug into the Boxee, even user generated apps so you can do a lot of things with it and add pretty much anything you want to it. But they really need to work on it some more, drop the price a lot and fix that kooky case to be more normal.

You do get what you pay for. I like the weird look to it. I have it on a shelf on my AV rack and people ask about it all the time. Looks like it is sinking into my shelf. They flip out when I show them my entire Bluray and DVD collection in a pretty set of movie posters tiled across the screen...all playing in 1080p and DTS(highest codec my receiver goes). I encode everything with handbrake into mkv files. I haven't had any issues with it putting my files in the wrong sections, but I do name my TV shows and movies correctly.

 

[Dee_Ann]

You do get what you pay for. I like the weird look to it. I have it on a shelf on my AV rack and people ask about it all the time. Looks like it is sinking into my shelf. They flip out when I show them my entire Bluray and DVD collection in a pretty set of movie posters tiled across the screen...all playing in 1080p and DTS(highest codec my receiver goes). I encode everything with handbrake into mkv files. I haven't had any issues with it putting my files in the wrong sections, but I do name my TV shows and movies correctly.

Cool......

One problem I have is the way that files are recorded by the satellite app on the pc.
It always names anything I record from the History channel as "dummyEventName dummyEventDescription"..
Several other channels do the same thing I believe. Under the best of circumstances it will put the channel name and date/time on the filename of the recording.
Now when I schedule a recording I have to enter some sort of description and it will then use that in the file name so that does help a little but overall, I have tons of files with cryptic, nondescript names that give me absolutely no clue as to what the content of the file might be. It's quite annoying and there's just far too many to go through them all, figure them out and rename them.

I have a heavy thumb on the record button pretty much all the time... :

 

[Dee_Ann]

Oh and speaking of the storm, it's pretty much over here. We ended up with a few days of wet weather but no flooding, no standing water, my yard never turned into the usual lake but we did get and are still getting some really strong winds and slightly cooler weather. My air conditioner has been cycling off a lot and that's unusual as it normally runs 24/7 from about April until late November.

This morning I had my coffee on the patio and forced the A/C to stay off so I didn't have to listen to it, so I could sit and enjoy the strong winds and the sound of the wind through the trees and my wind chimes singing to me.

Then I decided to do a little green thumbery and repot some of my plants since it is so nice outside. I got my stuff out and discovered that my potting soil was a big, heavy bag of mud.. Ooops... I left it sitting outside. It got a little wet.

So I was trying to figure out a way to dry it out and I couldn't find anything handy. Then I had a flash of brilliance! I just figured out a good use for those old pizza dishes!

I poured my potting soil on an old pizza dish and spread it out in the sun to dry.
It's a little ghetto but at least I'm recycling.