Ok, I should be good for a long, long time. I now have what I would like to believe as the perfect home movie theatre setup.

I followed the following guide almost to the letter and created my own silent XBMC (Xbox Media Center) on a small Nettop computer which I was only able to get from the states at the price I wanted which was $199, not even on sale at Best Buy.

I won’t re-invent of paste the instructions for the XBMC computer as you can read all about it if you click on this link here. What I can tell you is that if you plan on doing this and don’t have anyone going to the US or anyway to get your hands on the AcerRevo nettop, then someone just posted ANOTHER guide to creating a Boxxee (sort of like XBMC) setup with a computer available in Canada which also has a DVD/ROM which would be nice. I’m lucky in that I have an external USB DVD-RW which I personally use downstairs to do any DVD or CD watching.

If you don’t feel like going through all this hassle, and just want to have a great media player which you can just plug in a hard drive and go, I just noticed at buy.com that they have a bundle of a 500gig Mybook drive and a WDTVlive on for $139.99 USD. I can’t imagine that bundle is available here just yet – but it’s worth noting that this is the price that you can get them for now… unreal!

I have been watching quite a bit of TV and Movies lately, but I can’t really see that as such a bad thing as it’s really too crappy to do anything outside, and I already put up my lights and stuff!  Sweet! Anyone else done decorating like  we are?

New WDTVLive

For those of you whom don’t know what the WDTV or WDTV-Live is, I will give you the basic idea.. actually.. scratch that.

If you don’t know what a WDTV is, go here and check out the details.. why re-invent the wheel eh?

REVIEW

Well I should start by saying that I got it on sale as it was regularly $149.99 but I got it for $129.99 plus tax so it came to about $147 total CAD to my door. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me, very happy with that price. I got it from NCIX.com the day after it was released.

I opened it up (on my lunch break of course), and set it up to my Plasma and old Kenwood receiver. I didn’t have time to screw around with adding the shares (thank god as you’ll learn later), but I tested out YouTube and played a few files from my Passport USB Drive and all worked great! Extremely excited about this new device.

I’ve been waiting for a device that I could use to play (stream) high definition movies and bluray movies from my computer upstairs for quite some time. I can honestly say that this little device does exactly what I want it to. However, I did run into some snags. Firstly, since I’m running Windows 7, it has a funky media library built in which I figured I’d use since the WDTV recognizes it as a media library. The problem with that is, the media library doesn’t recognize .mkv files which is the format a lot of high definition files come in. No problem, the WDTVLive also has a ‘network shares’ option which I figured would be easy to setup.

Wrong.

I shared my drives on my Windows 7 machine that gave permissions to ‘Guest’, I then turned on the Guest User and figured the network shares would show up downstairs in the WDTVLive (it did after all detect that we had two computers on the network). Unfortunately, the shares didn’t show up, and no matter how many times I screwed around with them, it would always give the error ‘no media in folder’. GRRRR!!

Looking online, I see that I’m not the only one with this kind of error, it seems a lot of Windows 7 users were having that problem, the good news is that there is someone one has a lot of knowledge with regards to the original WDTV, and in fact.. he turned his WDTV (regular) into one that could access the internet through a USB network card! (Holy smart!). Anyhow, I found instructions to upgrading the firmware which actually adds a lot of functionality to the device at his website here and decided to try it.

It was really simple to do, all I had to do was download his firmware, put it on a usb key (formatted to FAT32) and then put it in the device and run it.. it sees it as a new firmware and after installing it, restarts and you can tell it worked since the background is changed (a lot nicer), and some of the startup images, etc are different. Cool.

After some tinkering via Telnet, I was able to get my network drives running without issue.. but I have to ask.. why the hell do I have to do all of this? God help me if I was a rookie who just bought the device and wanted to use it with Windows 7 and High Definition files!

By the way, all the tinkering and information that I used (my nickname is lencurrie) can be found at the WDTVhd forums.

Now to sum up, I’m extremely happy with my WDTVLive device (now that I have network shares working).. I can load up my computer upstairs with media.. and have them all play downstairs via a tiny little box which connects to my computer up here. It’s pretty much exactly like XBMC without the great user interfact XBMC has. The fact of the matter is though, I was considering going out and getting an entire Home Media PC.. so I definitely saved some money going this route, and it does exactly what I want it to.

Another note, B-Rad and the developers of WDLXTV are BRILLIANT! They’ve turned this tiny little box into something much, much more user friendly with additions such as apple trailers, the ability to use an external optical drive, ftp servers, web interfaces, etc, etc. If you’re a bit of a geek (like me) you’d be crazy not to experiment with the new firmware they put out.. once you get it going the way you want it to, it’s very rewarding. I certainly can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to use anything like the age old DVD/VCR Combo units you can find all over the place. To be honest, it’s been months since I’ve burned off a DVD or even thought about it… that’s what’s great about this device. A++ rating from me!

If you haven’t heard of what I’m talking about, take a look at the description below:

Combined with a My Passport portable drive (sold separately), this player is the most convenient way to play HD movies or user-generated videos, listen to high-quality digital music and show high-resolution slideshows of your family photos on your TV. Also works with popular USB drives, and digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized as mass storage devices.

Key Features

• Optimized for My Passport and My Book storage, works with many other USB storage devices – Play content from most popular USB drives,and digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognized as mass storage devices.
• Full HD video playback and navigation – up to 1080p – Experience the spectacular picture quality of HD video and crystal clear sound clarity of digital audio. Use the included remote control to navigate through your entertainment choices using our crisp, animated HD menus.
• Collect without limits – There’s no limit to the size of your media collection; just add more USB drives for more space.
• Advanced navigation
• Thumbnail and list views – Browse your content by filename or by thumbnails of photos, album covers and movie cover art.
• Media Library – This unique feature lets you view all your media by media type in one menu regardless of its location in folders or drives. You can view your content by categories such as genre, album, artist and date.
• Search – Search by genre, title, artist, filename and partial filename.
• Photo viewing
• Create custom slide shows with a variety of transitions and background music
• Zoom and pan
• Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
• Movie viewing
• Fast forward, rewind, pause, zoom, and pan
• View subtitles
• Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
• Music playback
• Fast forward, rewind, pause, shuffle, repeat
• Search by filename, partial filename, most recently viewed and date
• Access two USB drives simultaneously – Two USB ports on the player let you connect two USB storage devices and access them simultaneously. Our Media Library feature aggregates the content on both drives into one list sorted by media type.
• HDMI and composite video connections – The High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port lets you connect to the highest quality HDTV or home theater. Additional composite (RCA) outputs ensure compatibility with virtually all television sets.
• Includes free media conversion software – ArcSoft MediaConverter™ 2.5 — a fast, easy-to-use application that converts photo, video, and music files into formats optimized for use on the WD TV HD Media Player.
• Ultra-compact design – Fits easily into your entertainment center.

Ideal For

Hassle-free playback of HD movies, home videos, digital music, and photos on your TV.
System Requirements

My Passport portable hard drive or other USB storage device with supported video or audio content stored on it.
Standard or high definition television with HDMI or composite video connections

Package Contents

• HD Media Player
• Compact remote with batteries
• Media converter software (Windows only)
• Composite AV cable
• AC adapter
• Quick Install Guide

You can find out more information at the Western Digital Page including a really cool movie describing it.

*Warning* If you buy this unit, it may be a good idea to go out and get some weight loss pills or something as you won’t be lifting your lazy arse off the couch for a very long time.