Comments for Merric Reese

Comment on WDTV plus B-Rad Firmware equals Many New Possibilities by Nick Read

Nick Read — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:17:20 +0000

Hi, interested in this solution. A key requirement for me is the ability to jump back/forward in the file, at a minimum 10s back and 30s forward (or similar) and +/-10 mins, same as default for Myth. Can you do that? That is where other solutions I have tried have broken down.

Comment on WDTV Live Hub – time for an upgrade? by Tim

Tim — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 06:01:14 +0000

I did plug in an external USB hard drive to the live hub today since I’m out of space on the built-in 1TB drive. It works great and by plugging the usb drive into my computer first to copy files is so much faster. If the unit you are using accepts external USB drives, I may get one of those. I like the interface and it plays back media very well. I was trying to copy over an 8 GB file from my HD camcorder a couple days ago and it would get about 70% done and say the connection was lost to the live hub; after trying 4 times, I gave up and put it on the external usb drive today and just attached that which worked very well. I usually hold my breath and cross my fingers when copying, but that doesn’t always work.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your info with me. I’d rather stay away from building home media computers because of the power consumption and building them can be a pain.

Comment on WDTV Live Hub – time for an upgrade? by Merric Reese

Merric Reese — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:44:25 +0000

Hi Tim,

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with the WDTV Live Hub.

I’m still using the WDTV Live and purchased another unit for the second TV. I’m running the second unit off a wireless N network and streaming to the device works perfectly fine for most content – it is only 720p and 1080p files that need to I cache locally.

My transfers to the WDTV live are a bit slow but usually bullet proof. Shame to hear that the same can’t be said for the WDTV Live Hub.

- Merric

Comment on WDTV Live Hub – time for an upgrade? by Tim

Tim — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:17:25 +0000

Hello,

I have a WDTV Live Hub. It’s my first actual set-top media player so I do like it, but I also agree you might want to hold off. It’s great once you get the files copied over (and my 1 TB drive is full already), but getting the files to the device is painful. Not only is the onboard NIC only 100 Mbs (so only seeing about 10 MBs transfer rates with 1 GB files, it takes forever), but the copies fail most of the time. Not quite sure why that is just yet. Also, when you copy files over, sometimes it takes hours for them to show up in the interface even after rebooting the device. I do like it once everything is copied over and the files show up, though. I have Netflix, which this device uses very nicely, but it still doesn’t have Amazon on demand which is a biggie for me too.

Anyway, just figured I’d give you a few cents of my couple months of experience on this device.

Comment on WDTV Live Hub – time for an upgrade? by Merric Reese

Merric Reese — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:36:30 +0000

Hi Neerav,

Thanks for your feedback and advice – I really appreciate it. You have confirmed my thoughts and concerns.

Have a great Christmas and New Year

- Merric

Comment on WDTV Live Hub – time for an upgrade? by Neerav Bhatt

Neerav Bhatt — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 08:27:50 +0000

I have the answer for you Merric, don’t buy the WDTV Live Hub. I was at the press event to launch it and got to test one for a week and for the price which is 3 times the old one I don’t think its worth it

Comment on WDTV plus B-Rad Firmware equals Many New Possibilities by Merric Reese

Merric Reese — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:22:34 +0000

Hi Marcovanb,

I’ve tried both and I decided to use SMB (network share) because when I was using UPNP the backend machines would sometimes disappear and required a hard reset (and plenty of patients waiting) for it to re-appear. I haven’t seen any speed difference between the two options. If UPNP is working reliably for you then stick with that – if your UPNP shares don’t always show up then investigate using SMB. Given you are looking at B-Rad I might also suggest setting up an NFS share as they are suppose to provide better performance. I don’t have any trouble streaming HD MythTV files (720p / 1080i) over SMB on 100MB Ethernet but I can’t play 1080p MKV files. When I get a chance I will be setting up NFS shares on my MythTV media server.

Let me know how you go.

- Merric

Comment on WDTV plus B-Rad Firmware equals Many New Possibilities by marcovanb

marcovanb — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:33:00 +0000

Hi, I’ve only just got the wdtv live but was able to connect to my mythtv backend via upnp. I’m just wondering which you would think is better? A network share or upnp.

Comment on Don’t let your hats gather too much dust by Merric Reese

Merric Reese — Wed, 26 May 2010 09:09:44 +0000

Hi Michelle,

Thanks for your comment and great advice.

- Merric

Comment on Don’t let your hats gather too much dust by Michele Airs

Michele Airs — Mon, 17 May 2010 04:33:30 +0000

I totally agree with you, life becomes a roller coaster that you just cannot get off. I sometimes forget what is more important & by the time i realise the mistake I made it is too late.
Take time to smell the roses & don’t sweat the small stuff were words that was told to me by someone a long time ago.