Western Digital TV Live Plus HD is rebaged junk — if your time is worth nothing and you’ve never used XBMC you might be happy with it

REBADGED junk is doubly offensive, western digital!

“idiot proof” network browsing “feature” relies on workstation elected Master Browser be powered otherwise zero results in network browse [workgroup].  That leaves two HIGHLY entertaining options:  power the master browser workstation, or manually force a master browser election.  Oh, the joy!

The fix?  return it for a refund.

Oh, you want a work around?  Other than the two super awesome above?  Yeah, sure.. merely install software you really don’t want: media server THAT plays well with rebaged junk.

Western Digital TV Live Plus HD is pointless pain.  If you’re the idiot at which it was targeted you are likely blissfully pleased with it.

Until the firmware allows one to specify the UNC path for shares this gizmo is dead opposite convenient.  shipping firmware 1.03.26_B  (the B and functionality suggests beta) but as shipped firmware ‘by definition’ is no longer beta let’s call it beta_plus.

Western Digital TV Live Plus HD failures:

• cannot specify network share UNC path
• idiotic reliance on Master Browser
• NOT dlna certified
• GUI during video playback is poorly conceived, time consuming to navigate, and less than informative
• file deletion cannot be accomplished via the playback interface, but only the file management setup in options
• ‘less complicated’ remote is less than useful further requiring fighting more gui levels
• IR remote (vs RF of popcorn)
  • I wasn’t thrilled with the popcorn either
• no in-video audio sync controls
• less than ideal passive cooling
• error messages? nope. failures fail silently.
  • no read permissions on network share? video playback error is ‘filetype not supported’. sooo helpful
• fast forwarding fun!
  • itty bitty numeric indication of fast forward speed
  • because of its inanely small size it is difficult for many to identify that maximum fastness has been achieved .. because the IR remote is less than satisfactory about a third of the time the command never reaches the box [unobstructed 10 foot corridor]
  • 16x is not fast enough.  Re-transcoding to increase I-frames while not sensible is briefly tempting
• no obvious way to spoke a video to a specific time.  Want to begin watching at 1:02:19 ? Too bad.  Enjoy the fast forward “speed”
• before I return it I hope to confirm that it chokes on 1080p high bandwidth videos since in their brilliance it does not sport gigabit ethernet
• I’ve already been burned by Netflix bait-and-switch “all the movies you want”
  • netflix motto is actually “all the movies WE want YOU TO RECEIVE”
  • $9/mo netflix for nowhere near a reasonable number of movies I want
    • I certainly don’t want any in shoddy transcode streams
  • For $8/mo  I can access the storage array that predates the interweb and gopher
  • no conspiracy actual months of testing to confirm — especially entertaining is loading one movie return envelope with multiple movies and watching how ‘slowly’ each ‘arrives’ in the warehouse… variably hmmmm
• boot times? there are no moving parts.  why does booting take so long??
• USB is a thought step in the right direction for the low end market.  No esata? fail
  • no forward thinking USB3? the cart must lead the donkey to UFD
  • boxee box also fails to offer esata
• I haven’t bothered playing with the music features.  I don’t want to be disappointed again.
• screen saver cannot be tied into image galleries (locally or online) 😦
• FTP client? nope, happy shiny dlna instead
• sigh
• yes, rebadged.  read the wd press release:  ‘provides’ NOT ‘developed’
• on a side note: why do home NAS boxen not FULLY implement Sata?? DIY sata nas to achieve port multiplication (scsi daisy chain spill over) .. but no commercial embrace of port multiplier in home gear?  fail!

It was not a plus that amazon fulfillment did not bother to pad the shipping box.  Since boxes tumble all six faces must have padding.. duh?

western digital SSDs are ALSO rebadged.  Will those suck, too?

Seth Wisely said: WD TV Live Plus HD is even more annoying than the Popcorn Hour C200 at one third the cost

holland and holland bespoke weapons extremely lowtech webpage

http://www.hollandandholland.com/~newyork/bespoke/options_extras.htm

^ yes, really

text in a table?? hello?

Even purdey finally gave in to manufacturing technology updates (thanks to one awesome guy).. dragged kicking and screaming into the future almost and not really.  A small amoute of luddite repellent sunk into their website, too.

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Seth Wisely said: it’s better to receive a purdey weapon as a gift 😉

 

USB2 SDHC class 6 >8gig reader wanted

must

• support the full read- and write speed of a class 6 SDHC card
• must not become existentially challenged in a few months
• must not introduce errors into data
• must not corrupt card in r/w mode
• need only support SDHD and miniSDHC as I have micro adapter
• must have numerous cogent reviews other than “it works for me”
• I use only class 6 lexar and class 6 sandisk SD-, SDHC- and microSDHC media
• preferably not hog the airspace of side by side or stacked case-front USB2 slots

OT

Hopefully someone will breath life into a firefox extension or greasemonkey userscript to hide JUNK results for bing, google, and yahoo soon.  I hate bizrate

Noise Reduction for google and bing, a greasemonkey UserScript, lacks both regex and wildcards     (v 0.2.7)

Seth Wisely said: more dead seo/spammers makes the world a happier place

checkbox firefox extension developer ideology damaged by veganism?

The FDA essentially considers veganism to be child abuse in pregnant woman as the self destructive lifestyle prevents certain brain structural development.

Undetected and untreated vitamin B12 deficiency [and folic acid] in infants can result in severe and permanent neurological damage

Should it be no surprise then that he promotes veganism while using the largest ad corporation’s blogging service to decry the “evils” of capitalism?

Life Inc, on that very topic, weak premise: proximity.  He makes the claim that society and nuclear families are to blame for the world’s ills in this case a “shrill condemnation of how corporate culture has disconnected human beings from each other”.   If anything the apathy- and indifference afforded by high population density of large cities is much to blame WITH cooperation of increasing wrong-tolerance.  Capitalism is morally agnostic: holding it to blame is irrational at best. (for the simple: this is not the same as ‘capitalism’ is evil’.  One must bring one’s moral code to capitalism in much the same way as one does to public life, or public service.)

@ vegans

since the vitamins developing children REQUIRE cannot be sourced from your flawed ideology’s food source restrictions [1] they must take supplements.  It follows logically these supplements originate from sources antithetical to veganism.

Vegans eat only food of plant origin. Because animal products are
the only food sources of vitamin B12, vegans must supplement their diets
with a source of this vitamin. In addition, vegan diets, particularly
those of children, require care to ensure adequacy of vitamin D and
calcium

More steak for the rest of us

However all vegans are ideologically hypocritical: plants “deserve” to live in exactly the same way animals “deserve” to live.  Vegans must WAIT for their (potential) food to die before eating it.  Buying it dead is not sufficient as they would be participating in the wholesale slaughter of vegetables.

[Only humans have the right to live: moral capacity]

I don’t care if my bacon did not live a happy life

Suffering improves the flavor while volume decreases cost.  Win win

.wordpressrapeswhitespace.

This information might help you stop inadvertently killing your children:

http://nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/vegetariandiet.html

[1]

• Institute of Medicine. Food and Nutrition Board. Dietary Reference Intakes: Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998.
• von Schenck U, Bender-Gotze C, Koletzko B. Persistence of neurological damage induced by dietary vitamin B12 deficiency in infancy. Arch Dis Childhood 1997;77:137-9. [PubMed abstract]
• Kaiser L, Allen LH. Position of the American Dietetic Association: nutrition and lifestyle for a healthy pregnancy outcome. J Am Diet Assoc 2008;108:553-61. [PubMed abstract]