WDTV Live unboxing + undressing *revised2*
October 15th, 2009 17:45

So I got myself a new little toy in the mail today, a shiny new Western Digital WDTV Live. :-D In the following writeup I’ll analyze the internals a bit and dig a little into things for everyones amusement…for the record it took me 2:43 from unbox to broken warranty–aka–Open device.

Ok, so first there was a box.
WDTV Live has arrived
Then there was an open box.
WDTV Live Box
Then there was an open WDTV Live box. As you can see it contains pretty much identical contents to the original WDTV, except for the inclusion of the component cable.
WDTV Live Unboxed
Then I applied some gentle pressure to seperate the outer shell from the innards and undid four screws…to give me the good stuff :-)
WDTV Live Naked
It made me very happy to see the CN4 socket was left on, which means my investigation can get somewhere almost immediately. So here we go, I’ve unplugged one of my wdtv’s and connected the WDTV Live right in. I’ve just swapped all the cables I had plugged into the original to the Live.

Serial connection and all cables connected


OMG…nows the time…Lets turn it on and excitedly watch the boot process :-D

Full Villa 1.01.00 Boot Log

So theres some interesting information in there, I’ll c&p the interesting bits and explain them.

Configured for SMP865x, detected SMP8655 (revision unknown).
Detected CPU/System/DSP Frequencies: 499.50/333.00/333.00MHz

For those unaware the 8655 chipset has a 500MHz cpu, a 333MHz coprocessor, AND a 333MHz DSP…that all combines to make the WDTV Live aka Villa (Codename written inside) incredibly more snappy and responsive than the original.

k_name=Tangox SATA 0 driver=Tangox SATA 0
SATA version 0x3139302a ID 0x0 is detected
scsi0 : Tangox SATA 0
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xa0023000 ctl 0xa0023020 bmdma 0xcdcdcdcd irq 49
ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
k_name=Tangox SATA 1 driver=Tangox SATA 1
SATA version 0x3139302a ID 0x0 is detected
scsi1 : Tangox SATA 0
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xa0023800 ctl 0xa0023820 bmdma 0xcdcdcdcd irq 62
ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

…Strange??? Could there be two hidden SATA connections?

ieee80211: 802.11 data/management/control stack, git-1.1.13
ieee80211: Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Intel Corporation
ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'

In case you missed it from the specs, the WDTV Live has some wireless capabilities. I’ll get back to that in a bit.

Checking md5sum for all files in application firmware..
scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access Single Flash Reader 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
scsi 2:0:0:0: CD-ROM PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716A 1.09 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access Patriot Memory PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 125x/94x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

:-O They’ve compiled in optical drive functionality!!! Nice. It is non-functional, but give me a short bit and I’ll fix that nonsense.


**************************************************************
* *
* *
* Current Version: *
* *
* *
* 1.01.00 *
* *
* *
* *
* *
* *
**************************************************************

In case you’re wondering what firmware revision we’re starting with ;-)

fwup_load_okok_partition, 132, Partition status not in okok, status=����
fwup_dual_romfs_1st_active, 171, Only /dev/sigmblocki is okok
fwup_dual_romfs_1st_active, 194, Result announce: active=/dev/sigmblockh, inactive=/dev/sigmblocki

Heres an odd one, looks like theres a ‘backup’ firmware partition in case something hoses the first one…decent idea.

This usb port 1 has been taken. We don't mount this device
User decided not to mount this partition

Awww, lame. I guess WD doesn’t want us having more than one device per slot again…I’ll put a fix to that as well ;-)

NETSERVICE_save_dhcp_config[1265]:Get ip from DHCP server ok!
============= DHCP ===============
IP = 192.168.0.103
NETMASK = 255.255.255.0
GATEWAY = 192.168.0.1
DNS = x.x.x.x,y.y.y.y
nameserver = x.x.x.x
nameserver = y.y.y.y
===================================

It received an IP from my router without a hitch.

ftp_download_data, 433, MAX_RETRY_NUM = 3
ftp_download_data, 434, MAX_CONNECT_TIMEOUT = 30
pathname = http://support.wdc.com/download/wdtvlive.asp?id=wdfwdtv_live&type=autoupdate&ptype=villa&fw=1.01.00
userpwd =
mode = 0
* About to connect() to support.wdc.com port 80 (#0)
* Trying 129.253.170.35... * connected
* Connected to support.wdc.com (129.253.170.35) port 80 (#0)
* Server auth using Basic with user ''
* Connection #0 to host support.wdc.com left intact
* Closing connection #0
ftp_download_data, 451, download file from server successfully.
fwupwd_check_update, 863, pkg_url=currentversion

OK, now this one disturbs me a bit. Auto-update functionality is all well&good, but it best be a bit secure. I’ll have to sniff out the communications and see exactly whats going on in the transaction. One things for sure, quick change to /etc/hosts and something bad could happen if theres no security. Interesting that I might be able to hyjaack the functionality and have WDLiveXTV auto-udate itself ;-)

So thats most of the interesting parts of the boot cycle, now for a bit of system analysis.

/ # uname -r
2.6.22.19-19-4
/ # cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.22.19-19-4 (andy@SVN-server) (gcc version 4.3.2 (Sourcery G++ Lite 4.3-51) ) #4 PREEMPT Fri Sep 11 17:14:24 CST 2009


This is nice, much more modern a kernel this time around.

/ # ls /lib/modules/
em8xxx.ko llad.ko rt3070sta.ko sigmablock.ko
fctrl.ko proc_pipe.ko rt3572sta.ko ufsd.ko
irkernel.ko rt2870sta.ko scsi_wait_scan.ko wd_led_rst.ko

So heres the kernel modules that come stock. rt2870sta, rt3070sta, and rt3572sta are the wireless modules. This means you find a wireless dongle with one of those chipsets and it *should* work. Pretty nice option for those without wired houses.

/ # ls -la /dev/mtd*
brw-r--r-- 1 root root 254, 0 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/mtdblock0
brw-r--r-- 1 root root 254, 3 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/mtdblock2
brw-r--r-- 1 root root 254, 6 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/mtdblock3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/mtdblock_bootloader -> /dev/sigmblocka
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/mtdblock_kernel -> /dev/sigmblockd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/mtdblock_romfs -> /dev/sigmblockh

Different firmware layout than the original WDTV, with the addition of the sigmblocks where the goods are really located.

/ # ls /dev/sigmblock* -la
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 0 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblocka
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 1 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockb
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 2 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockc
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 3 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockd
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 4 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblocke
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 5 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockf
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 6 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockg
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 7 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockh
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 8 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblocki
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 9 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockj
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 10 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockk
brw-rw---- 1 root root 254, 11 Jan 1 00:00 /dev/sigmblockl

Woah, lots of internal NANDy goodness goin on here. I’m not too sure what all sigmblocka contains as its 256MB, but I theorize below. At the minimum sigmblocka contains bootloader code and various flashing instructions. sigmblockb is nothing really, just 512KB of FF’s & 00′s. sigmblockc is YAMON. The kernel is located/mirrored in sigmblockd and sigmblocke. The loading, splash screen, and splash pic are in sigmablockf, which is a bit strange since that block appears to be 16MiB. The ROMFS firmware image is located in sigmblockh and sigmblocki. It would seem that sigmblockj, sigmblockk, and sigmblockl are the persistent /conf data settings area, tripled this time instead of doubled. The inaccessible lower half of memory is (maybe–i theorize here) sigmblocka, coming in at a cool 267,911,168 bytes (256MB), with an additional ~56MB of main memory reserved by the kernel and some other stuff. The linux kernel only sees 200MB as instructed by the bootloader. The firmware able to consume 94,371,840 bytes. In case you’re unaware the original WDTV’s complete NAND size was 24MiB and the firmware itself was limited to 14MiB, this makes the WDTV Live a whole new class. The firmwares current size is a measly 26MiB (as cramfs) so there is PLENTY of room to play.

/ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
system type : Sigma Designs TangoX
processor : 0
cpu model : MIPS 24K V7.12 FPU V0.0
Initial BogoMIPS : 332.59
wait instruction : yes
microsecond timers : yes
tlb_entries : 32
extra interrupt vector : yes
hardware watchpoint : yes
ASEs implemented : mips16
shadow register sets : 1
VCED exceptions : not available
VCEI exceptions : not available

System bus frequency : 333000000 Hz
CPU frequency : 499500000 Hz
DSP frequency : 333000000 Hz

rundown of the CPU.

/ # cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 198864 kB
MemFree: 61184 kB
Buffers: 26352 kB
Cached: 71824 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 54384 kB
Inactive: 59856 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 16112 kB
Mapped: 13584 kB
Slab: 13456 kB
SReclaimable: 3216 kB
SUnreclaim: 10240 kB
PageTables: 1952 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 99424 kB
Committed_AS: 191008 kB
VmallocTotal: 1048272 kB
VmallocUsed: 3424 kB
VmallocChunk: 1043840 kB

:-D 200MB RAM!!!! 61MB free currently too, this will make complex homebrewage a more definite possibility. More memory will be able to be claimed as well if you disable the SAMBA stuff that comes pre-enabled. I’ve been streaming 1080p content off my NFS the last bit and noticed most of the free memory is consumed by cache.

So…now how about I try and mount a DVD from my trusty Plextor A816.

/ # mkdir /tmp/media/usb/Sphere
/ # mount /dev/sr0 /tmp/media/usb/Sphere/
/ # ls /tmp/media/usb/Sphere -la
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Aug 27 2009 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 80 Jan 1 00:04 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 61869 Aug 27 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...jpg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 399652678 Aug 23 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...mkv
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 144 Aug 24 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...nfo
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 78 Aug 27 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...sfv

Hmmm, no bueno the mkv is most definitely NOT 400MB. A quick check out /etc/filesystems indicates they left out automagic UDF filesystem support, so theres another thing I’ll have to add in. No problems though, I’ll just be descript.

/ # umount /tmp/media/usb/Sphere/
/ # mount -t udf /dev/sr0 /tmp/media/usb/Sphere/
UDF-fs: Partition marked readonly; forcing readonly mount
/ # ls -la /tmp/media/usb/Sphere/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 376 Aug 27 2009 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 80 Jan 1 00:04 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 61869 Aug 27 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...jpg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4694619974 Aug 23 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...mkv
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 144 Aug 24 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...nfo
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 78 Aug 27 2009 Sphere.1998.720p.BluRay...sfv

There we go, full size mkv. I just watched a bit and it plays just fine.

/tmp/media/usb/USB1/5fa9bced-4efe-4bb1-bf3e-4c1f91c0f46b # mkdir villa

vf_monitor_parse_event, 986, event=MKDIR, name=villa
vf_monitor_add_changed_path, 916, changed path=/tmp/media/usb/USB1/5fa9bced-4efe-4bb1-bf3e-4c1f91c0f46b/villa

cas_timer_func, 90, need to rescan = 1

/tmp/media/usb/USB1/5fa9bced-4efe-4bb1-bf3e-4c1f91c0f46b # cd villa/

vf_rebuild_root, 555, /tmp/media/usb/USB1 rebuild done, it takes 0 seconds

Heres something quite interesting. It would appear as if they’ve compiled inotify support into the kernel and now monitor attached shares for rescanning on any change. I’ve dreamt of having inotify support compiled in, so this is most welcome to my homebrew adventures.

This pretty much concludes my initial analysis of the WDTV Live, now its time to settle in and actually use the little guy and see how it feels.

I would include some firmware dumps, but its not going as smooth as I’d hope…seems theres a bit of internal something or another that I’m missing. I have a feeling the mystery partitions have something to do with things. Give me a couple days and I’ll update this post.


I was pointed to a mystery package on WD’s servers by asgard on wdtvforum. After unwrapping it, I found the firmware files for an original update. So I present:
WDTVLIVE_FW_1.01.00 For informational purposes only!!!

I hope you enjoyed this writeup. Look forward to unofficial homebrew firmware for the WDTV Live very soon.

For full support visit forum.wdlxtv.com

*** edit ***
So although the WDTV Live claims only SAMBA network sharing capabilities I have managed to mount my NFS and have watched various 1080p material stutter free :-D

*** edit 2 ***
Finally figured things out and have a preliminary beta-alpha-pre-release homebrew firmware. It is pretty stabled and enables a whole slew of things. This really unleashes a whole new ballgame for the WDTV Live, and its only been out a week ;-) You can read about & find it in this thread. It is a test release only, but fully usable.

Posted in WDTV Live by b-rad
RSS 2.0
cheebster
October 15th, 2009 18:37

Um, nice writeup, b-rad ! I wish i was that good with linux/romfs stuff when i played with satellite stuff. The newest dish/bev models had romfs/cramfs(?) compressed linux os on ‘em..
Drop me an email if you ever have a minute !

Dencan
October 15th, 2009 18:49

Thanks a lot. We look forward to see your new hack :)

skippy
October 15th, 2009 19:16

Very cool. Get xbmc working on it and I name my next kid after you.

Blaine Ehrhart
October 15th, 2009 19:22

Hey B-rad. I bought the device hoping someone like you would give it a touch if it needed one. And obviously they are neglecting to love the device as they should have.

Thus far my experience with the device with a usb hard drive has been great. However I am having some network issues. I’m looking into them to see if it is my setup. I’m on windows 7. I’ve been fiddling with my network all day and I think my router is going bunk.. I’m not sure yet. A lot of people however are having my same problem. The device randomly drops connection.

Setup: Compy wireless, WD TV Live wired
Outcome: High quality stuff lags but the device doesn’t kill over.

Setup: Compy wired, WD TV wired
Outcome: High quality stuff murders WD TV connection.. or it just dies randomly.. I’m not really sure which at this moment..

I don’t even know if you will be able to fix this (if it truly is a problem and not a user error). Is there any information I can get you?

Thanks,
Blaine Ehrhart
Web Deveoper

<<< edit: I can recompile to latest versions, but if something is wrong western digital will fix it. I’m not a windows person and only use NFS, which appears to work just fine. –b-rad >>>

rakso
October 15th, 2009 20:36

skippy: I second that!

<<< edit: third and fourth it, still not likely to happen ;-) –b-rad >>>

Antony Williams
October 15th, 2009 21:24

great!
all my HDs are in ext3 filesystem, so I can’t wait for a hack to enable those filesystems.
p.s. if you need help, I can probably help out (i’m a Linux guy, just might need a couple of hints)

Any reason why they didn’t use a later kernel?
I didn’t expect 2.6.31, but I did expect .28 or so.
Anyway

could we compile in a newer kernel (or are there blobs?)

also, if we could, we could possibly put in BFS (CFQ sucks on embedded)

But, I don’t get my WDTV Live till next week :(

<<< edit: ext2 and ext3 devices work fine, the two devices i have plugged in are one of each. They use the a kernel provided by sigma, which contains proprietary material. A custom kernel was compiled for the wdtv1 once upon a time, but it was nowhere near stable enough to be of any use. Changing the scheduler is quite a strange concern ;-) b-rad >>>

Jay Allan
October 15th, 2009 22:28

Great stuff B-Rad. Looking forward to a lot mods on this one. Looks like WD are embracing the modding community with this new toy.

Swartz
October 15th, 2009 22:51

Awesome job mate! You are my personal hero.
If you can make WDTV Live into the XBMC of networked media players I will frame your picture and put it above my hi-def tv. Just the thought of possibly having a homebrew on this puppy makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl.

One question tho: WD rep on AVS said that the new player has 512MByte ram. But you said you are only seeing 256MB of which only 200Mb is actually visible. Can you clarify this?

Perhaps I misunderstood something…

<<< edit: I’ll investigate further, but I’m pretty sure its 256MB ram + 256MB NAND flash. –b-rad >>>

Swartz
October 15th, 2009 22:55

I should read the whole thing before I ask questions… i’m so excited… *crazy giggle*

Here’s another q: If there are hidden SATA connections, is there any way to add an eSATA port to this bad boy? That would make this a wonderful box into a killer NAS device with media playback capabilities.

<<< edit: That is still to be determined, it could end up being a bit of a hardhack if it is. –b-rad >>>

Daniyal
October 15th, 2009 23:24

I am getting a sneaking suspicion that wdtv team followed what brad and co were able to achieve and
built their new version on that.
Now they are giving brad and co more things like more processing power and more ram and letting these guys do all the modifications they want.
so good luck with that.

Blaine Ehrhart
October 15th, 2009 23:30

Hey B-rad.

Thanks for the update. Just to update you on the situation. I may have fixed the kill over problem.. It is like a vista/7 issue.. not sure.. I will test it more.

More info here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17363850#post17363850

spanik
October 16th, 2009 00:27

Morning B-rad and well done !

I enjoyed every bit of it, thanks so much :-)

maty
October 16th, 2009 01:07

Hi Brad

“Could there be two hidden SATA connections?” Yes

WDTVLiveHD -> Sigma Designs SMP850 series

-> SMP8650_br.pdf

WDTVHD -> Sigma Designs SMP830 series

-> SMP8630_br.pdf

********************************************

Nauscopio Scipiorum Western Digital WD TV Live HD Network Media Player

Mike
October 16th, 2009 01:44

Can you support the EM7075 with releases as well ? They appear to have very similar hardware inside as well, and custom fw would be simple to make. They also have a toolchain & wiki set up with pointers! http://opensource.eminent-online.com/wiki/index.php/EM7075

<<< edit: buy me a EM7075 and I’ll see about supporting it ;-) –b-rad >>>

Zhnu
October 16th, 2009 02:55

Just found this http://cache.websupport.wdc.com/wdtvlive/wdtvlive_1.01.00.pkg I’m Guessing original firmware should be easy to extract once I reboot into ‘nix

<<< edit: that contains more than just the original firmware, you might as well download the file I’ve linked at the end of the post. –b-rad >>>

daskino
October 16th, 2009 03:47

Great Writeup B-rad, Now do your magic and get this baby souped up to NFS plz…..

daskino
October 16th, 2009 04:21

hey just read trough your post and saw you were abel to mount NFS share… where adn what file did you edit the sahres or did you just use telnet?

<<< edit: I did it manually via a serial cable, never fear net.mounts will exist by the end of the day. ;-) –b-rad >>>

Guillaume
October 16th, 2009 04:40

Thanks b-rad.

I don’t even own a wdtv so i don’t know about its video quality, but i see in your log: “HDMI ColorSpace: YCbCr 709″

So wdtv live outputs correct colorspace right?
I’ve seen this is a big problem currently on the NMT platform: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=19366

Can you comment on this?

BR

<<< edit: dunno anything about colour spaces. Reading the logs you know just as much as me. –b-rad >>>

Western Digital TV - Página 11 - psicofxp.com
October 16th, 2009 04:42

[...] Cerrar Re: Western Digital TV un muy buen unboxing por B-RAD y un paso a paso bien detallado. [...]

Zonko
October 16th, 2009 04:53

I tried extracting the romfs but it seems to fail for me. Am i the only one ?
# cramfsck -v -x /home/wdtvlive/ ./wdtv.romfs
warning: file extends past end of filesystem
d 0755 344 1000:232 /home/wdtvlive/
d 0755 2132 1000:232 /home/wdtvlive//bin
f 0755 285716 1000:232 /home/wdtvlive//bin/DMARender
cramfsck: Segmentation fault

<<< edit: you’re not the online one. I’m reverse engineering the format, never fear. –b-rad >>>

BounceMeister
October 16th, 2009 05:44

And they gave the Nobel Prize to Barack Obama! They should give one to B-Rad instead!

B-Rad will you fix the poor network performance of the WD TV Life so that i can actually play my bluray rips?

I’m glad the Synology Diskstation DS-207 supports NFS!

cBc
October 16th, 2009 07:47

Have been playing with the WDTVLive as beta tester and find lots to like about it, but am excited about what else you may be able to “bring to the table”.
Looking forward to your journey (& NFS support for it)!

Matt
October 16th, 2009 08:13

Nice work b-rad! Waiting impatiently for a hacked ROM so I can install drivers for my wifi dongle… :)

skippy wrote, b-rad replied:
>> Very cool. Get xbmc working on it and I name my next kid after you.
> third and fourth it, still not likely to happen ;-)

I can see why the XBMC media codecs wouldn’t work on the WDTV, but is there a reason the menu functionality wouldn’t compile and run? Is says on the XBMC site it can run under Linux so… If one could use the XBMC menu system with the Sigma media codecs then that would be cool. :)

Btw, what’s at the other end of your CN4 wire? Serial/USB connector? Telnet/Terminal?

Thanks!

<<< edit: my cables a nokia CN-42 mated to a cd-rom audio cable plug. Connect and you’re dropped to a root shell. As for XBMC, its written for intel not mipsel…that makes it a bit more complicated than recompile. I’ve got somethin a-brewin already. ;-) –b-rad >>>

fred_be9300
October 16th, 2009 11:13

nice write up b-rad. I think I’ll stick with my WDTV for now, but I like the idea that you will be able to make the WDTV2 do more than it says on the box :-)

Paul
October 16th, 2009 12:26

HDMI does not seem to work when you use a HDMI to DVI cable. It sets OK, but seems only to send 480 signals even though it is set to720p.
WDTV1 handled the HDMI to DVI fine.

Also when using component output, I get lot of noise bands in the picture.

CrashX
October 16th, 2009 12:38

XBMC for Linux port to ARM CPU-architecture
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=35139&highlight=ARM&page=12

Looks very promising …

Monkeyface66
October 16th, 2009 13:36

Brad, on the Emiment wiki it says that their own player has 64 MiB flash memory, but it uses some kind of dual boot firmware so that just 32 MiB are available for the firmware!
http://opensource.eminent-online.com/wiki/index.php/EM7075_Tech

Maybe the same apllies for the WDTV Live?
So it’s not 94,371,840 bytes for the firmware on the WDTV Live, but just half of it (45 MiB) !??!?!
Or is it 2 x 90 MiB?!

<<< edit: There is two 94MiB blocks, theres also a internally defined constant stating that is indeed the limit. –b-rad >>>

Jimmy8881
October 16th, 2009 13:38

according to ScottWD at the AVS forums, this unit have 512MB of ram and 512MB of Flash, so wich one is right? 256 or 512 ??

<<< edit: I imagine he’s right ;-) If so then half of ram is probably reserved for the system to cache NAND or whatever, the bootloader only makes 200MB visible to Linux though. As for the flash itself being 512MB…no clue, but I know the firmware updateable section is only 94MiB. I’m currently puzzled as to where/what the missing 270MiB of NAND is. –b-rad >>>

Matt
October 16th, 2009 15:22

b-rad wrote:
> my cables a nokia CN-42 [...]

You mean a Nokia CA-42? If so, what do you connect that to? A Nokia N8x0/N900???

<<< edit: yeh my ‘lab’ is dark, CA-42 it is…as for connecting…well the TTY end goes into whatever i can plug it in and the USB end goes to my laptop. –b-rad >>>

Swartz
October 16th, 2009 18:51

Just got mine today…
But ran into a problem…

I hook it up via HDMI cable, see the WDTV Live logo and then my TV tells me there is no video input. Tried rebooting, tried with network… nothing. Just shows the logo and then blank screen and TV sees no signal. Argghhhh…

I know TV has no problems with stuff I can watch off my laptop which has HDMI port.

<<< edit: I’m guessing you tried using composite then selecting HDMI then using HDMI? If so bummer about the issue. –b-rad >>>

wacky
October 17th, 2009 02:15

So what kind of homebrewed applications we can expect to be developed in the future? Can this thing run YAMJ?

<<< edit: Use your imagination. I don’t think anyone expected the WDTV1 to build the homebrew community it currently has. The WDTV Live will be even better. –b-rad >>>

Aqualibra
October 17th, 2009 06:12

Can some of the features of WD Live be implemented in WD TV, for example: YouTube etc…

<<< edit: There is serious firmware size limitations in WDTV1. You can find a youtube app.bin extension if you look around. Check wdtvforum for a topic. –b-rad >>>

kuf
October 17th, 2009 07:07

Swartz,

i think, it will be the same ‘bug’, what the old wdtv has :( ( That’s why i should sell wdtv, because it was uncompatible with my projector.. I read a lot of forum posts about it. Wdtv’s hdmi source detection is not soo correct.. You cannot save HDMI output , it lost this settings at everytime, when lost power.. After a powerloss, wdtv tries “Auto” mode at HDMI, and it sometimes not work. I hoped, it will be in Wdtv live, but it looks like, not :( i’m not happy about it :(

kuf

<<< edit: sounds like something that’d be fixed by a quick one-liner once my FW is out ;-) –b-rad >>>

Chef
October 17th, 2009 07:46

..so there’s a good chance to see some nice homebrew on this WDTV Live? I mean, you think that’s possible, they really didn’t put some kind of block?

<<< edit: I don’t think its possible, I know it is…I’m pretty much there, about to drop my first attempt on the little guy. –b-rad >>>

Joost
October 17th, 2009 08:03

Would it be possible to correct the overscan problem of the WD TV live when it’s used with CRT tv’s? Maybe there could be an option to zoom to 95%. Is that possible to do with custom firmware?

<<< edit: I’ve looked around for easy way to do that before and couldn’t find one, maybe some day…but more something nice WD could do, they added 1.1 and 1.2 this time around. –b-rad >>>

outoforder
October 17th, 2009 09:28

So b-rad are you planning on releasing a modified wdtv.bin soon? for the WDTV Live Something with NFS capabilities/SSH daemon and net.mounts like the WDTV 1? If so, any idea how long we are looking at?

Thank you

<<< edit: Its definitely in the works, I’m just trying to work through a couple snags atm. Depends on the time it takes me to reverse engineer something, wdlxtv-live is ready otherwise ;-) –brad >>>

Ian
October 17th, 2009 09:58

Awesome write up. Just got my WDTV2 the other day as an upgrade to my WDTV1, which I only had a short time and I love it so far.

One thing though, I am having no luck with getting it to work with my D-Link router as a LAN connection. If I do auto it doesn’t work and trying manual the DNS server doesn’t work. I know this isn’t really the correct thread but I’ve searched like crazy with no solution. Anyone able to help me out?

<<< edit: wdtvforum would be of help I imagine. –b-rad >>>

icke
October 17th, 2009 11:19

hey b-rad,
great work you are doing here!
i ordered a wdtv1, but now i think i`ll send it back and will order a wdtv live.
just a few questions:
will the old apps work on the new wdtv firmware? Like (for example the webserver(-addons-0.2) ), or must they be rewritten?
Is the wdtv live shutting down the usb ports completely when it`s switched off? (hopefully…)
thanks for the infos!
greetings
icke

<<< edit: Cheers. Nothing will work, everything must be recompiled. The wdtv live does not shut down power to the usb ports, but does turn the device itself off when it goes to standby. –b-rad >>>

cheebster
October 17th, 2009 12:29

b-rad, do you think there’s a way to fix the weirdo network shares problem that it’s having ? Everytime i browse a samba server, shares get randomly displayed.. without any config changes on the server side.

<<< edit: maybe possible with updated binaries–requires me getting homebrew fw working on it first. –b-rad >>>

Takuru
October 17th, 2009 12:40

It is possible add support for more wireless devices or manually ¿?

RTL8187 = 3

<<< edit: It will be once I can get a homebrew firmware workin. –b-rad >>>

Swartz
October 17th, 2009 14:13

Hi b-rad,

Thanks for all the info and replies so far.
As per discussion above I’m having that dreaded HDMI no signal error. This is my first. Never had problems before.

Is there any way a hacked firmware can fix something like what I am having? The more research I have done the more it seems likely it to be an HDMI handshake problem. Is it something that is fixable via a hack or hidden settings change? Seeing how long it takes WD to fix issue or add feature, I’m not going to bet on them solving my problem.

I can use composite cable upto 1080i@60hz but its not 1080p like I want over hdmi. So unless I find a solution, this new WDTV has to go back to the store. Which really sucks as I have waited for it to come out for so long.

PS. You have no idea how appreciative we all are for your work! Can’t thank you enough!

jacques
October 17th, 2009 16:00

I also have the problem of HDMI->DVI not working.

I use a HDMI->DVI cable to a 1680×1050 monitor
and it works great with original WDTV.

With Live it’s stuck at 480p and looks terrible.

I have tried forcing the mode but it doesn’t take.

I sure how this isn’t some new HDCP compliance
stuff.

<<< edit: Could be a negotiation issue. My display is 1680×1080 and wdtv1 displays 1680×1080 (albeit flags it 16×9), but wdtv live rejects that resoultion and displays 1080p instead. Will look into manually work-a-round sometime. –b-rad >>>

Swartz
October 17th, 2009 17:15

Is there any way to log the process when HDMI handshake is taking place? Like what errors occurring and stuff?

I mean HDMI works when it first boots but then something goes wrong.

I also tested another cable (1.3b1) still no go.

Zhnu
October 17th, 2009 18:34

Well just tried to flash wdtv hd with the wdtv live firmware it’s bricked my guessing kernel panic on the boot the devices only show wd tv hd logo and doens’t boot

cBc
October 17th, 2009 19:03

This is probably out in left field, but have to ask if there is any way to perhaps add replaygain and/or Gapless playback to this device, since it’s got more horsepower than it’s older sibling?
It sure would be nice to have at least ONE media player in the world that could do that. =)
oh well….a boy can dream.

Zhnu
October 17th, 2009 19:14

Just unbricked it and decided to analyse first the wdtv live firm and for what I see it support the folowing wireless chipsets:

rt2870
rt3070
rt3572
ex:(D-LINK 140)
please confirm

GREGORY
October 18th, 2009 03:07

And another question is to look that new picture below and tell me what is the use of these two ports.
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/3812/img2894x.jpg

A lot of thanks.

<<< edit: ones the optical socket the others the serial TTY. –b-rad >>>

HerrKommilitone
October 18th, 2009 04:12

Hey b-rad,

is there any chance to put the features from the “new” WDTV live to the Firmware of the “old” WDTV? :)

Thanks a lot and greetings from all over the World.

<<< edit: 8655 and 863X binaries are not compatible, so most likely no, just swapping them over at least. Theres much homebrew activity though that fills in the gaps. –b-rad >>>

Derek
October 18th, 2009 04:29

You said you had NFS working on it? Was this “stock” through the UI, or did you do something under the hood to enable NFS? I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how, via the GUI, to connect to an NFS server….

<<< edit: I did it all manually over the serial line. –b-rad >>>

Matt
October 18th, 2009 07:59

b-rad wrote:
> CA-42 it is…as for connecting […] the USB end goes to my laptop.

Ah, had me thinking there was some significance to it being a Nokia cable, but in fact you’re just using the USB end of it… :)

b-rad wrote:
>> [xbmc] not likely to happen
> As for XBMC [...] I’ve got somethin a-brewin already.

Nice! :) More likely by the minute it seems… Guess the question then is; is there a OpenGL ES 2.0 driver for the WDTV Live hardware, or would the UI have to be drawn all in software?

<<< edit: my fw is a-brewin, not XBMC ;-) –b-rad >>>

Guillaume
October 18th, 2009 08:32

It seems so surreal that you’re able to talk about custom firmware just days after the was released o_O

b-rad, without the source code, what changes can you hope to do in the GUI? (like using bigger res for posters, i understand it’s currently limited to 120×180), or creating new visualisation modes like wide icons, or even supporting fanart?

Also, the wdtv live doesn’t have network shortcuts management with Samba streaming, when you implement NFS, will it be possible?

Best regards

<<< edit: give me time, I’m currently reverse engineering some things that have me at a standstill. Much, much, fun stuff will come from this little guy in good time. –b-rad >>>

virtuallyunlimited
October 18th, 2009 08:58

Just wanted to say Thank you for the work you are doing on this. I really is amazing the information you have gleaned from the box in such a short amount of time. We will all try to be patient while you do your fine work.

<<< edit: Cheers mate! –b-rad >>>

Skydog
October 18th, 2009 10:30

Hi b-rad,

Thanks for the great write-up. Do you think HDMI and Composite or Component and composite could be enablied at the same time? The MPS865X summary sheet says yes, but don’t know if there is missing hardware in the WDTV Live. Would be great to be able to watch HD via HDMI or Component on the main TV and also distribute composite to other TV’s in my home via my homes RF channel modulator.

Thanks again!…

<<< edit: Sounds nifty if possible. –b-rad >>>

Bounce
October 18th, 2009 12:48

Is it possible to improve the network performance of the WDTV Live?

<<< edit: fresh up to date binaries might help, my experience with NFS is rock solid though. –b-rad >>>

throb.net » Blog Archive » Quick Lineup of 3 HD Media Players
October 18th, 2009 18:18

[...] really solid. Additionally, there is a crazy bastard “b-rad” that is already working on hacking the unit! Color me in for the hacks. It looks like a pretty nice featured unit under the [...]

Anon
October 18th, 2009 18:26

b-rad. I’m new to the WDTV scene. I wasn’t involved with WDTV1 but I’ve been eagerly awaiting WDTV2. I was disappointed that WDTV2 didn’t support NFS out of the box and almost decided against buying one.

When I read you write up and learned that WD leaves a TTY port open on the motherboard I was STOKED! It *does* support NFS out of the box. :D Aw man the home brew applications are….endless! Especially with 512MB or 256MB of space!! :D

Plus I’m glad WD went with linux on both the WDTV1 and 2. GPL ftw!

<<< edit: If only I could (can) figure out how to get NFS to show up in the network shares area. –b-rad >>>

asgard
October 18th, 2009 21:33

Hi B-rad,

Re: NFS showing in the menus, I guess you tried mounting @ /tmp/nfsroot as is commented in the s70misc file:

#mkdir -p /tmp/nfsroot
#mount -t nfs -o nolock 172.18.83.212:/home/joshua/DMA/root /tmp/nfsroot

I guess you have :) … keep at it bro we are willing you on!

cheebster
October 19th, 2009 05:12

@Skydog: Hey, while i plugged my 2nd unit to a tv, i noticed that while plugged on the hdmi port i still had video under component. I guess it’s possible, i leaved everything stock when i noticed both worked at the same time…

UnDivided
October 19th, 2009 07:15

Thanks for being metal and hacking this thing to pieces, always nice to get the most out of a piece of hardware.

Dizzle
October 19th, 2009 08:18

Hey B-rad, Just wondering about the wdtv live’s blu ray support? (drives, media, etc)..i wanna get a bd rom for my wd tv live asap

<<< edit: well, buy me one/some & I’ll tell you ;-) –b-rad >>>

tps
October 19th, 2009 09:51

Hey B-rad. Thanks for the great work on the WDTV1.

My biggest disappointment in the WDTV1 was that I could not play all music by an artist/genre by clicking play on the artist name in the music library. Has this been fixed in the WDTV2?

<<< edit: Cheers…Dunno, no music handy. –b-rad >>>

Ottawa
October 19th, 2009 09:51

B-RAD,

Excellent work. Sicne you’re done so much so far – any chance of adding linux dm-crypt support for encrypted file systems (ideally ext2/3/4)?

<<< edit: maybe, will look into it eventually. –b-rad >>>

andyjos
October 19th, 2009 18:33

Hi everyone. I purchased one of these last week from Best Buy and have been testing the device with a myriad of file types. The device works great with everything with the exception of straight blu-ray rips from Any DVD HD. If you try to play the file straight from Any DVD HD, the file stutters. However, if you remove some of the extra streams using tsmuxer, or encode to mkv or mp4 using RipBot, the file plays fine.

Skydog
October 19th, 2009 19:36

cheebster, thanks I’ll give it a try. I really need composite video to work at the same time as either HDMI or Component is also running. The data sheets for the processor says it can do it, so I hope it happens with a firmware update or b-rad might hack.

Benny
October 20th, 2009 08:36

B-rad the second after I read your post… I went to Best Buy and bought it. *BTW* make sure you print out the online price before you go like the guy above said. Chicago BadBuy tried to charge me $154.xx for it! Print out a Best Buy Mover’s coupon for 10% off. Neways…

B-rad… when you get the chance can you look into adding 480i resolution on the component cable resolution? I got an old school Sony Wega that doesn’t have progressive scan, but the component input is a LOT cleaner than the composite. I am using ur WDTV build on my main HDTV and you sir are a godsend.

<<< edit: adding resolution like that probably out of my ballpark. –b-rad >>>

Mike
October 20th, 2009 08:36

Hello B-Rad,
First of all: great work !

I’m currently (and unfortunately) not a WDTV Live owner… but I’m workin’ on it.

I would like to use the WDTV Live as a “torrent-downloader machine” too. Any chance to port/convert the popular uTorrent for WDTV live ?

You wrote this to the forum:
“this is a try before you buy non-flash firmware”
It’s just a speaking or it means what it means, that we’ll have to pay for your Custom FW ? (what will be the price?…)

- M

<<< edit: utorrent will never happen because it requires wine. I’ll probably get rtorrent going as thats my client of choice. Try before you buy means it doesn’t flash (yet). What I produce is free, but donations are always accepted and appreciated considering how many hundreds of hours of expensive dev time I spend on the little thing. –b-rad >>>

athila
October 20th, 2009 11:49

I cannot use with this firmware the optware package. Any idea?

# ls -la /opt/bin/ipkg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 default default 3852 Feb 25 2009 /opt/bin/ipkg
# chown root.root /opt/bin/ipkg
# /opt/bin/ipkg update
-sh: /opt/bin/ipkg: not found

<<< edit: of course you can’t, my first Optware for wdtv release is written for a completely different CPU. You’ll have to wait, nothing written for wdtv1 will work on villa. –b-rad >>>

greg
October 20th, 2009 11:50

Just ordered one, looking forward to getting something from you to run torrents on this thing!

athila
October 21st, 2009 02:02

Ouch, correct. Different architecture.
Thanks!

Paul
October 21st, 2009 02:23

Any chance you will be adding functionality for a usb keybord and mouse?

<<< edit: doubt it, unless I had some serious motivation. –b-rad >>>

Ahc11
October 22nd, 2009 20:47

B-Rad,
I’m new to the wdtv world. Can you or one of your friends here please let me know what I can expect to do with this lovely unofficial firmware? How will homebrew open my world?

It seems to me that a lot of the things you enabled in the original device are part of the beauty of the LIVE.

Thanks for any info and for anything that I may use in the future.

AHC11
Any info is greatly appreciated.

<<< edit: wdlxtv-live adds NFS mounting, application plug ins, osd themes, hub support, optical drives, ftp/ssh/telnet, configurable thumb size&count and list number. And thats just so far. –b-rad >>>

Imfor Umman
October 23rd, 2009 04:51

This is just frickin’ amazing, the things you do and the way you you do them. Keep it up!

mrreload
October 23rd, 2009 15:27

Impressive, Wasn’t even aware the device was out yet and come to this site and b-rad is already hacking it! Yippee! Now off to find one on internets, best price.

richking
October 23rd, 2009 17:05

Hi Brad,

Just picked up my own WDTV Live to replace my old WDTV.
Can’t believe it just does everything I need it for (reading content from my NAS) straight out of the box!!
Did notice one thing though, my photos are very small on the screen. Is it within your talents to have them stretch to the screen size by default?

Love your work mate!

<<< edit: Cheers. Quick glance says no to your question. –b-rad >>>

Tom Oehser
October 24th, 2009 10:49

What are the options for controlling over the network? Sitting at a computer in another room and picking music? Or using a netbook from the couch to navigate rather than the on-screen keyboard? If not a webserver interface then text-mode via ssh? Is there a way to play arbitrary streams rather than just pandora/365, such as mms://wm15.spacialnet.com/gogoradio?

<<< edit: none & not yet. –b-rad >>>

Takuru
October 25th, 2009 15:50

Hi… again xD.

I’ve donated $ 20 to not drop the moral.

-It is possible to increase the size of the subs from 40 to more

40 to 70/72.

- WD TV Live, you can not play, AAC “MPEG-4″ SBR+PS = accPlus V2. I will try to talk to WD =3

Only… ACC (MPEG-2).

- The time of information bar, is about 5sec. You could do something about it, it takes too long to disappear.

*Grr, damn WD. If you do not pay them … taken into consideration in the next update.

Thanks for all the work!!!!!!!.

Takuru
October 25th, 2009 21:43

Ups… Fail to me xD. Information Bar time y aacplus V2.

as far as possible

digital
October 26th, 2009 05:13

same here with Samsung Syncmaster 2333 SW, the display on the WD Live is stuck at 480p and cannot be changed manually. My WD TV 1 sends 1080p fine.

B-Rad New-Fan
October 29th, 2009 03:02

Im in awe of your ability to reverse engineer and improve this linux machine. The WDTVs original firmware would recognize the use of USB hubs allowing the use of more than TWO harddrives. Designing this ability out, seems counter-intuitive for a harddrive manufacturer. I hope restoring this feature is near the top of your to-do list.
Keep up the Great Work.

<<< edit: what leads you to believe it hasn’t be done already? –b-rad >>>

Tom Oehser
October 29th, 2009 15:45

If it is easier than mms://wm15.spacialnet.com/gogoradio I’d be interested in playing http://gogoradio.com/listen.m3u which is MP3 instead of Windows format (though not as good a bitrate). I tossed in $50, $35 towards the arbitrary stream playing, $15 towards being able to control it over the network (primarily to pick music from nearby rooms from CIFS shares). If it can play the streams, I can get rid of my Audiotron, and have one less component in the cabinet, and one less set of cables competing for inputs…

<<< edit: I’ll definitely be able to release an extension to listen to the gogoradio.com mp3 stream. Will have to see if WD TV Live can play a capped mms file, unsure. The network-remote-control is harder and might eventually come, but there is an mt-daapd server running on it already. From what I can find mt-daapd allows you to remotely play music through some network api, can’t get any Linux music software to detect its presence though. If you want to see it, browse to your WD TV Lives ip address in your browser, but select port 3689. The username is blank and the password is admin. See if you [or anyone else] can figure out what to do. Thanks for the donation! Cheers. –b-rad >>>

B-Rad New-Fan
October 30th, 2009 21:56

Just loaded WDLXTV_LIVE-0.1.7.zip contents into the WDTV-Live. Still only get ONE (1TB) drive per USB port with either of my two Belkin USB-Hubs. Both powered hubs show three (or more) 1TB drives when hooked to the Original WDTV still using its original 1.00.01 firmware. I Hope I’m missing something. Any Suggestions ?

Tom Oehser
October 31st, 2009 16:25

Hmmm… why is remote controlling harder? What about something like just VNC to the existing display? Is it some framebuffer thing not X, I would guess? What about instead of remote controlling, running some other independent software that then goes to the mixer? I may have to learn more about how the thing works. I have a high technical skills in Linux and programming, but, I’m also lazy with many other projects. It has random on a directory – if I just keep putting different files there, I wonder if it refreshes?

playdude
November 5th, 2009 09:21

Thanks b-rad for the custom firmware so I can have fun with the command line. chroot works so I can chroot into Debian and run transmission-daemon to download torrents. If only Western Digital included swapon…

Simone
November 10th, 2009 15:46

Hi b-rad! I have a litte question: is this wdtv live DLNA certificated?

<<< edit: Why don’t you refer to the specifications and do whatever research is required and tell me the answer. –b-rad >>>

codres
November 17th, 2009 02:00

Hi brad! You’re doing great work with WD. I have a model WDBABG0000NBK which according to avsforum is a WD HD Live but without networking. Is this correct? Ths this means that the modified firmware gor Live will work on mine?

<<< edit: Not a chance. Buy me one and I’ll whip something good up though ;) –b-rad >>>

Ian
November 17th, 2009 06:50

Since we have the option to stream video from YouTube with the present set up of WDTV Live, would it be possible to add other sites, like Hulu to the main video menu with your hack? I know that you can do this with media servers from computers attached to your home network, but would love to be able to stream these live from the net instead of through another computer.

Thanks for the time you spend on this thing, and the time you take to respond to many of the posts.

<<< edit: won’t happen (probably), have you by chance looked at the system requirements? There is no adobe flash on mipsel. –b-rad >>>

jis
November 28th, 2009 06:22

@Simone
@-b-rad

Hi, WDTV Live HD Media Player is DLNA certified Digital Media Adapter, see:
http://certification.dlna.org/certs/REG73326800.pdf

jis
November 28th, 2009 06:36

“…The network-remote-control is harder and might eventually come, but there is an mt-daapd server running on it already. From what I can find mt-daapd allows you to remotely play music through some network api, can’t get any Linux music software to detect its presence though. If you want to see it, browse to your WD TV Lives ip address in your browser, but select port 3689. The username is blank and the password is admin. See if you [or anyone else] can figure out what to do. Thanks for the donation! Cheers. –b-rad”

Did anybody figure out what to do? I try, but I was unsuccessful so far.

Donovan
December 16th, 2009 13:51

hey there, you guys are talking WAY over my head with NAND? and several other things I don’t understand. a long time ago, I created a page with a Comodore 128, used to understand some code, but long gone now. my question, I bought a WD TV Live thinking it I would just plug it in, and it would connect to my network, like many have? but it doesn’t. my computer sees the WD, and the WD says the network is fine, but no network shares. I’m using XP, and the only firewall I have at the present is Windows. it seems like I’m missing just some little thing to make this thing work. I have hundreds of video files via, Magic DVD Ripper. great software, btw. but anyway, the WD accesses a USB drive ok, it sees the network, the network sees the WD, but no shares. any input would help. and do you ever think the WD will be able to hook up with Netflix ?

Thanks in advance, Donovan

Donovan
December 16th, 2009 16:37

I’m thinking maybe the router needs to allow the WD to comunicate with the computer? is there a port that I should be allowing that isn’t ?

Donovan
December 17th, 2009 04:00

Ok, found it on another list, run the Network setup Wizard, make sure the Sharing Printer and Files is checked, and then the WD sees the Share Docs Folder. What it doesn’t see is any USB drive plugged into the computer.

VINCENZO
January 6th, 2010 15:24

Hello B-RAD
I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE WDTV live.
I did the upgrade from 1.10 to 1.11.
but unfortunately crashed and now appears to include a written USB drive.
you can restore everything from the door CN4?
how can I proceed to do this?
thanks

<<< edit: Search wdtvforum.com in the homebrew section for instructions on serial recovery. –b-rad >>>

sjk
January 15th, 2010 10:18

Phooey! You added:

To Benny’s comment about supporting 480i-over-component you added:

edit: adding resolution like that probably out of my ballpark. –b-rad

In case it’s ever in your ballpark I’d be delighted since the lack of support for this (obviously WD’s responsibility) is my #1 reason for not purchasing WDTVL. The alternatives of choosing a different player or holding off until my TV is eventually upgraded aren’t very satisfying.

<<< edit: not going to happen by me. –b-rad >>>

sjk
January 15th, 2010 10:27

Thanks for that immediate, definitive confirmation and cleaning up my doofus post. :)

Uzr
March 7th, 2010 01:25

Hi B-rad. I’ve become your fan after reading your stuff.
May be u can help me in playing movies on my 4:3 projector with WD TV LIVE. Right now the movies are stretched vertically to fit the complete screen and I’ve tried every thing to correct it but not succeeded. Can u please add this in your upgrade firmeware as I think as a lot of people might be facing the same problem.
Thanks.

<<< edit: umm…not really something doable by me and sounds pretty situational specific as well. –b-rad >>>

Mil
May 19th, 2010 18:10

would it be possible to play YouTube high-def videos?

<<< edit: Of course ;) Refer to: forum.wdlxtv.com –b-rad >>>

Pir8
September 24th, 2010 07:35

Hey b-rad, I am amazed, just got my WDTV Live and have upgraded to your modded firmware WDLXTV-Live, it plays great and loved the web interface, ssh, http://ftp…. Thanks for your efforts.

Any idea when can we get to remotely control the music/video playback over the network. (I downloaded webserver addons 0.3 and later realized its for the WDTV firmware).

bcomixinc
September 29th, 2010 17:46

Hey b-rad. Been following your stuff for a while, although never tried the WDLXTV firmware, (still new to linux based systems), but i’m wondering if it’s possible to run Windows CE off the WDTV Live, as the processor should support it, although i’m unsure of how to boot to the memory stick to do this. What are your thoughts?

Knoxvill
November 1st, 2010 13:07

Hey B-rad. I am new to the to WDLXTV forums but have muddled my way through upgrading to your Firmware and using MovieSheets, Custom Icons, all that. With Hulu moving to HTML5, and now being supported on iPad(because I have one and it works like a charm), will there ever be a revisit to getting this made available on in your custom firmware. I would rather not get caught up trying to setup TVersity or PlayOn if this is something that is “right-around-the-6-month-corner”.
Thanks btw, you are doing an AWESOME job!!!!

NappyD
November 11th, 2010 03:46

Just found this site a month ago and have been reading. I am very excited about what I read here. I have a wdtv live and a dwa-125 USB wifi. These worked out of the box with my wdtv live. Do you have native wireless device support for this as my router is no where near my home theatre and running Ethernet is not an option.

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