WD TV Live Plus vs 360

[dfuze]

I got a question about upgrading my current "system". I have a server in the basement with all my movies on it. I was streaming them to the tv upstairs which was connected to an xbox classic running XBMC.

It runs great, but I'm starting to rip BD movies to the server and the xbox can't handle the playback sadly. Looking to upgrade I got the WD Live TV Plus, and it is ok, especially the tiny footprint, but to be honest the controls and menu system are rather lacking especially compared to the XMBC. I'm curious if I would be better off returning the WD and trying to get an xbox 360 to do the streaming? What are everyone's opinion on that?

 

[Modelworks]

The Live not the plus has basically everything that xbmc has for menus and controls available as custom firmware but the Plus hasn't been adapted yet because it is so new.
It shouldn't be long though because the Plus and the older Live are exactly the same except for the netflix support.

http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?PHPSESSID=3542fc6031a335bc6b3c6dca24f7f22a&board=14.0
Sample screen of wdtv running custom firmware

The 360 can obviously do a lot more. It just depends on what you want. I like the live because it is small and only uses 7watt of power. The 360 is a bit more picky about codecs used but with the 360 you can use it with windows media center to display content .

 

[dfuze]

I knew the live (non plus) had a custom firmware but wow, didn't know it was that good. I currently don't have time for games so there isn't that reason to get the 360. I think I'll hold on and see how the custom firmware route goes.

thanks for the link, I'll check out more info there

 

[Emulex]

i ordered the 90$ kinect thing. with a $99 xbox 360 that should be fun to play your media extender and be able to chat video at the same time.

does the wdtv have enough horsepower to transcode to multiple endpoints and watch video?

I'd rather have one powerful device that does it all - good for 6+ years myself.

i just retired my xbox1 it was fine with carefully encoded/transcoded 960x540p hardware scaled to 1920x1080i - played all HR-HDTV rips (480p) fine. best interface. even better than xbmc on pc/linux/osx. the wireless xbox1 controller worked superbly to use a d-pad to adjust volume or fast forward and reverse so fluidly.

i have not been able to replicate such a fluid interface with the pc yet.

 

[Modelworks]

does the wdtv have enough horsepower to transcode to multiple endpoints and watch video?

The WDTV uses the sigma chipset. Those chipsets were designed for things like FIOS DVR and cable DVR. They contain the ability to play back 2 x 1080P video streams at the same time with no performance loss. They do not transcode on these type boxes, but they don't need to. They play the content completely in dedicated hardware decoders. There is nothing running software wise on the cpu inside the chip that does the video processing. It is like using DXVA on a GPU in a pc to play all the video.

Basically it contains 2 chips in one package. The main cpu controls things like what file to play, file transfers, and the general background task. The other chip is the DSP. It has the hardware to do all the video, audio, display and final output like zooming, subtitles . The only thing the cpu has to do is read the information for the DSP.

That leaves the CPU with a lot of idle time. I can play back 1080p video and the cpu is running at 18%. That leaves me able to run torrent, usenet client, ftp, etc in the background with zero impact on the playback.


The interesting thing is that the chips also have hardware encoders internally but the feature is not enabled on set top boxes. Shame .