- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
- 7
- 76
For $120 you get a plastic box about 6" x 6" x 2" and a remote . It has connections for HDMI, optical, component, svideo, ethernet, 2 USB ports and a small power adapter. The box contains a sigma designs processor and 512MB ram. I was lucky I read up on it a bit before purchasing because apparently WD released a firmware that people updated to which killed the boxes and they had to be returned to the factory. So if you get one DO NOT UPDATE THE FIRMWARE AUTOMATICALLY. Go to the WD forums and read up on that part.
I chose a different route. I found someone who has released hacked firmware. The cool thing about this box is it is running linux and with 512MB ram it actually has enough memory to do something other than what it was designed for. To install the firmware all you have to do is format a usb drive as FAT, copy the firmware files to the drive and plug it into the WD box. On startup the box will say it found new firmware on the drive and ask to upgrade. It takes about 5 minutes to do the update so don't unplug the box, just let it finish.
When it restarts it will have a new logo and background. You now have access to the box via telnet terminal. The hacked firmware adds full ftp support, support for wireless usb adapters, support for usb dvd drives, you can add a web server, use it to download torrents or from newsgroups, or basically install anything that already exist on linux as non x windows applications. All this can be added without disturbing the playback portions of the box. You can also change the look of the interface with xml files. When the box boots it will load your configs or apps from the usb stick or attached hard drive so if you get something wrong you don't hurt the box, just make your changes and reboot.
It plays every format I have thrown at it even ones with bad indexes that VLC wouldn't play without repairing. Subtitles look and work great. I have mine hooked up to a 250GB drive and the network . Uploading to it is about 7MB/sec over a 100Mbit network. I use ftp to do the file management. You can stream from the windows box too for sites like hulu or netflix using playon media server. It has support for streaming youtube, flickr, pandora , already built in.
The firmware is here:
http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv/
I chose a different route. I found someone who has released hacked firmware. The cool thing about this box is it is running linux and with 512MB ram it actually has enough memory to do something other than what it was designed for. To install the firmware all you have to do is format a usb drive as FAT, copy the firmware files to the drive and plug it into the WD box. On startup the box will say it found new firmware on the drive and ask to upgrade. It takes about 5 minutes to do the update so don't unplug the box, just let it finish.
When it restarts it will have a new logo and background. You now have access to the box via telnet terminal. The hacked firmware adds full ftp support, support for wireless usb adapters, support for usb dvd drives, you can add a web server, use it to download torrents or from newsgroups, or basically install anything that already exist on linux as non x windows applications. All this can be added without disturbing the playback portions of the box. You can also change the look of the interface with xml files. When the box boots it will load your configs or apps from the usb stick or attached hard drive so if you get something wrong you don't hurt the box, just make your changes and reboot.
It plays every format I have thrown at it even ones with bad indexes that VLC wouldn't play without repairing. Subtitles look and work great. I have mine hooked up to a 250GB drive and the network . Uploading to it is about 7MB/sec over a 100Mbit network. I use ftp to do the file management. You can stream from the windows box too for sites like hulu or netflix using playon media server. It has support for streaming youtube, flickr, pandora , already built in.
The firmware is here:
http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv/
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