Western Digital WD TV Live Plus
342611
Have a external HD USB and direct linked to Pc HD works great
can watch you tube no problems
play my music and movies great
only thing is a little noise when the system starts up but it goes away .
Update --- the net work is broken year into it --not there problem Lighting got it unit still works but not updates
2660106
Over the years I have noticed that I watch less and less live TV. With my 3 year Tivo subscription running out, I thought this would be a good time to get rid of my Cox cable bill and try using an HD antenna and add a TV Tuner card to the computer that I already have hooked to my 50 inch plasma. I only hooked it up 24 hours ago, but here are my initial reactions.

Using the WinTV 7 software:
Much clearer recordings than my series 2 Tivo.
No subscription.
Easy to install and use.
Comes with remote that works well.
Can watch one program while recording another.
Can easily title and organize video files.

I do miss some of Tivo's features and I do miss a couple channels that I lost, but I can find most shows in Hulu (or on their website) and this seems to be the bang for buck way to go.
4560656
I have owned 3 WD TV Live Plus boxes and 1 WD TV Live Streaming box.  I was expecting this to be a simplified version of the Streaming box since it has a number of features that I don't use (games, live TV, RSS, etc.).  It instead is trying to be the Western Digital Roku (lots of streaming apps).  Most importantly, the one function that I used almost exclusively on the other WD boxes, the ability to play from a network share, has been removed.  Maybe they'll put it back in with a firmware update in the future, but it will be too late as I used it for about 15 mins. then put it back in the box and gave it to my in-laws.  Sure, you can set up a DLNA media server, but then you have to actually go through the trouble of setting it up on a computer that is always on.  And then maybe the media server program will randomly crash (Plex). Or only shows you certain file types (Windows Media Player).

I love the older WD TV boxes, but not this one.  The WD TV Play is a big disappointment for me.  Get the WD TV Live Streaming instead.
1158364
I had to buy this particular unit to work with my TiVo Roamio television DVR. No other external hard disk unit was compatible. Once again I felt cornered by the TiVo product: you have to pay $14 a month to use their record and program guide features but they are admittedly very good. The WD Expander does work properly and is quiet. So it is very satisfactory. It gives me triple the storage of the Roamio alone. I am currently using an Over-The-Air antenna I mounted on my roof last fall so recording crystal clear High Definition programs is very satisfying. Better HD than the Bell satellite images. I have the full last season of Downton Abbey in HD recorded barely touching the total storage space and no download charge! Better to pay $14 to TiVo instead of $140  to Bell  which is what I was paying before I "cut the cable". The Expander complements this system nicely. The capital outlay has paid for itself in six months from the savings. P.S. For those of you interested, I also use a Roku3 to stream from the PC for Netflix ($8 monthly),  PlayOn, MyMedia, etc. This system gives the best of most worlds to my mind. I have not tried using the WD Expander USB2/eSATA as an external hard drive on my pc but I am sure it would work well. I have two other earlier WD My Books USB external drives on my pc and I am very satisfied with them. I have come to trust and respect Western Digital equipment.
1149771
I didn't use the features of the Slingbox Pro HD that I lost with this upgrade (direct connection to cable, additional ports) and I had a LAN connection and a spare cable box already. The speed & quality is noticeably improved from the Pro HD. My only complaint is that they no longer create a free downloadable program for Windows.
2841979
Instantly up and running in only 5 minutes.  Connect to your Directv HD DVR 22-100, follow the onscreen prompts and there you are.  Connected without a hitch to my network via a Netgear WGT624 router using 802.11g.  I can now view HD content streamed from the DVR via Directv's beta version of directv2pc software.  Downloads video-on-demand content much more qickly than via the powerline adapters I previously had.
4454469
This 4 TB External hard drive is being used as my DVR expander for my DirecTV Genie. So here is a little back story:

I have Verizon Fios and DirecTV Genie service in my home. (Yes I have both for sports etc). I have used the Western digital 1TB expandable DVR expanders for a few years on both Directv and my Fios service. The Western Digitals work great but... 1TB is simply not enough for when I go on vacations or record a lot of shows within a week. I have been looking for a perfect solution to my storage needs. I HAVE found what I've been looking for in the Fantom 4TB drive. (Disclaimer, this drive only works with my Directv Genie, My Fios box wouldn't recognize it).

Pros:
-The drive really does expand my DirecTV Genie to 4TB. I have literally over 80 hours of HD content and only 4% is full so far. That's 96% free. Since I know the capacity limits of the 1TB I can say the Directv Genie uses the full 4TB of space.
-Easy to install and use (Just unplug the receiver, plug in this drive then boot up receiver).
-Does not slow down the receiver or your browsing of channels and shows.
-If the power ever goes out, once rebooted it goes back right where it left off, recording all of my shows.

Cons
-The Blinking Blue light is very frustrating and annoying. Use some black electric tape to cover this light.
-Compared to the Western Digital 1TB DVR expanders, this drive definitely makes some noise. Nothing too loud or unbearable but, you definitely hear the drive grinding. If you store it further away or under a shelf you should be fine.
-Build quality of the casing isn't the best. Feels a bit cheap but looks aren't everything I guess.
-Does NOT come with a eSata cable. Luckily I had an extra one from my Western Digital drive but if you don't have one, buy one.
-Does NOT work with Fios, Only Directv as I have tested.

Overall I am very happy with my purchase of this drive. I know I can be away for weeks at a time and all of my shows will be recording without running out of space. It isn't perfect but for the price and the high capacity (4TB) it's a great deal!

Buy it!
2511954
I suppose my review of the WD TV is long overdue considering the absurd amount of use my family gets from these little boxes. I have been using WD TV units now for 5 years and can't imagine going back to the days of physical media. Once you go digital, you don't ever have to worry about discs getting scratched, broken, or misplaced. It's really fantastic. Honestly, format-shifting your physical media to digital files is the hard part - setting up and using the WD TV to watch your digital media is the fun, easy part.

First, my setup, so you have some context for my review:

- Media: Movies and TV shows ripped from digital media and encoded using Handbrake. File sizes range from a couple hundred megabytes to 20GB for very long movies.

- Network: My WD TV's are hooked into the home network via gigabit ethernet; When I last tested the wifi on these units it was too fragile to reliably stream media at the bit-rates available from blu-ray quality media, so I unfortunately I cannot comment on the wifi capabilities of the WDTV. Perhaps now that I have a better Wireless N router I could try it again, but I have ethernet running through the house so I probably won't bother.

- Storage: I set up a basic SAMBA shared drive from a networked computer and put the media there. Window 8 has a great feature called "Storage Spaces" that lets you combine multiple physical drives into one "logical" drive so that you don't have to use multiple shared drives to accommodate a large digital library. I don't use local USB drives for storage anymore, but I have in the past and it worked just fine.

General Observations:

As I mentioned above under "media", my family's primary use case is playing movies and TV shows ripped from physical media and streamed across the network from a shared drive. I have a Netflix subscription, but I've found the Netflix app on these boxes to be a little slow, so I don't use it. If Western Digital put a better processor in a future WD TV model then I might be more inclined to fire up some of their other apps more often. As is stands, I don't really use the WD TV for anything other than playing movies off of shared drives - but for that, it's 100% effective.

Multiple WD TV's: Like many homes these days, I have a couple TV's in the house and each one has a WD TV unit hooked up to it. I've never had a problem playing multiple movies at once, but that may depend largely on your infrastructure (network speed, server power, etc.) so your mileage may vary.

The UI: A few years ago there was a major overhaul of the UI. It's much nicer now, aesthetically. One minor gripe: switching between shared drives on my two servers take too many clicks. To switch between servers I have to navigate to a red button called "Change content source", select "Network Shares" then "Windows Shares" then the computer I want to browse. I would prefer to have a list of "favorite" network shares, select the one I want and have the WD TV remember how to get to the appropriate computer for me. It's a pain, but not a deal breaker by any means.

Other WD TV benefits:

- It's very portable. Loading up a USB hard drive with movies and TV shows and taking a WD TV unit with you for that rainy day on vacation is easy to do.

- Your entire digital movie/tv library is available "on demand". Swapping from one show or movie to another shows is trivial. Yes, it's the height of laziness, but sometimes lazy is ok. I work hard as a professional and as a parent - I don't want to work hard when it's time to relax!

- No more scratched/misplaced/broken media. I have two little children in the house, so any parents reading this will probably understand. The benefit of not having discs being swapped in and out of a blu-ray or DVD player with kids in the house cannot be overstated.

- It really does play anything that I throw at it. It supports all major audio and video codecs, and absolutely never skips a beat.
4782982
ROKU HD work fine,but have limited upgrade for this model. Should have all the same upgrades for all models new and old.
1332388
I purchased this to replace my network tuner from SiliconDust HDHomeRun HDHR-US Dual Networked High Definition Digital which I had problems with (it kept saying the tuner was being use by another program).  I replace the regular bracket with the low profile ones (came with it)for my mini HTPC case. I installed the card and expected Window to automatically find the driver and installed it, but it didn't.  I went to Haupauge website to find the newest driver and intalled it (did not use the CD that came in the kit).  Window Media Center (MWC)did not find the card until I restarted the PC.  WMC was easy to set up.  I scan for all the channel (COMCAST) and it found most of them.  I had to manually add some QAM channels (list from Siliconduct Site).  COMCAST will move there channels around so you may have to rescan and edit you TV listings.  The HD QAM channels look great. The analog channels don't look good on a HD TV.  I disable all my analog channels since I already had them in QAM anyway.  Digital is the way to go. With Window 7 WMC you can install more than 1 tuner and it also has NETFLIXS too. I may buy another one to get a total of four QAM tuner.  I'm saving about $16.00 a month on not having to rent a PVR box from Comcast and have a bigger hard drive (upgradable too) to save my show on.  I only have the basic service cable plan (more $$ saved and didn't really watched that much anyway), so if you want to watch the premium channels you will have to get a topbox and hook up the IR blaster and the cable to the box (only one premium channel can be watch or recorded at a time). After eliminating the PVR box and premium channels I cut my cable bill from $177 to $67 a month.  Overall it was a good buy.
1492260
I definitely need to get around to seeing if they have updated software for this thing. Onto the review:

It's been great. I ended up buying a $15 set of rabbit ears from Radio Shack and now am getting around 25 channels. Unfortunately, 3 are the kind I don't watch, and 7 of them aren't in English. However, I do get enough free channels that I do watch, so I miss not having Cable TV a lot less.

The picture quality has been fantastic. I have a 2nd monitor, and it feels just like a television set. The software it came with does crash quite a bit, and it is annoying.

Overall, it's been nice and it's making me look at getting a better antenna. It's also an incredible complement to a laptop computer.

Update: the WinTV application crashed like crazy just how. However, if you have Windows Media Center, it simply blows away WinTV. I got more channels with it and it's more stable
697245
I rarely have negative feedback and this is not the fault of Amazon's: I own two other WD Live TV units and was getting a third for my 6 year old daughter. They are that easy to use! It arrived with a new operating system and lacking the Netflix application. After calling WD they said I could use the MirrorCast feature to stream Netflix from a tablet, laptop or phone. This is not convenient nor do I want to purchase another intermediate device to manage a simple application. I think this is a grave design choice and mistake on the part of WD. I was a loyal patron of WD products. Now... not so much.

My other two units are fantastic, until today I would recommend this product to anyone.
4305388
Great product.  I'm having challenges trying to find access live streaming of local channels.
485812
The WD My DVR Expander is a standard eSATA external hard drive that also works beautifully with Tivo and several other common models of DVRs available from local cable providers.

I have Time Warner Cable service at home but my wife and I were always filling up the DVR built into our Time Warner Scientific Atlanta cable box. We kept filling up the DVR to 95-99 percent of maximum capacity and then having to delete old shows that we hadn't seen yet in order to make room for more shows.

After reading online that the Western Digital My DVR Expander was compatible with our model of Scientific Atlanta cable box/DVR, we decided to give this gizmo a try. I followed the instructions (very important since the cable box is picky about how you connect a DVR expander) and then waited about 10 minutes while the cable box reset itself, formatted the DVR Expander, and then checked my DVR.

All our previously-recorded DVR shows were still there on the DVR, but when I checked the capacity of the DVR it had changed from 93 percent full to only 11 percent full! This is the greatest addition to our entertainment center since we purchased an HDTV!

Now my wife and I have space on our Time Warner DVR to record all our shows and we rarely ever fill our DVR past 15-18 percent of its new capacity. I can't say enough good things about this product. The only way it could be better is if cable companies gave you one for free when you get DVR service.

If you have a compatible DVR or Tivo and need more space to record your favorite shows, this is the best product I've seen. Buy one right away ... you'll be glad you did.
1942825
Works very welll with Windows Media Center just take the time to setup everything accordingly system handles HD cable card broadcast with no problem.
233879
Best network storage device I've found, especially for the price!  It works especially well with my WD Live Hub and WD Live Plus media players to store and watch all types of digital media on any of the TVs around my house.
4702605
I have bought Western Digital drives in the past and have had no problems with them. Every now and then you can expect a manufacturer's error, but I haven't had that happen yet with WD. I used this drive to upgrade my Macbook Pro and it worked perfectly. I would always recommend Western Digital. The only thing I would have liked was if this drive was this price and 7200rpm on the speed.