So... I think my WDTV is dying. What next?

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Handle9

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#541984 7-Nov-2011 12:33

trig42:
wellygary: My appleTV running XBMC has not been rebooted for a good couple of weeks now,

+1 on this as a solution to your WDTV's possible death, also with XBMC it has a very high WAF factor,

My better half has used it on a daily basis as she works here way though the entire box set of MASH whilst feeding our 2 month old.

LOL. Nice. ATV looks like it is winning the race at the moment. Even the wife says the WDTV needs replacing, and it is nearly impossible for me to get approval from the minteress of finance for new toys.

If senior management are approving procurement then you need to advance the project ASAP before budget cuts are enforced.....

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tigercorp

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#542020 7-Nov-2011 13:44

Handle9: ...

If senior management are approving procurement then you need to advance the project ASAP before budget cuts are enforced.....

QFT!

garvani

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#542062 7-Nov-2011 15:03

I have two devices for your consideration.. Both made by Xtreamer..

The first Sidewinder 2 I have owned the original sidewinder, a nice device that will play everything you want and ticks all your boxes.

The second is the new Xtreamer Ultra, which has XBMC preloaded, along with a plethora of other services/software. Also comes with a little wireless keyboard/remote and normal mce remote.

crackrdbycracku

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#542075 7-Nov-2011 15:42

garvani: I have two devices for your consideration.. Both made by Xtreamer..

The first Sidewinder 2 I have owned the original sidewinder, a nice device that will play everything you want and ticks all your boxes.

The second is the new Xtreamer Ultra, which has XBMC preloaded, along with a plethora of other services/software. Also comes with a little wireless keyboard/remote and normal mce remote.

Ok, I'll bite. How do I buy one in NZ? How much?

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

garvani

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#542076 7-Nov-2011 15:43

Im not a salesman or anything, i have no affiliation with said company :)

Just go through there order page, they are shipped from hong kong, mine took less than a week to arrive and was well packaged etc.

trig42

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#542446 8-Nov-2011 11:15

Xtreamer Ultra looks great, and I'd have it in a flash, IF it was in my price range.

EUR249 is a little steeper than the ministeress of Finance will rubber stamp :(

crackrdbycracku

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#542473 8-Nov-2011 11:54

trig42: Xtreamer Ultra looks great, and I'd have it in a flash, IF it was in my price range.

EUR249 is a little steeper than the ministeress of Finance will rubber stamp :(

I had a nose around at reviews for the Xtreamer.

The upside was that it did the job of an HTPC at a cheap price. Not powerful enough for anything but an HTPC but fine for that.

The downside was that the fan made some noise and set up could take ages and be very, very complicated. But this is Geekzone so that shouldn't scare anybody.

Yeah, if I ever go down the HTPC road I'll probably get one. With shipping and conversion it looked like about NZ$500 which is cheaper than local options.

I'm considering a WD media player. Can't be bothered with jail breaking an ATV2 (mostly can't be bothered doing it more than once).

Of course you could just plug your laptop into the TV? Does anybody do that anymore?

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garvani

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#542481 8-Nov-2011 12:02

My flatmate came home with a new 50" LG Plasma in the weekend (set him back all of $1100) , it has divx hd support and plays movies through its own Usb port. This thing plays everything! i havnt found one file yet it hasnt played, high profile mp4's, MKV's! and even ntfs formatted drives. Im well impressed.
Another friend on the other hand bought a high end panasonic 55" plasma for $3500 and it will only play fat32 based avi's, and nothing else...

alvin

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#542503 8-Nov-2011 12:29

^ garvani, can you please ask the tv model please. that really looks interesting..

on another note, i've always been tempted to buy an appletv2 but everytime i head over to the xbmc forum, all i read were issues/complaints regarding Appletv2 which paints it as extremely unuseable. and to be honest, I am always having second thoughts wether it is worth buying it or not. I don't mind tinkering with it and have used xbmc before but just on a laptop. it is nice to read in this thread that it seems to be doing a decent job. i think im really convinced now to grab an atv2 and jailbreak it to get xbmc going.

fahrenheit

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#542672 8-Nov-2011 15:51

Latest WDTV Live model is due out any day now. Whether its worth almost twice what the current gen one costs is entirely up to you, but there may be a price drop when they make room for the new one.

There are countless numbers of brands and models that aren't available here in NZ.
This site is a fairly good aggregate for most of them. There were plenty I would have picked over the WD. These things live or die by their firmware and WD has a terrible track record in that department.

JimmyH

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#542824 8-Nov-2011 20:35

trig42: Xtreamer Ultra looks great, and I'd have it in a flash, IF it was in my price range.

EUR249 is a little steeper than the ministeress of Finance will rubber stamp :(

Wait for the right date, gift wrap it with a card, and announce "Happy Birthday" (or Christmas, anniversary or whatever if they are closer). It would be churlish to be vocally ungrateful about a birthday present!

crackrdbycracku

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#542977 9-Nov-2011 09:41

JimmyH:
trig42: Xtreamer Ultra looks great, and I'd have it in a flash, IF it was in my price range.

EUR249 is a little steeper than the ministeress of Finance will rubber stamp :(

Wait for the right date, gift wrap it with a card, and announce "Happy Birthday" (or Christmas, anniversary or whatever if they are closer). It would be churlish to be vocally ungrateful about a birthday present!

Sadly, many 'ministeress of Finance' these days are equipped with very good bulls**t detectors. With all appropriate apologies: "Hell hath no fury like a woman who sees through a present scam".

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

old3eyes

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#543073 9-Nov-2011 12:44

I see that Firstin has one of these . Cheap enough but what it's like in the real world who knows.

http://www.firstin.co.nz/products/viewsonic-vmp73-hd-media-player-6407/

Regards,

Old3eyes

trig42

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#543115 9-Nov-2011 13:48

The viewsonic product looks a lot like the WD, but looking through the manual for it, it looks like it has a very ugly GUI. Great for $99 though.

Nety

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#543165 9-Nov-2011 15:11

Yeah so was the last super cheap STB from one day. Of course many were faulty and had to be returned but hey they were cheap!

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=83&topicid=68992

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