Tag: Western Digital

Introduction

I am reviewing the Western Digital LiveWire HomePlug AV kit, which is a pair of Ethernet switches that also have HomePlug AV connectivity. Here, this kit is being pitched at people who want to connect Internet-enabled video equipment to the home network and Internet connection without laying down new wiring to the router.

Price:

Recommended Retail Price AUD$169.99 for a two-unit kit

LAN Connectivity

The device itself

Setup

The HomePlug switch as connected up

The Western Digital LiveWire kit is able to be used in a “plug-and-play” manner with a secure HomePlug AV segment.

There is the ability to create a separate HomePlug AV network segment by you pressing the “Simple-Connect” buttons (labelled SYNC) on each device one after another quickly. Here, you don’t have to think of new network identifiers or device passcodes for each of the member devices in this segment.

Performance

This unit can demonstrate a good level of resilience to known interference like switch-mode power supplies or electrical motors on the same circuit and yield a useable HomePlug connection. It may initially yield a low connection speed until the link is assessed by each HomePlug device on each end. This is more so with links that are on different circuits and may show up heavily on older electrical installations.

Of course, the HomePlug AV segment created by these devices worked properly alongside an existing HomePlug 1.0 Turbo (85Mbps) segment that has been working as the main household HomePlug segment for the network. As I have known before the segments that work on the different HomePlug standards aren’t compatible but can coexist as separate segments.

As well, unlike some cheaper Gigabit Ethernet switches that I have used, this kit works properly with UPnP devices like the WDTV Live network media adaptor which I tested it with. Here, it worked as expected for media playback from the Internet and my WD MyBook World network-attached storage which worked as a UPnP AV media server.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

The WD LiveWire units could benefit from the SYNC button and HomePlug light working to a proper cadence especially when integrating another HomePlug AV device to the same segment. This is more so if the network setup involves multiple established devices scattered around the house.

As well, there could be a variant model released that uses a four-port Gigabit Ethernet switch which can be of benefit if the switch is to be connected to two or more devices like a network-attached storage and a recent-issue computer. It would also be of benefit if the switch is to serve as a HomePlug AV “on-ramp” for a Gigabit-Ethernet equipped router or Ethernet backbone. This may not happen until HomePlug AV2, which is a higher-throughput HomePlug standard, is properly ratified.

Similarly, there could be a variant of this switch that can be an 802.3af / 802.3at compliant Power-Over-Ethernet power supply for four devices that get their power over the Ethernet cable. This would come in handy with those IP telephones, network-based surveillance cameras and access points that work to this standard for network-based power.

Of course, you may not expect much from a company whose interest is more on storage devices rather than network infrastructure hardware.

Conclusion

I would still recommend this HomePlug AV kit as being suitable for use when connecting a cluster of network-connected equipment like Internet-enabled home-entertainment equipment to the home network. The fact that both the HomePlug AV adaptors come with integrated multi-port Ethernet switches can increase their utility value such as increasing Ethernet points with routers that have Ethernet ports that are all used up including single-port routers like most entry-level ADSL modems.

Similarly, one of these units can be used as part of a setup for bridging data between a legacy HomePlug 1.0 segment and a HomePlug AV segment or “pushing out” a HomePlug AV segment on a country property by creating another HomePlug AV segment. With these units, this can be done while maintaining Ethernet connectivity for network devices at these points.

Declaration Of Benefit

After I have reviewed the WD LiveWire HomePlug AV kit, I offered to buy the actual review sample units from Western Digital via their PR agency and they sold it at around 30% off the recommended retail price. This has not affected and does not affect my relationship with this company or how I review their products.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Western Digital WDTV Live network media adaptor. This is and adaptor that connects to an external display like a TV, monitor or projector and/or an external amplifier in order to play media files held on a local storage device like a USB memory key or via a small network.

Price

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$299.99

Functions

Connections

The device itself

The unit's remote control

It is a small device about the size of two packets of cigarettes stacked on top of each other and is powered using a power adaptor. Users operate it with a very small remote control that has the main transport functions and a D-pad for navigating around the user interface.

Setup

How this connects to your TV

The device connects to the TV using an AV cable that plugs in to a four-conductor 3.5mm jack on the back of the unit. There is another 3.5mm four-conductor jack for connecting to the component-video connections on a suitably-equipped display device with a separate patch cable. Of course, this unit can be connected to HDMI-equipped display devices like most plasma and LCD TVs; and it has an optical SPDIF socket for connection to equipment with an optical digital input like most surround receivers.

Sadly, this device doesn’t support connection to display devices that use RGB inputs in any form. This may affect those of us who want the best out of monitors or projectors that use such connectors like most SCART-equipped European TVs, business-focused “data projectors”, classic “3-gun” projectors or professional-grade video displays. You may get around this by connecting the device to the display via one of the “HDFury” HDMI-RGB adaptors

It has the ability to play media that is held on USB-attached storage devices like memory keys or USB hard drives. This can be useful for playing media that you have held on one of these devices.

As for video codecs and file types, it can natively handle most audio and video file types including the DivX and Matroska MKV family of file and codec types.

Network setup

The WDTV Live HD can be connected directly to an Ethernet network or HomePlug AV network with the appropriate “homeplug” bridge device, But it is one of these “wireless-ready” devices that connects to a Wi-Fi network using an optional Wi-Fi dongle available from Western Digital or through one of their retailers.

Use

This can work with any display device including older TVs

The user interface is a “full-screen” one which works to the edge of the screen. This may be of concern with those of us who have hooked the WDTV Live up to an older CRT-based TV set that has the orthodox curved screen edges. As well, the logos for the Internet services are rendered in a dull manner and could benefit from “true-colour” display with a highlight around the currently-selected service.

Of course, there is a screen-saver function which can be overridden for displays that aren’t affected by long-time display of images or set to appear after a time between 5 minutes to 15 minutes. Here, it just shows the WD logo; but could show now-playing information during audio playback.

Online services

The Facebook service has the expected functions like viewing one’s own news feed, contributing to a Status Update or writing one’s Status Update as well as the ability to view one’s Photo Albums or a Friend’s Photo Albums. All text entry is based on “pick-n-choose” methods and the pictures do come up properly on the full screen.

I have tested the YouTube service with this device and have used it to play some videos including the service’s “poster child” video which is the “Keyboard Cat” video. The user interface is what would be expected for a 10’ interface and the users would be required to use the “pick-n-choose” method for any text entry like account login or video searching.

The “Tune In” Internet-radio function works properly for Internet radio access and allows the Internet radio stream to play in the background while you navigate the menus. During the day, It had performed well on quality-of-service when streaming Internet radio; but like all Internet services, this will depend on how congested the connection is.

UPnP AV / DLNA media access

The UPnP AV / DLNA functionality on the WDTV Live works properly when you use the remote control to call up the content on your UPnP AV / DLNA Media Server. In previous firmwares, this media player had problems when playing out media under the control of a UPnP AV Control Point like Windows 7 or TwonkyManager. Here, it would play only one item at a time and require the user to advance the media to the next item using the remote control or the Control Point.

Now, units that have firmware newer than version 1.65 can play multi-item playlists and slideshows without needing to be “pushed on”. There is still a problem with this function, especially with image slideshows and video playlists where the unit will show its menu every time a new image or video is loaded up before it plays that image. This could be improved with “read-ahead” buffering for subsequent media items.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

I would like to see the user-interface improved in various ways, such as use of brighter colours or full-colour logos for the Internet services.  The screen-saver could also support “service-driven” behaviour like showing now-playing information for audio sources.

As well, this device could benefit from integration with local online-video services like the local “catch-up TV / video-on-demand” services offered by the local TV stations. Of course, I would like to see an improvement on the media changeover behaviour when the device is used as a UPnP AV / DLNA MediaRenderer under the control of an external control point.

This device’s form factor could be taken further with an integrated digital-TV tuner for implementation as a digital-TV set-top box that could have online and network media access as well as digital-TV access.

Conclusion

I would recommend the Western Digital WDTV Live or any of its successor models as a cost-effective device that can be useful for pressing a cheap or old TV, monitor or projector in to service as a network media playback device in the UPnP AV / DLNA Home Media Network.