Media Player recomendations (WD TV died)

[giger]

My trusty WD TV media player gave up the ghost a short while ago and I need a replacement. Having had a look around, I can't find much info on the latest media players. I know a lot of people bought the WD TV a few years ago but what have people move don to now?

I need to be able to plug a couple of HDDs in to it and that's about it. Mainly play MKVs, MP4s etc. I have showbox on my tablet so might be useful if I can use it directly on the media player and download straight on to a HDD to save messing about on my tablet and transferring files.

Any recommendations? What are others replacing their WD TVs with?

[rednotdead]

I have a WD TV Live going if you want it - it's not worth much but you can have it for a donation to a charity of my choice plus the postage. Let me know.

Works fine, patched to latest firmware, I've replaced it with an Amazon fire.

[dave_s13]

I've got going spare one too.

If you can pick it up from Leeds then you can have it.

Replaced it with a rasberry pi 2. The kit you can get with the preloaded SD card to install kodi and a case. It's a million times better than the WDTV box.

[giger]

rednotdead said:

I have a WD TV Live going if you want it - it's not worth much but you can have it for a donation to a charity of my choice plus the postage. Let me know.

Works fine, patched to latest firmware, I've replaced it with an Amazon fire.

Hi mate, that's superb, very good of you. I'm not up to speed on the new kodi players etc so let me just see if I am better off getting one of those, otherwise i'll take it!

[giger]

dave_s13 said:

I've got going spare one too.

If you can pick it up from Leeds then you can have it.

Replaced it with a rasberry pi 2. The kit you can get with the preloaded SD card to install kodi and a case. It's a million times better than the WDTV box.

Thanks dave_s13 - I'm not local unfortunately (south of Birmingham). do you think I am better off looking at something with kodi? I can't believe how cheap some of the random boxes are on amazon. In what way is it better than the WD TV???

[dave_s13]

Yeah, KODI is much better.

It does depend on what exactly you were using the WDTV for though.

[Zoon]

Or get a firestick

[weeboot]

giger said:

Thanks dave_s13 - I'm not local unfortunately (south of Birmingham). do you think I am better off looking at something with kodi? I can't believe how cheap some of the random boxes are on amazon. In what way is it better than the WD TV???

How far south of Birmingham?
I'm in Worcester, happy to help you build something for Kodi, it's v. simple.

[dave_s13]

All you need is one of these kits.

https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-kits...

And a USB mouse to set it up initially.

You then control it via your phone (app called Yatse), or you can buy a cheap IR receiver and remote that will work in a more conventional manner.

Then you just need to point it at your network storage and off you go. You can then install a plethora of add-ons (exodus mainly) that will allow you to test your moral compass.

If you want something for music too I can thoroughly recommend a chromecast audio. The pi will do it with kodi but the chromecast is incredibly user friendly.

[dave_s13]

You could also get one of these

https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-wifi...

A lot of TV remotes have buttons on top that allow you to switch between the TV, DVD, Sky box etc. With the above gadget you plug it into your PC, select say "DVD" on your telly remote then you can map buttons on the remote to KODI commands. I'm personally using a logitech harmony on mine with a cheapo IR receiver but I may replace it with one of these as some buttons don't work like they should.

Anyway......kodi is better than WDTV....get one.

[98elise]

dave_s13 said:

All you need is one of these kits.

https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-kits...

And a USB mouse to set it up initially.

You then control it via your phone (app called Yatse), or you can buy a cheap IR receiver and remote that will work in a more conventional manner.

Then you just need to point it at your network storage and off you go. You can then install a plethora of add-ons (exodus mainly) that will allow you to test your moral compass.

If you want something for music too I can thoroughly recommend a chromecast audio. The pi will do it with kodi but the chromecast is incredibly user friendly.

Does Kodi need a media server running? I have a WD MyCloud. We tried plex which looks great, but you need to run a seperate media server, and I've found it laggy and slow. The initial UI library is great though.

[weeboot]

98elise said:

Does Kodi need a media server running? I have a WD MyCloud. We tried plex which looks great, but you need to run a seperate media server, and I've found it laggy and slow. The initial UI library is great though.

I have a WD MyCloud serving as storage, Kodi plays files from the NAS over the network, no additional server required.

[giger]

weeboot said:

How far south of Birmingham?
I'm in Worcester, happy to help you build something for Kodi, it's v. simple.

I'm in Solihull, so not too far. Thanks for the offer - might be interested!

[giger]

Thanks for the info - lots to take in.

I was purely using the WDTV as a media player hooked up to my amp to watch films via a HDD. Appreciate that there is a lot more that I can do with it, but I don't have a NAS or media server at this point.

[dave_s13]

Assuming it's a usb hdd you can plug that into the raspberry pi and bobs your uncle.

How do get the content on the hdd though?

[giger]

Old fashioned plug it in to the laptop (to copy content from laptop, another external HDD or my USB memory stick on to it) - please tell me the error of my ways

[maccas99]

giger said:

Old fashioned plug it in to the laptop (to copy content from laptop, another external HDD or my USB memory stick on to it) - please tell me the error of my ways

Please be gentle with him

[dave_s13]

Hehe...

Basically you share the content on your laptop, point your media streamer to that network device, find it and press play.

No need to copy from laptop to disc then plug that in.

Just Google windows file sharing and that should see you right.

[scovette]

dave_s13 said:

You then control it via your phone (app called Yatse), or you can buy a cheap IR receiver and remote that will work in a more conventional manner.

Or with many televisions you can just turn on CEC and use the tv's remote control.

dave_s13 said:

I'm personally using a logitech harmony on mine with a cheapo IR receiver but I may replace it with one of these as some buttons don't work like they should.

Might be worth trying the keymap editor addon. I'll allow you to get everything with your Harmony.

[dave_s13]

scovette said:

dave_s13 said:

You then control it via your phone (app called Yatse), or you can buy a cheap IR receiver and remote that will work in a more conventional manner.

Or with many televisions you can just turn on CEC and use the tv's remote control.

dave_s13 said:

I'm personally using a logitech harmony on mine with a cheapo IR receiver but I may replace it with one of these as some buttons don't work like they should.

Might be worth trying the keymap editor addon. I'll allow you to get everything with your Harmony.

CEC was buggy for me but I just tried that keymap editor and it's fixed the issue I had with having the context menu and back button on my remote....nice one!