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LaCinema VS WDTV Live (VS AppleTV)

iBookfan

iBookfan

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 5, 2008
282
0
Hi fellas..

Since the AppleTV lacks in a lot of features (even after jailbreak, mostly the external harddrive ability), I've come down to these two as a media center:

- Lacinema (Mini HD Connect) = http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10486
- WDTV Live = http://www.wdtvlive.com/products/wdtv_live#/highlights

They both read subtitles, all formats, external hdd directly attached and no need for computer to be running. I don't have a NAS so the external hdd is great!

I can't see any difference in the two products, but maybe you have experience with one or both of them?

Sorry for the "non-appletv"-thread, but maybe I've missed something about the AppleTV, so please do enlight me if that's the case :cool:
 
A jailbroken apple tv does everything the wd tv does ,minus having a hardrive attached


But if you have full 1080p videos files 5-20gb go for the wd tv


I have both and i hardly use my wd anymore
 
Che Castro said:
A jailbroken apple tv does everything the wd tv does ,minus having a hardrive attached


But if you have full 1080p videos files 5-20gb go for the wd tv


I have both and i hardly use my wd anymore
Click to expand...

But the only thing a care about is the attached harddrive.. I don't have a NAS, and buying one, would lean to a mac mini buy instead..

So AppleTV aint the right one for me, I'm affraid..
 
Che Castro said:
A jailbroken apple tv does everything the wd tv does ,minus having a hardrive attached


But if you have full 1080p videos files 5-20gb go for the wd tv


I have both and i hardly use my wd anymore
Click to expand...

And why not use the WD if it do what Appletv does?
 
iBookfan said:
But the only thing a care about is the attached harddrive.. I don't have a NAS, and buying one, would lean to a mac mini buy instead..

So AppleTV aint the right one for me, I'm affraid..
Click to expand...
You can use an external hard drive with the aTV, you just have to attach it to your computer instead of to the box connected to the TV. I think you'll find, that it's a lot simpler to just use iTunes to do all the work instead of trying to maintain a hard drive file system connected to the WDTV.

I have a WDTV and an aTV2. THe WDTV is fine and it will work with .vob files, which is nice if you have a computer that is a bit too slow for Handbrake, but I found it a bit buggy. It works a bit more smoothly with .mkv files than other video files, I found. The WDTV also requires more work figuring out how to get the interface to look nice, such as adding poster art. It probably would have been fine for me, but it had a low wife acceptance factor in my home.
 
slothrob said:
You can use an external hard drive with the aTV, you just have to attach it to your computer instead of to the box connected to the TV. I think you'll find, that it's a lot simpler to just use iTunes to do all the work instead of trying to maintain a hard drive file system connected to the WDTV.

I have a WDTV and an aTV2. THe WDTV is fine and it will work with .vob files, which is nice if you have a computer that is a bit too slow for Handbrake, but I found it a bit buggy. It works a bit more smoothly with .mkv files than other video files, I found. The WDTV also requires more work figuring out how to get the interface to look nice, such as adding poster art. It probably would have been fine for me, but it had a low wife acceptance factor in my home.
Click to expand...

I've tried using iTunes, but had a lot of problems with formats, subtitles and so on.. A external seems more reliable for me and trouble-free..

And I don't want to have my Mac open just for streaming - might as well just connect the Mac to the tv then..
 
I have both AppleTV 2 and WDTV Live. Since my TV with HDMI broke, I'm relying on an old huge projection tv with component inputs. Since the Appletv 2 only has HDMI, I've been using the WDTV for the last couple of months. That's the nice thing, the WDTV does HDMI, component, and composite.

The WDTV Live Plus does Netflix if you live somewhere that has that service. Netflix and the nice GUI are what I miss most about the AppleTV 2. Sometimes I hook the AppleTV 2 up to my 24" Dell LCD.
 
spacepower7 said:
I have both AppleTV 2 and WDTV Live. Since my TV with HDMI broke, I'm relying on an old huge projection tv with component inputs. Since the Appletv 2 only has HDMI, I've been using the WDTV for the last couple of months. That's the nice thing, the WDTV does HDMI, component, and composite.

The WDTV Live Plus does Netflix if you live somewhere that has that service. Netflix and the nice GUI are what I miss most about the AppleTV 2. Sometimes I hook the AppleTV 2 up to my 24" Dell LCD.
Click to expand...

So the WDTV is a great pendant to AppleTV2? Unfortunately I haven't got access to Netfilx, but maybe one day there'll be a work around that problem.

I'll be using the WDTV with external hdd - do you have any experience with that Spacepower7? Both with categorizing (folders, cover and what not) and with speed + readability from hdd on the WDTV?
 
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