Western Digital Live media player - some help please!

[admin_exported]

I am looking for a media player to play movies and music from a hard drive and play through a Dacmagic. Its really important to me it has internet radio capabilities and I can't work out if the western digital live does. It seems to have something called Live 365 but from a cursory look this doesn't play BBC radio stations.

Anyone know if the WD Live can play internet radio? (I dont want to stream this from computer - I want to be able to access it from the western digital).

Any advice appreciated.

 

[John Duncan]

Hm, I think you might be struggling here - whilst it does indeed appear to play internet radio (Live365), I'd be surprised if you can get the BBC stations to play through it. Will investigate...

 

[Anonymous]

Many thanks John. Any ideas about a media player (and one that plays FLAC files) that can play BBC internet and can be fed through a Dacmagic?

 

[John Duncan]

Well a PS3 is the first thing that springs to mind, but let me see if there are any other options.

 

[John Duncan]

Ooo you can do it on a Wii, am so having a look at that! Just need to check whether it has an optical out (which I don't think it does).

Still looking, btw...

 

[PJPro]

JohnDuncan:Well a PS3 is the first thing that springs to mind, but let me see if there are any other options.
Unfortunately, a PS3 will not play .flac files directly..

 

[PJPro]

How about this?

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks PJ, I'm going to have a look at that. Would the Western Digital stream the BBCi player if I accessed it on my laptop?

 

[Anonymous]

PJPro:How about this?
The Popcorn Hour (PCH) A110 is a lovely piece of kit. I have an HDX1000B (essentially the same thing but in a more silent, nicer looking sleek black box with a card reader) and it is a brilliant device. Couple it with YAMJ with AMW and Music Jukebox and it is unbeatable. If you want any info regarding it let me know and I'll be happy to provide it. I've had my device for a few months and it takes a little bit of getting used to but their is a wealth of support available for it and it's a wonderfully flexible, versatile and usable platform.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not very technically savvy. These devices, such as that popcorn, the WD Live and HDX, I realise they have some services like google videos, shoutcast radio etc. What I'm wondering is if they can also stream live tv and radio from the pc, so for instance, if I accessed the BBCi player from my laptop and chose to listen to live radio, could I stream it through the media player and DAC to save me the bother of connecting my laptop up to the hifi? And instead of hooking my laptop up to the tv through hdmi cable to watch BBCi programmes could I do it wirelessly with a media player?

 

[Anonymous]

I honestly don't know because I've never tried as I download tonnes of stuff every month and have never had the need to use something such as BBC iPlayer. I believe that it is not possible with the normal iPlayer streams as the Sigma chip in the NMT devices does not support FLV and Sybas so far have been to lazy to implement a wrapper for the decoding of this in the firmware. There are possibility of using the iPhone/iTouch DRM-free H.264 streams but there does not appear to be a great deal of progress in this area, probably because the majority of PCH(/NMT) users don't really care about these sorts of things as these devices, by deifintion, are to play downloaded and ripped content with additional functionality being secondary. So the short answer is: No, iPlayer is not currently supported.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the answer Beat. Do you know if a media player can play internet radio accessed from a laptop? So say for example I was listening to BBC Radio 4 on line could I play it through the media player so the sound came through my hi fi?

 

[Anonymous]

When you say "a media player" do you mean ANY media player or are you specifically referring to the Popcorn Hour (PCH)?

I do believe the Popcorn Hour can play internet radio but it's not like an AirPort or Windows Media Center Extender in the sense that you set something up on your PC and then click a button and you PCH starts doing the same thing. It is capable of many things but must be indepdently configured and used to do these things. I'll do a little bit of digging and get back to you.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Beta. Dont go to too much trouble, I'm confusing myself more and more here and I appreciate people trying to help. I think the HDX100b you have is looking like the best bet so far.

From what I can understand about it I would be able to connect to my wifi network and plug it into a hard drive. I would then be able to access internet radio (It comes with radiobox, which had Radio 4 in its directory), access movies and music from the hard drive, and plug it into my dacmagic. I have done some reading around and it looks like no media player/tank/streamer/whatever can play tv content from bbci player.

In the specification list it lists Radiobox as one of its audio capabilities. Does this mean it can access the radiobox directory without having to use the laptop?

 

[Anonymous]

Essentially what is doing my head in is I want to listen to internet radio through a dacmagic and be able to watch downloaded films. If I buy a squeezebox then it creates problems because I would have to have a hard drive connected to my laptop all the time. However if I bought something like a Western Digital Live, which would just plug into a hard drive tucked away somewhere and play music and movies then I have nothing to stream internet radio to my hi fi. A squeezebox looks an expensive thing just to be able to listen to internet radio on my hi fi for.

If I could find one thing that lets me listen to radio 4, and watch movies and music from a hard drive, all through a dacmagic, then I would buy it. But unless I don't understand there isnt anything thats going to let me do that.

 

[Anonymous]

FolsomBlues:Does this mean it can access the radiobox directory without having to use the laptop?

For any feature of the PCH/HDX your laptop is not relevant. It either supports the functionality and can do it by itself or it doesn't. The laptop doesn't come into it. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok. Im just not sure the radiobox is what I think it is. the spec list for the HDX lists it under "audio", but has a seperate list for internet radio, which is just Shoutcast. Do you know what the radiobox function on the HDX entails?

 

[Anonymous]

FolsomBlues:Ok. Im just not sure the radiobox is what I think it is. the spec list for the HDX lists it under "audio", but has a seperate list for internet radio, which is just Shoutcast. Do you know what the radiobox function on the HDX entails?When I get back home I'll have a play with the Internet Radio functionality of it and see how it works. Have you got something specific, i.e. a station or streaming site or something that you would like me to test in particular? (Forgive me if that is actually a stupid question, but I know nothing about iRadio.)

 

[Anonymous]

Excellent. Thanks very much for your trouble. I specifically want BBC Radio 4, which I think might be accessible through the Radiobox function.

Thanks again.