WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player

[Jamon Camisso]

I purchased a Western Digital TV Live Plus HD Media Player[1] a couple
months ago with the intent of flashing it with a custom firmware since
the code for the units is released under the GPL[2].

I successfully flashed mine over the weekend using the WDLXTV-Live
firmware, which is described as "a souped up unofficial firmware for the
Western Digital WD TV Live. It is based off of the 1.02.21 firmware, but
with many extra features. This is a permanent flash, just like an
official upgrade. It enables a wide range of extra functionality which
is missing from the official firmware, such as bittorrent, webserver,
NZB, SSH, FTP, NFS, etc[3]".

The custom firmware even ships with /proc/config.gz, which is a nice
touch for being able to see how to compile a new kernel for the unit.

The flashing process is dead easy, just extract the firmware to a USB
stick, plug it into the unit, and power the unit on. The player then
prompts for an upgrade, then a reboot, and then it is all ready to go.

I highly recommend picking one up, because they are quite useful, and
because Western Digital has done a good thing (imo) in using Linux on
these units, and adhering to the GPL.

Some basic specs:

# uname -a
Linux WDTVLIVE 2.6.22.19-19-4 #28 PREEMPT Mon Mar 22 20:08:14 CST 2010
mips GNU/Linux

# cat /proc/cpuinfo
system type             : Sigma Designs TangoX
processor               : 0
cpu model               : MIPS 24K V7.12  FPU V0.0
Initial BogoMIPS        : 332.59
wait instruction        : yes
microsecond timers      : yes
tlb_entries             : 32
extra interrupt vector  : yes
hardware watchpoint     : yes
ASEs implemented        : mips16
shadow register sets    : 1
VCED exceptions         : not available
VCEI exceptions         : not available
System bus frequency    : 333000000 Hz
CPU frequency           : 499500000 Hz
DSP frequency           : 333000000 Hz

# lsusb -vs 001:001
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass            9 Hub
  bDeviceSubClass         0 Unused
  bDeviceProtocol         1 Single TT
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x0000
  idProduct          0x0000
  bcdDevice            2.06
  iManufacturer           3 Linux 2.6.22.19-19-4 tangox-ehci-hcd
  iProduct                2 TangoX USB 2.0
  iSerial                 1 tangox-ehci-hcd
<snip>

# ls /sys/module/
8250             em8xxx           keyboard         mac80211
psmouse          sr_mod           tangox_ohci_hcd  usbcore
atkbd            fctrl            libata           mousedev
rcupdate         sunrpc           tcp_cubic        usbhid
cdrom            hid              llad             ohci_hcd
scsi_mod         tango3dog        ufsd             vt
cifs             ide_cd           lockd            printk           sg
             tangox_ehci_hcd  uhci_hcd         wd_led_rst
ehci_hcd         irkernel         loop             proc_pipe
sigmablock       tangox_enet      usb_storage

[1]http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735

[2]The GPL code is available here:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=1006&sid=129&lang=en

[3]http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv-live/
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