And for those who are interested in squeezing every last drop of blood from the WDTV, the firmware I installed comes pre-configured with the transmission server.



This means that the WDTV can happily work as a torrent downloader when you are not watching movies !!!

Very nice guide Vinay, repped.



Seeing how your work is being ripped off freely, you may want to put a copyright notice of some kind stating terms of use of the content. I've recently seen your torrent box article simply copy-pasted onto another forum (hint: Google search the title).



Edit: Content has since been taken down at the other forum...

OMFG .... awesome rip off



Wanna try wid my WDTV, any default firmware if something goes wrong ?

Wow, thanks for the heads up. I hate to suppress any knowledge flow, but I do expect that people would provide a link to the original post when they cut and paste. Now I have to create a login in the other website just to reach out to the admins or the copied post !

Originally Posted by cranky

Very nice guide Vinay, repped.



Seeing how your work is being ripped off freely, you may want to put a copyright notice of some kind stating terms of use of the content. I've recently seen your torrent box article simply copy-pasted onto another forum (hint: Google search the title).

why didnt you post this in the Guides section?

good article btw!

Thanks. Because this is a hybrid solution (The hack manages to make it into a linux PC where I can do what I want) and because I never posted in the guide section before !!!

Originally Posted by 6pack

why didnt you post this in the Guides section?

good article btw!

He he, thanks. The firmware seems to have a emergency backup procedure. See the forums if you get into trouble.



Even I got into a half baked state once when I was experimenting, just copy a new firmware on a clean USB stick and reboot and it all seems to come back. However, be sure to do all this with the WDTV connected to a UPS. You could get screwed if the update is interrupted by a power cut !!!

Originally Posted by Techman

OMFG .... awesome rip off



Wanna try wid my WDTV, any default firmware if something goes wrong ?

One quick question regarding the wireless part, wont the laptop wireless detect the wdtv ?



I have Acer aspire 4570. if so what would be the appropriate driver for the WDTV



Edit: Sorry, understood that the usb wireless has to be hooked up with WDTV.

Great job Vinay, repped.



PS: Simple watermarks like the ones used by Shripad might help in reducing piracy of your content.

simply awesome.

Your confusion actually gave me a nice clue. :hap2: I can probably set up the WDTV network so that it connects to my laptop directly via wireless on a local peer network. The transfer speeds would be far far greater than going through the network established by the router. Im going to try this in the weekend !!!

Originally Posted by Techman

One quick question regarding the wireless part, wont the laptop wireless detect the wdtv ?



I have Acer aspire 4570. if so what would be the appropriate driver for the WDTV



Edit: Sorry, understood that the usb wireless has to be hooked up with WDTV.

Excellent guide! Sticky. Would love for everyone to add their customization experiences as well.

@vinayaga - can you post the internal specs of the WDTV?

Can you also give us all an idea as to what the file transfer speeds are like?

Not sure of the WDTV's internal specs. Will check and tell later.



When I copy a file into the hard disk attached to the WDTV, my 100mbps network adaptor shows a constant utilization of 3-4%. So I assume the speeds are 3-4mbps (Someone correct me if this is not the way to calculate).



Remember that this is from a PC connected wired to the router and the WDTV is on wireless in a different room connected to the same router. Reasonable enough, takes about 9 minutes to copy a ripped 750mb movie.

Originally Posted by sid_donnydarko

@vinayaga - can you post the internal specs of the WDTV?

Can you also give us all an idea as to what the file transfer speeds are like?

are these steps applicable for the wdtv live as well.

You can hav a usb lan card attached to your Wdtv using the usb port, it has better compatiblity with wider range of lan chips.. Secondly people hav successfully been able to stream full Hd content using it.. You can hav both windows and linux network shares using these..there are detailed guides on the wdtv forums..



Thanks vinay for this awesome and precise tutorial..

Even I looked for a USB lan adaptor, but I could not find any of the listed ones in India. Dealextreme had one chipset that would work, but it is on backorder.



There are quite a few USB lan adaptors for Rs 400 in ebay, just not sure of the chipset in them. If you come across any in India, do let me know too.

Originally Posted by Party Monger

You can hav a usb lan card attached to your Wdtv using the usb port, it has better compatiblity with wider range of lan chips.. Secondly people hav successfully been able to stream full Hd content using it.. You can hav both windows and linux network shares using these..there are detailed guides on the wdtv forums..



Thanks vinay for this awesome and precise tutorial..

Btw, any hack to enable internet on wdtv? Being able to play youtube vids will be awesome