Did a day-one order for this on amazon.com as i wanted to check out the new Mochi interface. I can now confirm that the US units are shipped with a universal ac adapter, so will accept local 220/240V input, except the plug is 2-pin and not interchangeable. not a big problem.

some comparison shots of the WDTV Live vs WDTV Live-S.

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the new Mochi interface is really nice .... very classy. you can google "wdtv live mochi" to get the idea. nice touch to have the time and current weather displayed on the main menu.

more customisation and options compared to the previous WDTV Live. 2 firmware updates were required out of the box.

incorporates RSS feeds into your main menu .... i dont use this.

when you switch the unit OFF, it actually goes into standby and not really turn off. so when you switch it back on again, the start up time is pretty quick (within 5 secs) before the main menu appears. it doesn't do a full "reboot" like previously, which can take some time to start up.

everything works as it should, except:

(1) the media scraping thingy allows you to create "moviesheets" in a variety of browsing options (e.g. list view, thumb view, small grid view, large grid view, preview mode). much like the custom firmwares (e.g. BRad). you can add the meta-tag sources as you wish, currently the default databases are tmdb.com and ttvdb.com.

however, this feature doesnt work on NAS, only USB-attached devices. WD has said that it was in the original firmware, but had to be taken out prior to commercial release as they discovered a major bug. but they're still working on a fix for this (hopefully soon). as some of you know, i store everything on a NAS (as opposed to attaching a USB thumb or hdd), so this is buggered for me.

(2) you can now create shortcuts to specific folders or files on the "Dashboard" for easy access to these from the main menu instead of having to click and scroll through layers and layers before getting to your final destination. again, this works for USB-connected media files and folders, but not on NAS. Again, a fix for this is expected. Again, buggered.

(3) the new WDTV Live-S now remembers where you last accessed your media source (library) and will by default go to this when you next access it again. for e.g. first time you select VIDEOS you are prompted for which location (e.g. local, media server or network share), I chose media server, and then you select which media server (I have 3) and I chose QNAP TS-412, and then drill down further into the folders and finally the media file u want. say i switch off and next day come back and select VIDEOS again, this time i dont need to go through that, and the menu will lead me straight to the media folders on the TS-412. very useful i thought. press the RED button if you need to change media source. this works on NAS so this time i'm not buggered.

(4) i'm having problems accessing my NAS through the "Network Shares" now. "Media Server" works find. No such problem with "Network Shares" in the old WDTV Live. Also, the new WDTV Live-S now supports NFS and Samba. Previously, only Samba.

(5) you can customise the Themes (background, menus, interface etc.) instead of sticking with the default Mochi interface. WD created this wdtvlive/themes site which was to allow themers to upload their templates and share with others. this is still in its infancy at this stage and there are no themes to import at present. also, the WDTV Live Hub themes are not 100% compatible with the WDTV Live-S, so cant just import those.

pls bear in mind that i dont use custom-firmware in my previous wdtv live nor am i familiar with them. so maybe some of these new nifty features could already be common place over there and were just "imported" into the current official firmware.

i'll post here if i find any more interesting tidbits.

unfortunately, PGS is still not supported.

Is this new WDTV Live really running on the latest Sigma chipset ie. 8670? How come the WD website never mention about it? or did I overlook it somewhere? If the one available in malaysia really with 8670 sigma chipset, i wish to get it one as well but my budget is less than RM300. is there anywhere i can get cheaper or anyone wanna sell 2nd hand plz PM me. thanks.

All I know from this thread is Gigabit LAN not enable by WD. what else sigma 8670 has but not enabled?? any reason on this?

my 2 cents. i have both. if the wdtv-live is working well for us as it is, not giving problems and you're happy with it, then there's really no compelling reason to upgrade. the firmware on the wdtv-live is now matured and stable, whereas on the wdtv live-s, as with all new devices, the firmware still needs further refinement.

off the top of my head, what the new wdtv live-s offers over the old wdtv live are:
(1) a very nice default user interface (it's called the Mochi theme)
(2) ability to import user-created customised theme built-into the official firmware (which you'll need custom firmware on the older model to do this)
(3) Dolby TrueHD pass thru
(4) built-in wifi b/g/n
(5) better standard-sized remote control
(6) NFS support in addition to SMB (Samba) i.e. faster networking
(7) built-in auto scraping of metadata for moviesheets from the internet (again, a feature "borrowed" from custom firmware)
(8) streaming from youtube hd, dailymotion, vimeo, etc. (some are region-locked e.g. netflix, therefore not relevant to users outside)

so really depends on your personal priority/preferences. 
it does support pass thru of Dolby TrueHD, but not DTS-HD MA. there is no way as of now to get DTS-HD MA, but there is a "petition" going on at the offficial WD support forum with users registering their wish for this and hopefully WD acts on this.

Are you sure?  Mind sharing how you get it to work with mkv?  The Transformer 3 mkv i have with Dolby-TrueHD can play fine with video but un-supported sound format message.

What's your AVR model number?

Thanks for the nice picture.  I think its my firmware version.  I am using Brad's custom firmware WDLXTV-Live-0.4.7.3 based on original firmware 1.02.21.  Its old version but I need the moviesheet function.  My WDTV Live menu is different from yours.  Mayber I should upgrade to the new version and try again.

Does it support rmvb format?