• Network support - playback from CIFS/SAMBA/Windows Shares or NFS (recommended for 720p - required for 1080p)
• DVD-ROM playback (ext3-boot, DVDmod, & WDLXTV firmwares)
  
• As a consequence of the WDTV using a MIPS CPU, over 800 applications available and easy to install from the MIPS-based NSLU2 software repository.
  for example asterix, torrent-client, wget, mysql, php, ssh, screen, icq, perl, python and more

• Maintainer: Zorander
• Notes: This release is a two-stage firmware. The first step upgrades the WDTV's internal firmware, and it enables two main features on the WDTV: Ethernet Networking and USB booting. The second step, takes new ext3-boot releases and boots them right from the USB key. Once the first step is completed, you can simply keep updating the root.bin file on your USB Key and the new ext3-boot releases are applied to the WDTV (unless a major release requires to re-do step 1). This is thought to be a firmware release for people with some linux experience, and would like to get more out of the WDTV. Based on the ext3-boot firmware, the user is now enabled to add more applications to the WDTV, enabling a torrent-client, a web server, etc. Options are only limited by the user's own creativity and what has been developed by the community.
• Features:
  • Preserves all media-playing functions found on the original WD release. This is real enhancement on the WDTV.
  • Booting from USBkey providing read-write user space for more applications.
  • Adding USB network adapter support and ability to stream media files from networked Windows shares and NFS shares.
  • Enables telnet/SSH server for remote Linux administration.
  • Many Linux commands are now available to the user (top, ps, df, vi, etc): Yes, it's real Linux.
  • If you have a problem installing from a USB HDD, try USB Key and use FAT16/FAT32 filesystem.
  • This release is still under development and it could give unstable/unpredictable results.
  • The process is reversible, should you want to go back to WD's official firmware releases.

ext3-boot-releases

• Maintainer: b-rad.cc
• Notes: Generaly seen as a release meant for those not too interested in the WDTV as a Linux box, but interested in enhanced functionality on the WDTV.
• Features:
  • Permanent flash into WDTV - don't need USB-HDD/KEY plugged in WDTV
  • Adds CD/DVD support for external optical drives (No DVD Menus yet)
  • Adds support for ext2 and ext3 partitions, with hotplugging
  • USB Ethernet adapter support (ext3-boot supported devices)
  • NFS share mounting
  • pureFTP server
  • telnet server
  • app.bin loading
  • OSD overlay loading
  • WDTV Optware loading, enabling dozens of linux applications on the WDTV

Available Here

• Permanent flash into WDTV dont need USB-HDD/KEY plugged in WDTV
• Adds CD/DVD support for external optical drives
• Adds support for ext2, ext3, xfs, and reiser partitions if they are connected at boot
• This release is for end-users who dont need USBnetwork support and dont want have plugged USBmedia into USB port

DVDmod-releases

• What's New
  • Windows-1250 Central European encoding added
  • AVI Media File initial playing delay time improved
  • Fixes an issue where thumbnails weren't loading sometimes
  • Thumbnail loading times improved
  • Enhanced cover art, album art, and thumbnail support for media files and folders
  • Additional subtitle languages and decoding support
  • Improved media playback and navigation
  • Subtitle rendering quality improved
  • More audio formats for MKV container
  • Experimental 1080P @ 29.976Hz Media play (solves choppy playback of some FullHD videos)
  • Adds Subtitle default option (on/off)
  • Allows HDD Spin-Down on power-off
  • Fixed bugs reported by the WD TV user community

WDTV_FW_1_02_08 (beta release) Released: 2009.05.18

• Resolved Issues:
  • Resolved the issue surrounding updating the firmware from a large (500GB or larger) drive, previously the WDTV™ would not recognize the updated firmware on a large drive

• Known Issues:
  • When image is rotated 90 degrees there is some elongation in the rotated view
  • If the user unsafely removes an HFS+ formatted drive from the media player without using the Eject button, the drive will become read only media

WDTV_FW_1_01_02

• fixing minor issues and fixing major issue upgrading from large USB HDD

WDTV_FW_1_01_01 only short major features

• Added .MKV chapter selection for video playback for MKV with chapter support
  
• Added embedded subtitle display in .MKV files
  
• Added .MTS .TP .TS file extension support
  
• Added sequential .M2TS file playback function
  
• Added additional subtitle support (SMI, SUB, ASS, SSA)
  
• Added subtitle encoding support for the following: Western Europe (ISO), Traditional Chinese (Big5), Simplified Chinese (GB18030), Japanese (Shift-JIS),
  Korean (EUC-KR), Cyrillic (Windows-1251), Cyrillic (KOI8-R), Greek (ISO); previously only UTF-8 was supported
  
• Added 1080p 24hz support
• Added jump feature to the remote: While fast forwarding or reversing, if the “Next” or “Prev” buttons are pressed, video will jump 10 minutes in the respective direction

WDTV_FW_1_00_01 fixed version

• factory default firmware without .TS .SRT .SSA .SUB support
  
  

• Upgrading and Downgrading aka Reverting is same process for all firmwares. Only follow this how-to.

1. Use USB FLASH KEY from 64mb upto 2GB. I recommend upto 2GB but you could also use bigger ones but they using different adressing model
   this could be issue for some models.
2. Format the USB FLASH key to FAT16 or FAT32 filesystem don't be lazzy and DON'T use NFTS for this case ¹⁾
   use USB FORMATER²⁾ or any others formatting tools.
3. Go to WDTV menu System→About there is version notice it you will need this number later.
4. Unpack firmware package to USB FLASH KEY to root directory there have to be 2 files WDTV.BIN and WDTV.VER.
5. Open with Notepad or any textplain³⁾ editor and change version in WDTV.VER to higher then you have in WDTV now if you dont change this new firmware will not detected as new one. Save the file.
6. De-attach all USB devices from WDTV unplug power supply wait 5-10sec plug-in USB prepared USB FLASH KEY and plug-in power supply.
7. Wait and dont reboot WDTV during flashing process

Good Luck

• If you have problem upgrade from USBkey or if upgrading failed from USB-HDD try USBKey and use FAT16/FAT32 filesystem
  you can use for formating process this USB FORMATER
  
• If you have further problems upgrading from a USBKey, you may have a USBKey with U3. U3 creates a fake CDROM device that interferes with booting the upgraded software. U3 can be removed from your USBKey with U3 removal tool that runs under Windows (not Wine compatible)