Downloading directly to WD live Plus attached storage Options

[millertime]

Sorry if this has been covered before, but I could'nt find a start to finish process for this in language a noob would understand. I have very limited computer capabilities and was wondering if this is on here already or if someone could list the steps needed to be taken from beginning to end to set the following up.

I have a WD live plus hooked up via wired ethernet connection in a separate room from the computer.
It feeds into tv via a HDMI cable. I have attached via the usb port a 2.5 Terrabyte WD elements storage device.
I would like to be able to download movies directly into the attached elements storage device. Is this possible? If not what do I need? Does the WD live plus need to be ON when I download?

I am running windows XP service pack 3.

Thanks in advance.

[pearl]

I assume you see the WDbox on your network from the windows7 machine already. You can either map a drive to it (as in D:\) or just get to it via your network icon. Whatever program you are using for downloading, set it to use the drive attached to the WDbox as the default for downloading.

***NOTE:
I have had some wierd issues doing exactly what you are trying to do. For some reason on my LivePlus when I downloaded torrents directly to it, the files were often corrupted when they finnished downloading. It specificaly happened on larger files. When I would check the downloads with their checksum files using Traders Little Helper, they would not match. I was never able to solve the problem so gave up and just moved files from a Windows7 box once they had finnished downloading. I have not tried this on my LiveHub but have pretty much just determined that it is not worth it for me. I now just use a dedicated downloading box and then copy the files to one of the WD Boxes.

-pearl

Reason for edit: removed unnecessary quote

[Obersturmfuhrer]

That method would be quite conveinent, wouldnt it?? Too bad it simply doesnt work... I have my win7 networked properly and a TB Fantom HDD connected to my USB1 port on a WDTV Live Plus. I also have UseNet, and mapped the network drive (connected to the WDTV), and then assigned it as my download folder. I get a downstream of about 2.5MB/second average on Usenet, (I do ALOT of downloading) and have tried this method several times. For whatever reason, it just doesnt work. Speed fluctation, corrupted data, stream bottlenecks, I/O errors, etc.. Not to mention once all the files are downloaded, the RAR's then have to be combined/decompressed. There's just too much room for errors, because the PC has to communicate thru the network, the WDTV, and finally access the HDD to read/write info. So, just buy a fast large flash drive and copy from ur PC the media once the download completes. OR, option 2) is setup and configure your network so U can stream video directly from your PC to your WDTV (Via media server or TVersity). Option two seems to be the most practical, but for error-free, flawless playback (especially high-bitrate playback) direct USB connection is superior.

Bottom line, unless there's a solution to this that I haven't found out about yet, downloading DIRECTLY to a networked drive (and then with subseqent processes that take place) is simply too error-prone, in my experience at least. Hope this helps.

[Rev Drew]

WDLXTV custom firmware has the ability to download nzb's or torrents to an attached drive on the live and the live plus.