*New* Western Digital - WD TV HD Media Player [Text View] - Page 19

what7fr

02-14-09, 05:05 AM

Yeap.

ScottWD and your higher managers, a simple statement :

The nearest from your customers you are, More business mind you'll increase ....

Salutations

That's true. I think it's obvious that since WD first targeted the device for the U.S. market, they never cared for the subtitles initially. But then they noticed that there is a huge segment whose native language isn't English who cared for subtitles. Plus, a relatively small segment of native English speakers who watch anime or non-English movies with subtitles.

They did some quick improvements on the first firmware but frankly, the subtitle support is still pretty poor compared to other HD players. I think this next firmware will be a major improvement. If they don't wanna turn their back at those people, then it has to be.

This device is like PS3. Yes, U.S. has the most sales in the world but there are enough non-US users that Sony just can't ignore them, otherwise they'd lose lots of marketshare. That's why I expect much better subtitle support in the next firmware.

Well, for one thing, he hasn't logged in since January 28th which is quite disheartening. Maybe he had been busy or maybe for some reason, some people higher than him at WD thought it's not for their best interest to interact with the users

It's just speculation, of course. I hope he announces the new firmware soon.

Ph8te

02-14-09, 05:37 AM

Have anybody tried an mkv with Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio on this unit?

Since its HDMI v1.2 doesn't support this audio pass thru, does it output the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio thru the Optical Port instead?

Have anybody tested outputting DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 from this unit as well?

As I don't have an AV Receiver that support these audio codecs.

I think it was stated earlier that this unit doesnt do either. Neither of those formats can be passed over optical. In order to pass those you need HDMI. THe only way we could get these over optical is if there was a decoder on the actual unit then DD THD would be passed as DD and DTS HD\MA wold be passed as DTS.

Ph8te

02-14-09, 05:41 AM

Just got the unit in today and I have to say I am impressed. I have a 1TB on the way to me, but in the meantime I have a small 250GB drive with a mixture of files. It has aplayed all of my files as expected. Luckily I have an older receiver that does DTS so if I need it I have it.

THe best part of it is, I shoed the Fiancee and she stated this was the best gadget purchase that I have made yet :o) (especially since it was only 99 at Amazon). She really liked the interface and that we could play our movies, music and look at pictures. I guess sometimes its the little things that make people happy.

Cant wait unitl my 1TB drive comes in though I am itching and in need of more space......

dimicy

02-14-09, 10:57 AM

aos007

02-14-09, 12:58 PM

Does anyone have issues playing FLAC files? Every once in a while I start hearing pops and clicks, after it's been playing music for a while. Sometimes it helps to stop playback, then press play again. I do not hear any pops on same files when played on a PC. Since playing losless music is the primary use I got it for, I would really like to get this sorted out.

DanDaMan069

02-14-09, 01:27 PM

I have upgraded yesterday to the latest firmware as soon as i got this player, it works ok but i dong get sound when mkv video file is played and as soon as the film starts on the screen it indicates 'audio channel 1, digital'

In the settings menu --> audio-video --> audio output I select 'stereo', if i select 'digital' i do not get sound from ANY mkv file.

hope you can help me

This has been discussed many times before...i wrote about this in detail very early in the thread.. more and likely the reason you cant hear the audio in digital is because your MKV files have AAC audio.... AAC audio will only play in stereo mode.. it doesnt matter what the player pops up and says.. if you have it set to digital...everytime a movie starts it will pop up and say DIGITAL AUDIO when you have it set to digital! You have to convert your AAC audio files to 6 channel AC3 audio using PH audioconverter to get them to play in digital mode in 6 channels.. AC3 will work in stereo or digital mode.. but you only get 2 channel audio in stereo mode...no matter even if it has 6 channels in the file. DTS files are different...you can have your player set to stereo mode...but when a DTS file is played..it will pop up and say DIGITAL AUDIO and the player will automatically change the output to digital and play the DTS file:)

if you are playing AC3 files in digital and dont have sound...then something is definately wrong??? but i think all your MKV movies are AAC...

Slade2

02-14-09, 03:10 PM

This has been discussed many times before...i wrote about this in detail very early in the thread.. more and likely the reason you cant hear the audio in digital is because your MKV files have AAC audio.... AAC audio will only play in stereo mode.. it doesnt matter what the player pops up and says.. if you have it set to digital...everytime a movie starts it will pop up and say DIGITAL AUDIO when you have it set to digital! You have to convert your AAC audio files to 6 channel AC3 audio using PH audioconverter to get them to play in digital mode in 6 channels.. AC3 will work in stereo or digital mode.. but you only get 2 channel audio in stereo mode...no matter even if it has 6 channels in the file. DTS files are different...you can have your player set to stereo mode...but when a DTS file is played..it will pop up and say DIGITAL AUDIO and the player will automatically change the output to digital and play the DTS file:)

if you are playing AC3 files in digital and dont have sound...then something is definately wrong??? but i think all your MKV movies are AAC...

Will they still play if I connect them using the SPdif output to my stereo if I dont convert them first i mean?

DanDaMan069

02-14-09, 03:24 PM

Will they still play if I connect them using the SPdif output to my stereo if I dont convert them first i mean?

if the files are AAC... they will only play in stereo mode 2 channel..PERIOD no matter what cable output you are using.... need to convert the audio to AC3 if you want to play them in digital 6 channel..

TriRyche

02-14-09, 05:05 PM

I have read that it wont link the .VOB files together so it will stop after each one,
and you will have to hit the remote every 20 min or so.

You could use VOB MERGE (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VOBMerge) to make one VOB file, no?

TriRyche

dimicy

02-14-09, 05:19 PM

if the files are AAC... they will only play in stereo mode 2 channel..PERIOD no matter what cable output you are using.... need to convert the audio to AC3 if you want to play them in digital 6 channel..

i dont mind playing them in stereo mode, but as i have wrote, i do not get sound only from SOME mkv files. files that as soon as they begin to play there is a pop up on the tv screen 'audio chanell 1, digital', and i can not hear anything.

if in the settings menu I select 'digital' for audio then I can not get any sound from any mkv file.

thanks

knottz

02-14-09, 05:43 PM

Hi - I bought one of these last week - amazon purchae - set it all up and it worked foine no probs whatso ever. Had both HD and standard def movies on it etc - and watched em all. Came to use it tonight and my HD tv simply says not supported format when using it through HDMI - and I get the WD start up screens through the rca leads but then nothing - just a black screen. Have done the reset and unplug and repluged it a couple of times - left it unplugged for an hr and stil the same. It will respond to the remote though and turns on and off - it is also lighting the usb light when I plug a hard drive in - theres just no picture - no menu screens nothing!.

Have also tried using the reset on the side and it reboots -shows the wd logo for a few second and then back to the black screen again.

Is it bricked? Time to send it back?

Cheers

Phil.

microhaxo

02-14-09, 06:32 PM

I had a similar problem (except format not supported)

there is a handshaking issue with the device and HDMI...

Follow these steps and hopefully she works again:

Step 1:
Turn on the tv.
Step 2:
Turn on the WDTV
Step 3:
Change tv source to HDMI

Then you should see it connect properly and show the main screen.

before when i would turn it to hdmi first and then turn the WDTV on, it would be a black screen, then if i pulled the power from the WDTV and put it back i saw a WD logo then black screen, so the above steps need to be performed for it to work on my hdtv using hdmi.

I REALLY REALLY hope WD addresses this issue with a firmware update very soon, my tv has never had hdmi problems and has always AUTO switched to source when it saw an active line, with the WDTV it does not do it at all.

And with that firmware update they need to fix the power issues with the wdtv, like the usb getting 5v even when its turned off and for some reason the wdtv stays warm when its powered off, so something isn't right at all.

Would also love to see some thumbnail support, like simply using an image in the folder of the movie as a thumbnail for the folder atleast.

Its kinda hard to navigate a huge list of movies with the exact same icon.. lol

/ end of rant

PCKid

02-14-09, 07:22 PM

I've had my WD TV for a few weeks running it HDMI. 3 days ago when I turned it on it exhibited color bands on the menu rather than smooth colors. This translates to very muddy looking video playback with colors in strips of color rather than smooth blending of color. I have 2 identical plasmas so I tried it on the other plasma with the same result. Since I work in TV retail I also tried 3 different HDMI cables which made no difference. So I rang my supplier for an RA and in the mean time went out and bought another one to use while I sent this one off as I figured I could use it on the other plasma when my replaced one arrived. But the new one has the same problem out of the box. So I'm running it composite till I get an answer from WD. The composite looks pretty ordinary as I already had a Mediagate MG-25 that did component but bought the WD TV to get HDMI. Have attached a photo of the screen. Look at the half circle down the bottom and you will see the bands of color. That is what the videos look like too. I now have 2 units that don't work properly. The first one was working ok. Someone at work bought one too and his is ok. Does it matter if you use a 1.2 or a 1.3 HDMI cable? All the ones I have and tried are 1.3. HDMI cables are weird. We find at work that some will not display video on some equipment but will work on others. I brought home a Crest brand 1.3 HDMI that wouldn't display video on my WD TV but worked ok in the other room on my PS3. Go figure that one.

live4ten

02-14-09, 08:17 PM

I have two external WD drives, a 500GB and a 1TB. Both were formatted HFS+ with Macdrive to work with the Xbox 360, then a Popcorn Hour. When connected to the WD TV, it displays "unrecognized USB drive." From reading through this thread, I cannot find any reason these drives shouldn't be recognized. Am I missing something?

Slade2

02-14-09, 09:30 PM

i dont mind playing them in stereo mode, but as i have wrote, i do not get sound only from SOME mkv files. files that as soon as they begin to play there is a pop up on the tv screen 'audio chanell 1, digital', and i can not hear anything.

if in the settings menu I select 'digital' for audio then I can not get any sound from any mkv file.

thanks

The Audio is actually DTS according to mediainfo

will this play using the audio out?

i dont want to mess about with recoding stuff thats all

thanks

DanDaMan069

02-14-09, 10:13 PM

The Audio is actually DTS according to mediainfo

will this play using the audio out?

i dont want to mess about with recoding stuff thats all

thanks

DTS will work with hdmi or toslink cable that is connected to DTS capable receiver... DTS will not work with RCA connection to TV.. even when in stereo mode, DTS will automatically switch the WD to digital and play...but must be connected to DTS receiver.. if you dont have DTS receiver, then your only choice is to convert audio to AC3.

greenythebeast

02-14-09, 11:02 PM

techflaws

02-15-09, 01:36 AM

You could use VOB MERGE (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VOBMerge) to make one VOB file, no?
Or simply press play on the first vob instead of enter.

Avon B7

02-15-09, 06:26 AM

The WD TV only recognizes HFS drives without journaling. Make sure your drive doesn't have journaling.

That isn't entirely correct.

The WDTV will recognise and function with journaling turned on but the media library feature will not work with journaling on.

tedmozer

02-15-09, 09:39 AM

Every time I see this (as it was advertised in the BestBuy insert), I scratch my head......

My WD TV is hooked via a 10' HDMI cable to my home theather system. Great HD picture. Great sound. The cable cost me less than $15, probably around $10, as I go for the bargains. My 7.1 family room system probably cost me around $4,000 if I add up the purchase prices. I know, if money were no object, I could have easily paid 10 times more for the same components. I guess if I had a $40,000 system, paying $130 for an HDMI cable would be no big deal.

Question: Are there ANY specs that would justify spending $130 for an 8' Monster HDMI cable? Not that I would buy one if there were. I just cant't believe anyone would pay that much (but I guess there are, since they must sell them)!

OzzieP

02-15-09, 09:45 AM

I paid $107 for a 35' HDMI in my home theater.

tedmozer

02-15-09, 09:57 AM

Well, in a run that long, better quality does matter. $107 for 35' makes a lot more sense than $130 for 8'!

Lt. Dang

02-15-09, 10:08 AM

Well, in a run that long, better quality does matter. $107 for 35' makes a lot more sense than $130 for 8'!

Its the £50 - £150 for a Monster or Ixos 1-2 meter HDMI cable that gives me a fit of the giggles!! :D

Regards,

Lt. Dang

ronton3

02-15-09, 10:23 AM

XLD has just been updated, you can now insert a cd into a Mac and it will automatically, retrieve meta data, decode(I am using flac)and eject the cd when finished, WDTV now shows the track name. This is a painless process, and album art shows up when the indiv track is played---I hope that after fw update it will be displayed as album ID. Change prefs in CD/DVD(OSX) to open XLD on insertion. This is a big difference. Now if Video could be as easy.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23430/x-lossless-decoder

http://www.macupdate.com/download.php/23430/xld-gui-20090215.tbz

shwaggy

02-15-09, 10:24 AM

Well the monster cables are way better quality but really I would rather replace 1 or 2 hdmi cables at 15 bucks then buy a 150 dollar one. Monster cables do come with a lifetime warranty..

also where the hell is the new firmware? Im so tired of not having the ability to add cover art to all my files.. Almost like false advertising them showing all mp4s or whatever in the pictures. lol

knottz

02-15-09, 10:33 AM

dimicy

02-15-09, 10:34 AM

DTS will work with hdmi or toslink cable that is connected to DTS capable receiver... DTS will not work with RCA connection to TV.. even when in stereo mode, DTS will automatically switch the WD to digital and play...but must be connected to DTS receiver.. if you dont have DTS receiver, then your only choice is to convert audio to AC3.

I have my WD TV directly connected to my plasma tv with HDMI cable, I checked and all the movies I can not get sound are DTS sound movies, how can I solve this without converting audio? Is this a problem of my tv, not supporting DTS? If I use the optical out will it solve the problem?

Thanks

shwaggy

02-15-09, 12:41 PM

The wdtv itself cannot decode dts. You need to route it through a receiver capable of decoding dts. Otherwise you need to use a program like audio converter to make a ac3 file which you can always preserve the dts track for if you ever get a new surround sound receiver or something. Not that big of a problem because most semi expensive receivers should decode dts(just check the thing for the dts logo to see if it will) Mine though doesnt until I get my new one so I convert all my files to ac3. I use hdmi from wdtv to tv and optical to my old cheep receiver.

BoschRock

02-15-09, 01:08 PM

Question: Are there ANY specs that would justify spending $130 for an 8' Monster HDMI cable?

No. If you know how HDMI cables work, you notice this is almost mind-bending greed from Monster.

OzzieP

02-15-09, 01:33 PM

No. If you know how HDMI cables work, you notice this is almost mind-bending greed from Monster.
Capitlism is alive and well!!! Why not if someone is willing to pay for it.

I have an extra 35' HDMI cable, if I put a nice logo on it and am able to sell it fo $749.99. Would you blame me? It might help if I put up a spiffy web site and add some very nice user comments also. Hey I see nothing wrong with that. Beside there is one born every minute anyway, so why not.

DanDaMan069

02-15-09, 02:11 PM

Question: Are there ANY specs that would justify spending $130 for an 8' Monster HDMI cable? Not that I would buy one if there were. I just cant't believe anyone would pay that much (but I guess there are, since they must sell them)!

I wrote about this subject in detail as well early in the thread..lol put is short and to the point.... hdmi signal is 1111111111111111111111111111111's and 0000000000000000000000000000's...........OR... ON or OFF. There is no in between..either you have a picture, or you dont. To prove my point. I took a $130 Monster cable and a $4 monoprice cable and hooked both of them up to my 50" 1080p Samsung plasma and played Planet Earth 1080p through both cables, switching between the 2 many times and many different parts of the bluray disk... you know what the difference was???? NOTHING!!:eek::eek:

i read many forums and articles for and against low cost vs high cost hdmi cables....but after seeing it myself, i dont need to take anybody elses word for it...

OzzieP

02-15-09, 02:29 PM

I wrote about this subject in detail as well early in the thread..lol put is short and to the point.... hdmi signal is 1111111111111111111111111111111's and 0000000000000000000000000000's...........OR... ON or OFF. There is no in between..either you have a picture, or you dont. To prove my point. I took a $130 Monster cable and a $4 monoprice cable and hooked both of them up to my 50" 1080p Samsung plasma and played Planet Earth 1080p through both cables, switching between the 2 many times and many different parts of the bluray disk... you know what the difference was???? NOTHING!!:eek::eek:

i read many forums and articles for and against low cost vs high cost hdmi cables....but after seeing it myself, i dont need to take anybody elses word for it...
You must of had the $130 Monster cable on backwards. They are directional you know. When you align it the correct way you should see a 20% improvement. :)

COTJ

02-15-09, 03:25 PM

I use iPhoto to import and organize photos.

I have a simple copy of my entire hard drive stored on an external drive. That drive is connected to the WD TV.

The WD TV has no problem finding everything, music, videos and photos.

I can watch all the videos and listen to all of the music, no problem. I'm even extremely impressed with the video quality.

When I go to browse photos it displays the folders, then the thumbnails, but when I click on a thumbnail it tells me the image cannot be displayed.

Any suggestions?

axman5055

02-15-09, 03:52 PM

DanDaMan069

02-15-09, 03:58 PM

You must of had the $130 Monster cable on backwards. They are directional you know. When you align it the correct way you should see a 20% improvement. :)

i hope your comment was just being sarcastic??lol

if not...you must be one of those that were suckered into buying a monster hdmi cable...so of course you will see a 20% improvement... WHY? because you were told so:eek: so you are going to see what you want... and to justify why you overpaid for a digital cable that is either on or off....

or maybe i didnt explain it in detail before... but the picture was PERFECT while using 4 different brand and priced cables.... NO visual difference in picture using $4 hdmi cable and $130 Monster cable... I have tested this many times using different sources and TVs.. i have used PS3, XBOX 360, Toshiba HD-A35, 50" Samsung 1080p plasma and a 32" SOny 1080p LCD, and a Sony VPL-HS20 Projector.

Now if you have done several of these tests yourself and see a 20% improvement...then your low cost hdmi cables must be home made..LOL i am talking about monoprice cables, hdmi cables that came with xbox 360, best buy brand hdmi cable and monster 1000 series... I am not in denial about the price i paid for my monster cable, as I sniped it on Ebay for $38. So I am not bias towards any other cables because i paid 10-20 times more for it! haha

In the end....the only way you can be 100% sure if the cables make a difference is to see for yourself...and i have...from $4 monoprice cable, to a $40 microsoft cable, to a $80 best buy PS3 cable, or to a $130 store price Monster 1000 series cable (that i sniped for $38 on ebay)

there is NO 20% improvement using a Monster cable..lol but if it helps you feel better about overpaying for it...then go ahead and say that..as long as you are happy:)

OzzieP

02-15-09, 04:36 PM

i hope your comment was just being sarcastic??lol

if not...you must be one of those that were suckered into buying a monster hdmi cable...so of course you will see a 20% improvement... WHY? because you were told so:eek: so you are going to see what you want... and to justify why you overpaid for a digital cable that is either on or off....

or maybe i didnt explain it in detail before... but the picture was PERFECT while using 4 different brand and priced cables.... NO visual difference in picture using $4 hdmi cable and $130 Monster cable... I have tested this many times using different sources and TVs.. i have used PS3, XBOX 360, Toshiba HD-A35, 50" Samsung 1080p plasma and a 32" SOny 1080p LCD, and a Sony VPL-HS20 Projector.

Now if you have done several of these tests yourself and see a 20% improvement...then your low cost hdmi cables must be home made..LOL i am talking about monoprice cables, hdmi cables that came with xbox 360, best buy brand hdmi cable and monster 1000 series... I am not in denial about the price i paid for my monster cable, as I sniped it on Ebay for $38. So I am not bias towards any other cables because i paid 10-20 times more for it! haha

In the end....the only way you can be 100% sure if the cables make a difference is to see for yourself...and i have...from $4 monoprice cable, to a $40 microsoft cable, to a $80 best buy PS3 cable, or to a $130 store price Monster 1000 series cable (that i sniped for $38 on ebay)

there is NO 20% improvement using a Monster cable..lol but if it helps you feel better about overpaying for it...then go ahead and say that..as long as you are happy:)

You need to take a carefully look at the connectors and you will see little arrows that tell you which direction the ones & zeros should flow. If it's pointing in the wrong direction then the video quality will be just as good as any $4 HDMI cable, however if you properly connect it the improvment is easily 20%! I have also noticed that if you draw a line all around the edge of the DVD with a green marker it will prevent stray laser light escaping and also result in a sonic improvment over non-marked DVD's.

I would also reccomend when viewing a movie critcally you should wear a black shirt. This will reduce shirt to eye reflection which could give you a bad impression of the true video quality of your display. Sometimes when I can't find a black shirt I use a black smudge also known as "Black Out" under the eye this will "pull" the bright light away from your eye and allow the you to see the colors better. :cool:

Koadic

02-15-09, 05:08 PM

DanDaMan069 - Maybe you got that "$130" Monster Cable for $38 because it was a Chinese counterfeit or something. Look closely, does it have the little arrows mentioned by OzzieP? If not, you may have been suckered and should ask for your money back.

DanDaMan069

02-15-09, 05:13 PM

You need to take a carefully look at the connectors and you will see little arrows that tell you which direction the ones & zeros should flow. If it's pointing in the wrong direction then the video quality will be just as good as any $4 HDMI cable, however if you properly connect it the improvment is easily 20%! I have also noticed that if you draw a line all around the edge of the DVD with a green marker it will prevent stray laser light escaping and also result in a sonic improvment over non-marked DVD's.

I would also reccomend when viewing a movie critaclly you should wear a black shirt. This will reduce shirt to eye reflection which could give you a bad impression of the true video quality of your display. Sometimes when I can't find a black shirt I use a black smudge also known as "Black Out" under the eye this will "pull" the bright light away from your eye and allow the you to see the colors better. :cool:

point taken....all you had to say was "yes, i was suckered into buying an expensive monster cable...so i tell myself it looks 20% better so i dont feel ripped off for overpaying for my monster cable"

thats all you had to say...

Itsdon

02-15-09, 06:20 PM

rusky_g

02-15-09, 07:59 PM

Hi Guys

Have had my WD a few weeks now and all has been well.

Got a new Plasma HDTV today (Panasonic PZ8) and the WD is having problems all of a sudden. Basically I plugged it in, turned on and nothing - power light on the WD comes on so its getting power but the TV is not auto-switching to the HDMI input and when you manually switch it the screen is blank. Sometimes the intial WD logo comes up but then after that nothing!

Done a reset using a pin in the side of the WD unit and then suddenly it switched on ok and I managed to watch some stuff - problem solved I thought!

Turned it on and off with the remote and again all was fine, however when moving the unit to unplug USB drives, it repeats the problem of a black screen again. The unit is constantly getting power but the only way to get to the menu screens is by waggling the power connection cable as it goes into the unit?! Any ideas? I can't tell if the problem is the TV not handshaking with the WD or if there is a loose connection in the power feed (which is odd as the power light is always on)

Any ideas??

Wazzey

02-15-09, 09:26 PM

OzzieP

02-15-09, 09:50 PM

Bought it today, messed with it with the old firmware still installed. Noticed that, when looking at raw vob's in 1080P 60Hz, the color was all wrong, too dark and faces were too orange. Updated the firmware and used the new setting of 24HZ since my projector supports it and indiana jones looks sooooooooooooooooooooo much better. It is the best that I have seen this movie look. Very happy for the moment.

Do you guys know if it was the new video setting or have they actually done something else to just improve the color calibrations?

When I first got it and hooked it up with my PJ it also looked so dark and the colors where also very saturated. I did do the firmware upgrade but never hooked it back up to the PJ. Where did you make this change? When I get home I want to try it again on the PJ.

Wazzey

02-15-09, 10:21 PM

I only changed it in the audio/video settings on resolution. I'm not sitting in front of it right now to see the exact settings but I think thats all I did. 24Hz wasn't an option in the old firmware, or if it was I didn't see it. I need to go put it back on 1080P 60Hz to see if it goes back to the way it was. The difference from what it was to what it is now was like night and day. For the better.

edit... i moved it back to 1080P 60Hz and it looked fine also with the new firmware. I guess they made some kind of adjustment altogether on saturation and dark levels.

DKYang

02-15-09, 10:28 PM

I have a problem and I hope I can get answers here w/o making a thread for it.

I just got this player a week ago and everything was working fine after the firmware update and a hard reset to fix couple of problems. Now, the video output isn't working correctly. The screen is flickering in black and white. The TV is an old Sony CRT using the standard cables that came with the player. I tried a hard reset, replugging the 3 cables on both the player and TV with the same results.

The only thing I can think of is maybe it was overheated, but still doesn't make any sense. Is there any solution to this problem? Btw, if this does work on another TV in my house, but not the main one in the living room for my parents, then it seems like I'm going to have to exchange.

So before I go do that, is there a solution to this problems?

Thanks.

techflaws

02-16-09, 02:01 AM

JayAllan

02-16-09, 02:50 AM

Quick Question, If I am using DVD Fab to rip a movie, what would be the best file type to save it as to: a) retain the DVD quality, and b) to try to retain as much functionality (menus if possible, chapters, ect)?

Thanks!

Only way to maintain DVD quality is to do a VOB rip. Use the audio source function to maintain the audio quality. If space is a problem then convert it to a xvid.

There are plenty of posts in this thread to get more info.

You will not retain any menus or chapters. This is not supported with the WDTV

axman5055

02-16-09, 06:48 AM

Only way to maintain DVD quality is to do a VOB rip. Use the audio source function to maintain the audio quality. If space is a problem then convert it to a xvid.

There are plenty of posts in this thread to get more info.

You will not retain any menus or chapters. This is not supported with the WDTV

K, then what set-up does? Im pretty sure the Apple TV does, but they have a lack of supported files. Then theres the mac-mini set-up, which could work, but we have no need for a full system, we just need movies. So sss there any other set-ups you recommend.

sundowner8

02-16-09, 08:20 AM

For some reason I can't get DTS audio cd's to play on the unit. I've extracted and saved the wave files from the CDs on my hard drive attached to the WD but all I hear through my optical connection from the WD to the receiver is the undecoded hissing sound. The files play fine on my computer using the VLC media player and the original surround CD plays fine on my Philips CD player. It would be great to be able to play all my surround music on the device. Any ideas?

natedj

02-16-09, 10:07 AM

You can also do a ISO rip and still maintain the quality, just configure the program so that it won't compress the movie ... I assume you're talking about DVD Shrink.

natedj

02-16-09, 10:23 AM

You must of had the $130 Monster cable on backwards. They are directional you know. When you align it the correct way you should see a 20% improvement. :)

Even if this were true, which I don't think it is, then why the high cost?

I got my cables from Meritlin.com, (2) ten footers V1.3b at $9 total shipped. Let me play along with you and say that there is a 20% difference. Then the cost of the monster cable should be 20% more than $9 ..... not 1400% more.

My brother used to work at bestbuy and he confirmed that cable markups are astronomically high.

But It all comes down to what your eye sees. If i walk into a room I can look at a movie and tell if its SD or HD quality right off the bat. I can hit and miss on whether its 720p or 1080p, but I can't see anyone watching a movie and noticing 1080p vs 1080 + 20% and saying, "hey flip those cables around, you'll get a 20% better picture"

erdie

02-16-09, 10:34 AM

Even if this were true, which I don't think it is, then why the high cost?

I got my cables from Meritlin.com, (2) ten footers V1.3b at $9 total shipped. Let me play along with you and say that there is a 20% difference. Then the cost of the monster cable should be 20% more than $9 ..... not 1400% more.

My brother used to work at bestbuy and he confirmed that cable markups are astronomically high.

But It all comes down to what your eye sees. If i walk into a room I can look at a movie and tell if its SD or HD quality right off the bat. I can hit and miss on whether its 720p or 1080p, but I can't see anyone watching a movie and noticing 1080p vs 1080 + 20% and saying, "hey flip those cables around, you'll get a 20% better picture"

I think you are all missing the point, when the cable is the CORRECT way around all the digital 1's and 0's are sent in the right order, if the cable is the WRONG way they are sent as 0's and 1's and as you know this will give an inverse percentage amount reduction in picture quality. In fact it probably degrades the picture so much that you can't watch it. In the UK we don't have any of that nonsense and we always get the correct cables and of course us being English we put them in the right way round. How many English have you heard complain about their Hi Fi picture quality
The only thing I can't work out is how do I get my betamax tapes in this damned WD player.:)

natedj

02-16-09, 10:41 AM

This should apply to all cables and not limited to the Monster brand. My rebuttal was directed to the Monster cables giving a 20% superiour output than the bargin ones.

Slade2

02-16-09, 11:24 AM

Ok an update.

I have tried my WDTV on a samsung tv at my local shop using HDMI. The pitcure was perfect and it played 720p files fine.

Therefore I can deduce that its my JCV TV that is at fault. Its a LT-32DA8BJ.
I have phoned JVC and as the TV is no longer under warrenty they wanted £290 for someone to repair it.

Also, I have contacted the company I purchased the WDTV from about what they can suggest but as the unit is working without problems ( just doesnt work on my TV ) i imagine they will be reluctant for me to return it.

So now i have a WDTV i cant use to its full potential and a TV that is going to cost me almost the same amount to replace that it will to repair.

The TV is about 16 months old and I did tell the guy at JVC that the HDMI port has probably been broken since I got the TV but he said It was my responisbility to test that when i brought it. I am frustrated this is the case and was hoping they would repair it. This is my first HD device i have brought to even try on the TV and the TV is sold as `HD Ready` when its clearly not becuase its broken.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?.

dlipter

02-16-09, 03:42 PM

Can the WDTV interface navigate folders?

For example if I create a folder labled "motorcycle videos" and one labled "Movies" will these folders show up on the menu?

Thanks

OzzieP

02-16-09, 04:19 PM

Can the WDTV interface navigate folders?

For example if I create a folder labled "motorcycle videos" and one labled "Movies" will these folders show up on the menu?

Thanks
Yes. Just select the folders icon and thats what you will get.

ichiban1962

02-16-09, 06:19 PM

Too funny! :D

Dont forget wear odd coloured socks and squint as well,
must be at least a 30% improvement from this

COTJ

02-16-09, 06:25 PM

Ph8te

02-16-09, 08:09 PM

I know most of you are focused on video, but does anyone have a suggestion for viewing my tens of thousands of saved photos (all .jpg)?

The thumbnails all show, but when I select the file I get an error message.

Whats the error? I was able to view photos without issue from the HD.

EasyEEE

02-16-09, 08:56 PM

So how many people are checking here and/or WD site daily for firmware update? :D

joshjoshlol

02-16-09, 08:59 PM

So how many people are checking here and/or WD site daily for firmware update? :D

Most definitely me. I'm pretty sure I'll squeal like a little girl when WD finally updates the firmware.

Stinkpickle

02-16-09, 09:13 PM

Hey guys, it seems about 95%+ of my AVI files seem to have choppy video playback, it seems to freeze every so often - however the sound still plays.

I've read about the MKV playback issues with DTS, but havn't been able to find anything on my AVI problem.

All the files play smoothly and perfect on the computer and firm is up to date.

Any thoughts? This happens on probably around 200 AVI files.

Thanks.

w.cecconello

02-16-09, 09:29 PM

Has anyone tried using My Lil Movie Jukebox (YAMJ) on this WD HD ???
Just an idea. I am just getting a little more knowledge of computers and was wondering if this would work?

DanDaMan069

02-16-09, 11:45 PM

in case anybody is running out of hard drive room like myself... i was lucky enough to walk into best buy and they had a weekly ad clearance sale of Seagate Free Agent 1.5TB hard drives for $129!!! $$99 for 1TB and $79 for 500GB.... but the great deal is the 1.5TB for $129! I personally have never seen this low of a price for 1.5TB... it is in there weekly ad that started this sunday and ends this saturday... I had to go to 3 best buys to find the 1.5TB, and I bought 2 of them! and I had some 10% off coupons as i am a member of the rewards program for best buy... so I paid $116.99 for each of my 1.5TB hard drives!! doubt there is a lower price than that on the planet! lol I picked up another WD player for the bedroom too at $90..it was a great sunday:)

the seagate free agent 1.5TB was recognized and loaded in a few seconds on the WD... works perfectly... I also put a few 10-20GB full 1920X1080 movies like the Matrix, 300 and Incredible Hulk to test the drives capabilities....worked just fine! When I purchased the WD the first week of Dec, the WD was the best $100 I ever spent...and now these 1.5TB drives are now the best $117 I ever spent!! You can find the 10% off coupons online also, so you can also get this price as long as your best buy still has some... like i said, i had to go to 3 best buys in las vegas to find 2 of them... maybe you can get a rain check??

locomo

02-17-09, 01:16 AM

wasted1980

02-17-09, 01:35 AM

Hi everyone!

Is there a way to change the icons in WD TV (Such as movie icons etc) So that I can see the actual movie picture and not only text?

AcrylicAce

02-17-09, 02:10 AM

I am sorry to ask because it has probably been answered somewhere in the pages and pages of this thread but i couldn't find my answer....

Specifically I would like to know if I will have any trouble connecting the Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player to Denon DHT-589BA. I assume that I can just connect using an Optical Digital Interface Cable but i just want to make sure.

Slade2

02-17-09, 02:18 AM

Slade2
My JVC has a reset HDMI available in the service menu.
You''ll have to some research on your particular model .

On that note could someone reply or PM me some details on how to get into the system menu and reset the HDMI port. Its a JVC LT-32DA8BJ

PCKid

02-17-09, 04:50 AM

I use Vuze to download HD Movie trailers and the odd free series such as Pink and Sanctuary plus always Tekzilla. They are all in MKV but when I try to play them on the WD TV it says Audio 1 not supported.

pang2000

02-17-09, 06:00 AM

rusky_g

02-17-09, 06:15 AM

Guys

FYI, regarding my earlier post about 2 pages back - my lack of picture / signal problem has been resolved by changing the HDMI cable....weird but glad all is well now :D (touches wood)

Wazzey

02-17-09, 08:11 AM

templetun

02-17-09, 08:54 AM

OzzieP

02-17-09, 09:35 AM

I guess I should have mentioned "self-powered external hard drives". Does anyone know if the WDTV wil turn off bus-powered external hard drives? (My PIO 1018, is without ac power inputs :(

Also, any response to the WDTV displaying cd cover art?
WD TV will not turn off any hard drive. That is something I think they can't fix. I have a 2TB WD drive that goes to sleep mode ifnot conected to WD TV so I just leave it powered all yhe time but disconnected from the WD TV. I don't know if thats a bad idea or not but that is what I have been doing now for about 8 weeks.

tipstir

02-17-09, 10:15 AM

It's possible to access the network shares via certain brand of NAS USB2/10/100/1000mbps units and use the WD TV HD on your network. This is how you do it.. (just to make life more less complex)

Source is from me from another posting...

More internal view of the device and what not what, still good device..http://maddhat.com/?p=31

Now you might be able to use NAS that can also act as an attached USB drive.

Here are 3 NAS that you can use next to the WD TV HD connected USB and the NAS 10/100 or NAS 10/100/1000 port.. Transfers files to the NAS and then let the WD TV HD pull in the files using USB.

LaCie Ethernet Big Disk - 1 TB (301156U)
LaCie Ethernet Disk mini V2 - 500 GB (301138U)
Buffalo DriveStation FlexNet (HD-CE500LU2)

Key feature of this NAS/USB it's Interface : 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000
1 x Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (TCP over USB – acts/appears as a Network drive)****

LaCie Ethernet Disk mini
Gigabit Ethernet & Hi-Speed USB 2.0
500GB

* NAS: Share files over Gigabit Ethernet
* Network storage for Windows®, Mac® & Linux
* USB 2.0 for private connection
* Simple setup – no drivers to install
* UPnP Streaming

http://www.lacie.com/imgstore/product_medium/hd_d2.jpg

http://www.lacie.com/imgstore/more/networkingviaethernet.gif

You would need to have the Lacie NAS nearby the WD TV HD using one of the USB port for this to work right.

tipstir

02-17-09, 10:18 AM

WD TV will not turn off any hard drive. That is something I think they can't fix. I have a 2TB WD drive that goes to sleep mode ifnot conected to WD TV so I just leave it powered all yhe time but disconnected from the WD TV. I don't know if thats a bad idea or not but that is what I have been doing now for about 8 weeks.

If you're using USB NAS that uses AC you can put those drives on X10 RF power on/off or use X10 timer. Or just go out to the store and buy a 24/hr power on/off timer Then when you go to sleep you don't have to worry about running those USB drives all night long thus increase the life span on them.

ak3883

02-17-09, 11:31 AM

If you're using USB NAS that uses AC you can put those drives on X10 RF power on/off or use X10 timer. Or just go out to the store and buy a 24/hr power on/off timer Then when you go to sleep you don't have to worry about running those USB drives all night long thus increase the life span on them.

Brings up the age old question, which is less wear/tear on a drive? Keep it on/spinning 24/7, or subject it to a few powerup/powerdown cycles in that 24 hours?

namartlu

02-17-09, 11:40 AM

[QUOTE=tipstir;15842523]It's possible to access the network shares via certain brand of NAS USB2/10/100/1000mbps units and use the WD TV HD on your network. This is how you do it.. (just to make life more less complex)

Source is from me from another posting...

More internal view of the device and what not what, still good device..http://maddhat.com/?p=31

Now you might be able to use NAS that can also act as an attached USB drive.

Here are 3 NAS that you can use next to the WD TV HD connected USB and the NAS 10/100 or NAS 10/100/1000 port.. Transfers files to the NAS and then let the WD TV HD pull in the files using USB.

LaCie Ethernet Big Disk - 1 TB (301156U)
LaCie Ethernet Disk mini V2 - 500 GB (301138U)
Buffalo DriveStation FlexNet (HD-CE500LU2)

QUOTE]

Thanks tipstir! Been looking for a solution. However, afaik, the Buffalo FlexNet does not support ntfs, checked the LaCie Big Disk, same deal... probably for the LaCie mini too... So it won't work for me because of that 4GB file size limit.

Thanks though!

adido

02-17-09, 11:56 AM

I know most of you are focused on video, but does anyone have a suggestion for viewing my tens of thousands of saved photos (all .jpg)?

The thumbnails all show, but when I select the file I get an error message.

COTJ, unless you give full info of one JPG that U can't C , how can we comment? or better put a file in one of the sites 4 us to d/l and check.

adido

02-17-09, 11:59 AM

namartlu

02-17-09, 12:00 PM

what7fr

02-17-09, 12:08 PM

Hi all guyz

Anyone has got some news from ScottWD ?

Is he dead ? or just overloaded ?

Has anyone some feedback from WD technical support team or developpers about a release date fror the firmware 1.0.3

thanks

streetcredit

02-17-09, 12:34 PM

Maybe a dumb question, but if I use the component out from the WD TV to an old CRT TV (with component in) can I watch m2ts files in standard definition. I want to show some hi def content to my Mom who has an older TV.

bmel

02-17-09, 12:47 PM

Actually, it's composite not component, and yes you can watch on a sd tv. The picture is surprisingly good.

OzzieP

02-17-09, 12:53 PM

If you're using USB NAS that uses AC you can put those drives on X10 RF power on/off or use X10 timer. Or just go out to the store and buy a 24/hr power on/off timer Then when you go to sleep you don't have to worry about running those USB drives all night long thus increase the life span on them.

I thought when in sleep mode the hard drive does not spin and the reader arm is parked.

tipstir

02-17-09, 01:06 PM

I am sure there is another solution to bring the LAN over to the WD TV HD.. Hauppauge needs to update the MediaMVP (LAN based media player to HD with USB/SD or MicroSD slots) So for now the WD TV HD with it's two USB ports and HDMI 1080p is the player in town.

templetun

02-17-09, 01:11 PM

tipstir

02-17-09, 01:35 PM

microhaxo

02-17-09, 02:19 PM

I emailed tech support about the USB HD being powered on even after the WDTV is turned off and they said:

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.

Thank you for your suggestion, we are gathering customers feedback to see how we can improve our product, unfortunately we do not have information on what will be changed or a release date for the upgraded product as of yet. I will forward this e-mail to our feedback queue to be taken under consideration.

Sincerely,
Wascar R.
Western Digital Service and Support

So i'm sure that's an automated response to that type of question but it doesn't sound very good :|

playsccr

02-17-09, 02:43 PM

i started a new thread for those NAS USB drives that work with the WDTV

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1121336

penngray

02-17-09, 02:51 PM

geircito

02-17-09, 03:28 PM

templetun

02-17-09, 03:31 PM

johnagr

02-17-09, 04:19 PM

by the way the PCH has the DTS audio drop out problem too. No fix yet:(

networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=576&page=16

dimicy

02-17-09, 04:30 PM

guys, wouldnt be better if this thread has subcategories so it will be easier to locate conversations for specific subjects? i.e. dts sound, subtitle playback, freezing problems, suggestions etc?

Suggestologist

02-17-09, 04:56 PM

I thought the WDTV would play multiple VOB files consecutively, all my movies are ripped into VOB format for my house system so that will not change but I wanted portability. The WDTV stops after it plays the first VOB :(

Eagle Eye folder will have the following files displayed.

VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_01_2.VOB
VTS_01_3.VOB
VTS_01_4.VOB
VTS_01_5.VOB

I click on VTS_01_1.VOB to start the movie on WDTV....it plays but then ends at the end of that VOB.

Is there something Im doing wrong?

To get it to automatically go to the next file, whether it's a vob, avi, or mkv, you need to tell it to loop through the directory. Click the "options" button on the remote, click the "i" info icon to open the info bar which will then appear at the bottom of the screen, then click on the loop icon (just to the left of the "i" button) three times or until you see the appropriate loop icon in the bottom, then click the "i" button to turn off the info bar, and click "options" on the remote to turn off the options bar. It will then loop through.

Alternatively, if the DVD has a simple file structure, you can create an ISO file for the DVD; and playing the ISO will play through the whole DVD.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Video Settings options doesn't allow it to automatically loop through a directory for video files. Instead you have to push, let's see, 10 key presses on the remote for each directory you want to loop through each time you play it. I wonder if they'll fix this in firmware. :rolleyes:

penngray

02-17-09, 05:31 PM

To get it to automatically go to the next file, whether it's a vob, avi, or mkv, you need to tell it to loop through the directory. Click the "options" button on the remote, click the "i" info icon to open the info bar which will then appear at the bottom of the screen, then click on the loop icon (just to the left of the "i" button) three times or until you see the appropriate loop icon in the bottom, then click the "i" button to turn off the info bar, and click "options" on the remote to turn off the options bar. It will then loop through.

Alternatively, if the DVD has a simple file structure, you can create an ISO file for the DVD; and playing the ISO will play through the whole DVD.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Video Settings options doesn't allow it to automatically loop through a directory for video files. Instead you have to push, let's see, 10 key presses on the remote for each directory you want to loop through each time you play it. I wonder if they'll fix this in firmware.

I will try the "play" suggestion above but Im not goingto go through hoops to get the VOB playback working and Im not re-ripping anything into ISO, because all my movies are ripped to VOB already.

Suggestologist

02-17-09, 05:54 PM

I will try the "play" suggestion above but Im not goingto go through hoops to get the VOB playback working and Im not re-ripping anything into ISO, because all my movies are ripped to VOB already.

Eh... Sometimes you have to jump through a few hoops to get what you want. And pressing 10 buttons only takes 15 to 25 seconds.

And it's a general solution if you want to play other video files sequentially, until video playlists become functional for the WDTV.

penngray

02-17-09, 06:16 PM

Eh... Sometimes you have to jump through a few hoops to get what you want. And pressing 10 buttons only takes 15 to 25 seconds.

And it's a general solution if you want to play other video files sequentially, until video playlists become functional for the WDTV.

its a solution for the less techie types so its not going to fly with them.

BoboTheBear

02-17-09, 06:22 PM

I will try the "play" suggestion above but Im not goingto go through hoops to get the VOB playback working and Im not re-ripping anything into ISO, because all my movies are ripped to VOB already.

I don't know what hoops you're talking about. You did it wrong originally.

Press Play instead of Enter and you can watch the movie in its entirety without interruption. If it's still not working, you're doing something wrong again.

DanDaMan069

02-17-09, 07:25 PM

Keep us up to date on how your purchases went. I saw those and was going to buy them but saw a lot of bad reviews on them on the BB website and also on newegg. I hope they continue to work well for you.

i read the first 2 reviews on best buy and decided to take a try.... because i dont rely on other people to test something out for me... and here is why! LOL here are the first 2 reviews on Best buy website...

Review #1
Pros- quiet,RUNS COOL, great price,etc

Review #2
Pros- blah blah
Cons- RUNS HOT and LOUD

Roflmao!! that is why i dont take other peoples word for it.. i have my WD and my 4 Hard drives hooked up to my Monster Powercenter on switch controlled power outlets.. so every night before i go to bed, I press one button and it kills all power to the WD and hard drives... I am putting nothing but 1080p movies on my new 1.5 TB hard drives.. so far very impressed....lets see what happens:)

BLSmith2112

02-17-09, 07:52 PM

Ph8te

02-17-09, 08:41 PM

I had two quick questions for you guys if yall don't mind.. If all my files in the media player are like this:

Vacation3.mpg/45325987kb
TestVideo.mpg/4246463987kb
RockyMountains.mpg/2322717kb
MyFilm.mpg/8322733987kb
Vacation1.mpg//427323987kb

How can I make them simply look like:

Vacation3
TestVideo
RockyMountains
MyFilm
Vacation1

Any idea? I've got like 300DVDs like this, I hope I don't have to convert them all to something lol. I did the firmware update and everything..

My second question was, if I got 1.5TB external WD hard drive, how much can I trust em? I mean, I'd hate to have it fail and lose all the data!

I think thats just the way it displays files FileName\FileSize. I do not think there is away around this.

As far as the drives go, they are as reliable as almost any other drive. There is always a risk unless you do a backup and sometimes a backup to your backup. IF these are personal home movies then I would suggest putting them on some type of disc format and storing them somewhere. THat way you always have a backup ready.

Ph8te

02-17-09, 08:46 PM

I don't get it. When you power down your pc these hard drives turn off. But with the WDtv and the xbox 360, they remain on. Seems backwards and doesn't make sense.
Talking about bus powered external hard drives.

was reading on the Amazon forum that members found that hitting eject before powering off the WDtv would indeed turn the hard drives off. Another member stated that his seagate freeagent portable drive did turn off but only after applying the lastest firmware.

Anyone find similar results?

I already have a coffeepot.

I have a Maxtor that uses external power. When I push eject and complete the proccess the drive will turn off. In order for the Drive to come back on I have to restart the WD TV HD. I always eject the drive before turning off the device. Not sure it will do snything special, but at least its seems like a "soft" power off rather than a "hard" one.

I have not tested this yet with the 1TG WD drive that I got though, so I am not sure if this does this for all drives or just vertain ones.

d-v-c

02-17-09, 10:48 PM

From scanning through the 150-pages -- I'd like confirmation of the following:

1) If I export as a QuickTime .MOV, I can use the x.264 codec at 720p30, 720p60, and 1080i60.

2) However, I will not be able to use 1080p30.

3) I can use 2-channel ACC audio.

4) If I format USB thumbdrive with HSF+ or NTFS, my files can be larger than 4GB.

--------------- QUESTIONS

1) If I want 5.1 audio -- can a .MOV file using h.264 have a .AC3 audio file?

2) If I have NTSC DVDs -- some with menus -- burned on a desktop DVD Recorder, how would I copy these -- using OS X Tools -- for use with the WD box?

3) Toast can create Disk Image folders for burning to a BD. How could these folders be used with a WD box?

4) Can the WD box play 960x540p30?

BLSmith2112

02-17-09, 11:27 PM

techflaws

02-18-09, 01:30 AM

WD TV will not turn off any hard drive.
That's not correct. If the drive is bus powered the WD will turn it off (stop rotation) when you eject the drive. WD passports unfortunately still keep their LED on. Actually it should even work without ejecting the drive manually cause the WD should do it automatically when turned off.

guys, wouldnt be better if this thread has subcategories so it will be easier to locate conversations for specific subjects? i.e. dts sound, subtitle playback, freezing problems, suggestions etc?
It would be a start if people would bother to use the search funtion instead of asking questions over and over again.

I think thats just the way it displays files FileName\FileSize. I do not think there is away around this.
Nope, as the firmware realese notes state it's been added in 01.01 and thus apparently considered a feature.

saintsaints

02-18-09, 02:16 AM

This is an audio question how would it work out if I use a toslink splitter on the wdtv and one cable goes to a sound bar speaker with dts. The other cable to a toslink to coaxial adapter to coaxial cable then to a powered subwoofer.

rusky_g

02-18-09, 02:59 AM

Anyone still having audio sync problems or confetti break up with certain MKV's?

Ph8te

02-18-09, 03:42 AM

Nope, as the firmware realese notes state it's been added in 01.01 and thus apparently considered a feature.

So dont upgrade then you will not see it????....If there is a way around it and what I said was wrong please clarify...What you said was almost exactly what I said...If you have the current firmware then there is no way around it currently. I didnt see an option to remove the file sizes in the menu.

esrefb

02-18-09, 04:31 AM

So dont upgrade then you will not see it????....If there is a way around it and what I said was wrong please clarify...What you said was almost exactly what I said...If you have the current firmware then there is no way around it currently. I didnt see an option to remove the file sizes in the menu.

That's right. There's no option to turn it off right now. I'd like to think that they'd add an option in the next firmware but since we haven't heard anything about a new firmware for quite a long time, I wouldn't count on that.

Ph8te

02-18-09, 05:30 AM

That's right. There's no option to turn it off right now. I'd like to think that they'd add an option in the next firmware but since we haven't heard anything about a new firmware for quite a long time, I wouldn't count on that.

Thats what I thought...But he said "Nope...." so it kind of sounded like he was disagreeing with me....

dunkster

02-18-09, 06:30 AM

Hi, Could anyone have a quick look and possibly help me with why these two files are not playing properly?

I am getting juddery video with a dropped frame every 2-4 seconds, although the audio is fine.

Thanks

*** MediaInfo Mac // Plain text file report
2009-02-17 22:55:21 +0000
Information for File: file1.iso

General / Container Stream # 1
Total Video Streams for this File -> 1
Total Audio Streams for this File -> 1
Video Codecs Used -> MPEG-2 Video
Audio Codecs Used -> AC3
File Format -> MPEG-PS
Play Time -> 3mn 38s
Total File Size -> 7.26 GiB
Total Stream BitRate -> 285 Mbps
Video Stream # 1
Codec (Human Name) -> MPEG Video
Codec Profile -> Main@Main
Frame Width -> 720 pixels
Frame Height -> 480 pixels
Frame Rate -> 29.970 fps
Total Frames -> 7
Display Aspect Ratio -> 4/3
Video Standard -> NTSC
Scan Type -> Interlaced
Scan Order -> BFF
Colorimetry -> 4:2:0
QF (like Gordian Knot) -> 0.946
Codec Settings (Matrix) -> Default
Video Stream Length -> 219ms
Video Stream BitRate -> 9 800 Kbps
Video Stream BitRate (Nominal) -> 9 800 Kbps
Video Stream BitRate Mode -> CBR
Audio Stream # 1
Codec -> AC-3
Audio Stream Length -> 3mn 38s 758ms
Audio Stream BitRate -> 448 Kbps
Audio Stream BitRate Mode -> CBR
Number of Audio Channels -> 6
Audio Channel's Positions -> Front: L C R, Rear: L R, LFE
Sampling Rate -> 48.0 KHz
Audio Stream Delay -> 213ms

*** MediaInfo Mac // Plain text file report
2009-02-18 08:11:27 +0000
Information for File: file2.mkv

General / Container Stream # 1
Total Video Streams for this File -> 1
Total Audio Streams for this File -> 1
Video Codecs Used -> AVC
Audio Codecs Used -> AC3
File Format -> Matroska
Play Time -> 1h 36mn
Total File Size -> 4.37 GiB
Total Stream BitRate -> 6 467 Kbps
Encoded with -> mkvmerge v2.4.1 ('Use Me') built on Dec 5 2008 18:30:05
Encoding Library -> libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1
Video Stream # 1
Codec (Human Name) -> AVC
Codec (FourCC) -> V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Codec Profile -> High@L4.1
Frame Width -> 1 280 pixels
Frame Height -> 688 pixels
Frame Rate -> 23.976 fps
Total Frames -> 139168
Display Aspect Ratio -> 1.860
Scan Type -> Progressive
Colorimetry -> 4:2:0
Codec Settings (Summary) -> CABAC / 5 Ref Frames
QF (like Gordian Knot) -> 0.277
Codec Settings (CABAC) -> Yes
Video Stream Length -> 1h 36mn 38s 666ms
Video Stream BitRate -> 5 562 Kbps
Video Stream BitRate (Nominal) -> 5 856 Kbps
Bit Depth -> 24 bits
Video Encoder -> x264 - core 65 r1074 9d6cc8e
Video Encoder (Settings) -> cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=5856 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Video Stream Language -> English
Audio Stream # 1
Codec -> AC-3
Codec (FourCC) -> A_AC3
Audio Stream Length -> 1h 36mn 44s 480ms
Audio Stream BitRate -> 640 Kbps
Audio Stream BitRate Mode -> CBR
Number of Audio Channels -> 3
Audio Channel's Positions -> L C R
Sampling Rate -> 48.0 KHz

techflaws

02-18-09, 08:03 AM

Thats what I thought...But he said "Nope...." so it kind of sounded like he was disagreeing with me....

"Nope" being a double negative here, isn' that what you native speakers use? I was merely pointing out that this feature has been added with a firmware update so I consider it unlikely to be removed in any future update.

templetun

02-18-09, 09:48 AM

i read the first 2 reviews on best buy and decided to take a try.... because i dont rely on other people to test something out for me... and here is why! LOL here are the first 2 reviews on Best buy website...

Review #1
Pros- quiet,RUNS COOL, great price,etc

Review #2
Pros- blah blah
Cons- RUNS HOT and LOUD

Roflmao!! that is why i dont take other peoples word for it.. i have my WD and my 4 Hard drives hooked up to my Monster Powercenter on switch controlled power outlets.. so every night before i go to bed, I press one button and it kills all power to the WD and hard drives... I am putting nothing but 1080p movies on my new 1.5 TB hard drives.. so far very impressed....lets see what happens:)

when researching a product I always look at the user comments. That's what I am doing here in the first place. Especially when it is something that is hard to return like a HT receiver. I look at Amazon customer reviews and the forum there, and you kind of have to weed through the wacko's there, and this place is the best. Bestbuy, however, the customer reviews on their site are just plain humerous drivel. The people who create those reviews are definitively missing something.

OzzieP

02-18-09, 09:50 AM

All I know is seeing a list of 300 files like this:

Vacation3.mpg/45325987kb
TestVideo.mpg/4246463987kb
RockyMountains.mpg/2322717kb
MyFilm.mpg/8322733987kb
Vacation1.mpg//427323987kb

Is incredibly annoying.

Totally agree with you. I don't care how big the file is after I load it on the drive, at least there is no need to display this information on this screen. The size of the font could also be made larger if it did not show ".mpg/45325987kb"

Vacation3
TestVideo
RockyMountains
MyFilm
Vacation1

templetun

02-18-09, 10:08 AM

That's not correct. If the drive is bus powered the WD will turn it off (stop rotation) when you eject the drive. WD passports unfortunately still keep their LED on. Actually it should even work without ejecting the drive manually cause the WD should do it automatically when turned off.

I have been getting crazy mixed reviews on this TF. I want to be able to have an external hard drive (whether it be bus powered or not) that turns on and off with the WDTV remote. I DON'T want to get up off the couch to turn on and off the hard drive and I don't want another thing to worry about if I left the thing spinning all day for risk of fire or excessive wear on the drive. (coffeepot)

the wdtv will b delivered today, so I guess I'll know for sure. I got 2 16 g flash drives for just my music for the xbox 360 because it is vexed by the same usb-always-on problems. I do have an externally powered wd hard drive clunker that i'll test it on.

call it lazy, but I think it makes sense. Having to get up to turn something off and on with todays technology is a step in the wrong direction. I might as well get my 19" DuMont tube tv with the knob controls back in action and hook it up to my ps2.:D

tipstir

02-18-09, 10:11 AM

Another way to do this is usb cable with two conections so you can plug the externaldrive to you laptop and still being connect with the wd. So you don't have to disconnect everytime.

Use the Wired or Wireless Laptop to WD Passport then connect the WD TV HD to the Laptop. This would solve a lot of issues get network shares to work.

Wazzey

02-18-09, 10:28 AM

Not that this is a better solution than any other. But I bought a couple of these (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=3516746&sku=T925-1219&srkey=Thermaltake%20BlacX%20N0028USU%20Hard%20Drive%20Dock) and have one at my main comp and one where the WD Media player is. This way I can just eject the drives out when I want to add more stuff. As per the current conversations, this isn't about a way to shut the drives down with a remote, just a simple way to add stuff without having to plug and unplug stuff.

templetun

02-18-09, 10:35 AM

penngray

02-18-09, 11:25 AM

I don't know what hoops you're talking about. You did it wrong originally.

Press Play instead of Enter and you can watch the movie in its entirety without interruption. If it's still not working, you're doing something wrong again.

The "jumping through hoops" was a reply to someone else's suggestion on how to get multiple VOBs to all playback consecutively. The pressing "play" instead of "enter" was the right answer and was suggest already. Thanks.

Its working pretty good now. Hopefully they will fix that "enter" issue in new firmware releases....maybe?

Overall, its a pretty sweet little $100 playback device...I have a 1.5 TB drive with it and a little case Im making for travel. Kids/family need movies everywhere :D

Im going to get one for a friend too that has been wanting to make things easier with his DVD collection.

Im pretty impressed, if they add networking and cover art for VOB folders down the road this will be great!

templetun

02-18-09, 11:26 AM

Hey, has anyone used Handbrake to transcode video_ts/vob files into MP4 files? I am really interested in displaying movies with the metadata cover art on the WDTV and this is the only format (mp4) that I know of that can do it.

christoofar

02-18-09, 12:12 PM

All I know is seeing a list of 300 files like this:

Vacation3.mpg/45325987kb
TestVideo.mpg/4246463987kb
RockyMountains.mpg/2322717kb
MyFilm.mpg/8322733987kb
Vacation1.mpg//427323987kb

Is incredibly annoying.

So..watch something & it all goes away. :)

But yeah, whoever thought that adding filesize to each file onscreen was a good/useful thing... :confused:

christoofar

02-18-09, 12:18 PM

that's interesting. I have a connector that lets me hook up a hard drive to usb to dignose them without installing them in a case. That reminds me. But that's why i was thinking about bus powered drives, so I don't have to worry about unplugging the power adapter each time. However, this is a good idea indeed.

like this?

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/a-nwtu2nv2spata?utm_source=Google%2BProduct%2BSearch&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=Google%2BProduct%2BSearch&src=g

realm

02-18-09, 12:52 PM

templetun

02-18-09, 01:06 PM

like this?

http://www.powermax.com/parts/show/a-nwtu2nv2spata?utm_source=Google%2BProduct%2BSearch&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=Google%2BProduct%2BSearch&src=g

yup, thats the one. but it's a tab bit different, and, of course, purchased through The Egg. I had 7 or 8 hard drives laying around and I didn't want to open up my case to check em out. Never used it after that though.

templetun

02-18-09, 01:08 PM

Lt. Dang

02-18-09, 01:09 PM

To get it to automatically go to the next file, whether it's a vob, avi, or mkv, you need to tell it to loop through the directory. Click the "options" button on the remote, click the "i" info icon to open the info bar which will then appear at the bottom of the screen, then click on the loop icon (just to the left of the "i" button) three times or until you see the appropriate loop icon in the bottom, then click the "i" button to turn off the info bar, and click "options" on the remote to turn off the options bar. It will then loop through.

Alternatively, if the DVD has a simple file structure, you can create an ISO file for the DVD; and playing the ISO will play through the whole DVD.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Video Settings options doesn't allow it to automatically loop through a directory for video files. Instead you have to push, let's see, 10 key presses on the remote for each directory you want to loop through each time you play it. I wonder if they'll fix this in firmware. :rolleyes:

I don't have to do that.
All I do is press "Play" on the first file in the directory and then the WD TV automatically plays all the VOB files in the directory.

Please note, you have to press "Play" and NOT "Enter".

Hope this is helpful.

Regards,

Lt. Dang

skinnyhoops

02-18-09, 01:27 PM

templetun

02-18-09, 01:31 PM

To all poeple with the USB not turning off!

This is because you can start the WD with a remote controle.
So it has a power standby (also on the USB connection)

I Bought the WD MYBOOK OFFICE edition. The office edition!
because this MYBOOK OFFICE EDITION drive go's in sleep mode after 10 min!
So you don't need to turn of or disconnect the USB drive!!
manualy!

This feature that your referring to is called "Smartpower". WD claims that it will turn on and off the drive with the computer. I am assuming that it will turn on and off with the WDTV as well. It does not claim anywhere that it will turn off after 10 minutes of inactivity (assuming it does not turn off once you power down the wdtv). According to the wd page, almost all of their externals (ac adapter) have this feature, not just the office edition,
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=8&language=en

templetun

02-18-09, 01:34 PM

hello, I just received my WD TV yesterday and noticed alot of MKV files are occasionally out of audio lip-sync. I especially notice it more in segments where people are talking fast. I saw a PCWorld review online that said this only happened through HDMI output, but when reverted to composite cables, the problem disappeared. I haven't tested this yet.

I emailed WD customer service today to see if/when they are working on a possible firmware fix for this issue, just awaiting their reply.

In the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions?

My pio 1018 receiver has a delay adjustment setting which is supposed to correct the lip-sync. This could be due to the speed of data if you are using two different cables types, like hdmi to the tv and optical audio to the receiver. I'm not 100% on this tho

skinnyhoops

02-18-09, 01:43 PM

My pio 1018 receiver has a delay adjustment setting which is supposed to correct the lip-sync. This could be due to the speed of data if you are using two different cables types, like hdmi to the tv and optical audio to the receiver. I'm not 100% on this tho

Unfortunately I don't have a receiver to make the delay adjustments.

The only cable I'm using is a HDMI 1.3b from Cables Unlimited

Koadic

02-18-09, 02:07 PM

If this happens on every single file, it might be a tv issue. Certain tv's may introduce a video lag because of the 'post processing' it performs on the picture. Try switching your tv to a gaming mode (if it has one) or turning off any digital noise reduction. I have this issue when I move my 360 from the main room (projector via component and reciever via optical) to my bedroom (LCD via HDMI), I have to adjust the audio settings in the game each time I switch for everything to sync up when I play Guitar Hero.

skinnyhoops

02-18-09, 04:00 PM

microhaxo

02-18-09, 05:00 PM

Thanks Koadic, I've only watched 2 full length movies since I purchased the WD TV yesterday. The first movie I noticed something was wrong with the audio, I could tell the lip sync was off by a hair. Then today I played a different movie and noticed the lip sync wasn't right either.

I checked my TV settings (Samsung LN32A550), and I swtiched it to Entertainment mode. It didn't help though. I also switched my HDMI 1.3b cable from the WD TV with a 1.3a cable, that didn't work either. I'm guessing it's hardware related, meaning the WD TV needs a firmware update.

Just to make sure, is anyone else having audio sync problems with their WD TV playing .MKV files? You have to watch closely to the lips of the actors, of course some scenes you'll notice it more than others. Like when the actors are shouting really fast, or just have a long line to say.

mine play flawlessly.. Im using HDMI to tv and from tv optical out to stereo.

Ph8te

02-18-09, 06:49 PM

"Nope" being a double negative here, isn' that what you native speakers use? I was merely pointing out that this feature has been added with a firmware update so I consider it unlikely to be removed in any future update.

If you used Nope to respond to the OP then I would have not questioned it, in a quote to me though, I read it as a direct reply to my post. In this case I took it as you disagreed with me when you said "Nope.....". I know now that you were agreeing with me and adding to my comment rather than disagreeing with it.

Ph8te

02-18-09, 06:51 PM

I have a Maxtor that uses external power. When I push eject and complete the proccess the drive will turn off. In order for the Drive to come back on I have to restart the WD TV HD. I always eject the drive before turning off the device. Not sure it will do snything special, but at least its seems like a "soft" power off rather than a "hard" one.

I have not tested this yet with the 1TG WD drive that I got though, so I am not sure if this does this for all drives or just vertain ones.

Update...I got my 1TB WD Essentials drive in and tested it out. The drive does not go to "sleep" or power off when it is ejected as I can still see the activity light going on the back. THe only way that I got the drive to stop was by unplugging it from the USB.

daskino

02-18-09, 06:55 PM

[QUOTE=senorfrog97;15366432]A suggestion for those worried about DTS decoding and such - You should pick up the Sony HT-CT100 soundbar - it decodes just about everything you might play on the WD player and runs for under $300 for a built in receiver, soundbar, and subwoofer. Check the thread on here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1026566&page=35[/QUOTE

rusky_g

02-18-09, 07:16 PM

Just to make sure, is anyone else having audio sync problems with their WD TV playing .MKV files? You have to watch closely to the lips of the actors, of course some scenes you'll notice it more than others. Like when the actors are shouting really fast, or just have a long line to say.

Yes, exactly the same problem here, its only slight but enough to be annoying. I'm using just HDMI from WD to my HDTV (Panasonic Plasma)

DanDaMan069

02-18-09, 10:39 PM

Thanks Koadic, I've only watched 2 full length movies since I purchased the WD TV yesterday. The first movie I noticed something was wrong with the audio, I could tell the lip sync was off by a hair. Then today I played a different movie and noticed the lip sync wasn't right either.

I checked my TV settings (Samsung LN32A550), and I swtiched it to Entertainment mode. It didn't help though. I also switched my HDMI 1.3b cable from the WD TV with a 1.3a cable, that didn't work either. I'm guessing it's hardware related, meaning the WD TV needs a firmware update.

Just to make sure, is anyone else having audio sync problems with their WD TV playing .MKV files? You have to watch closely to the lips of the actors, of course some scenes you'll notice it more than others. Like when the actors are shouting really fast, or just have a long line to say.

i have 400+ MKVS from 1gb m-hds to full 1080p 30GB MKVs...all audio works perfectly:) when i first started playing with the WD months ago, i had many MKVs with AAC...and found some lip sync problems... When i switched from stereo to digital... and AAC to AC3 or DTS..i would get slight problems. I had to disconnect and reconnect my toslink cable and the audio sync went away.. ever since then, I only play AC3 or DTS audio files..and all my MKVs play perfect..

geircito

02-19-09, 01:51 AM

I have a My Book Studio Edition disk connected to the WD TV.
The My Book Studio Edition has external electric power.

If I don't use the WD TV and wait for an hour or so (and don't do anything with the My Book Studio Edition) - the WD TV has "lost" it's connection with the My Book Studio Edition. The only way to let WD TV "see" the My Book Studio Edition again is to remove the usb cable, and then reinsert it again (either on the WD TV side or the My Book Studio Edition side). THEN WD TV will "see" the My Book Studio Edition. This happens every time (after an hour).

Is it meant to work like this?

I haven't this problem when I attach a WD Passport drive.

Nobody have answered my question, so I answer myself :-)

The fault was that the My Book Studio Edition needed a firmware update.
That I was told by the WD Support, and after upgrading the firmware on the My Book Studio Edition, the disk is working together with WD TV as it should, so I am pleased...

hiend07

02-19-09, 02:49 AM

stefu

02-19-09, 03:45 AM

Just got the WD HD player to use with Tvi Plasma Panasonic TH-42PV70H but unable to output to the screen
I've tried with the AV and it's ok but failed displaying with HDMI port
I've checked the calbe and it works fine on other system
Plz could any one can help me and show me how to solve the issue ?

Many thanks

Try changing the cable. I had the same problem. The HDMI connection is pretty deep in the enclosure in the WD TV and the cable didn't go deep enough.

PCKid

02-19-09, 04:14 AM

Try changing the cable. I had the same problem. The HDMI connection is pretty deep in the enclosure in the WD TV and the cable didn't go deep enough.

Me too. I work in TV retail and HDMI cables vary. Some will display video on one piece of hardware but not on another. It's a suck it and see situation with HDMI cables. Price is not a factor. The best are sometimes the cheapest. Panasonic are middle of the range price wise but seem to work on anything. I had Avico that didn't work on my WD TV but did on my PS3. Now use a cheap Powerwave brand on my PS3, HTPC and my WD TV no problems. They were only AUS$20 each.

ichiban1962

02-19-09, 04:33 AM

i have 400+ MKVS from 1gb m-hds to full 1080p 30GB MKVs...all audio works perfectly:) when i first started playing with the WD months ago, i had many MKVs with AAC...and found some lip sync problems... When i switched from stereo to digital... and AAC to AC3 or DTS..i would get slight problems. I had to disconnect and reconnect my toslink cable and the audio sync went away.. ever since then, I only play AC3 or DTS audio files..and all my MKVs play perfect..

Thanks Koadic, I've only watched 2 full length movies since I purchased the WD TV yesterday. The first movie I noticed something was wrong with the audio, I could tell the lip sync was off by a hair. Then today I played a different movie and noticed the lip sync wasn't right either.

I checked my TV settings (Samsung LN32A550), and I swtiched it to Entertainment mode. It didn't help though. I also switched my HDMI 1.3b cable from the WD TV with a 1.3a cable, that didn't work either. I'm guessing it's hardware related, meaning the WD TV needs a firmware update.

Just to make sure, is anyone else having audio sync problems with their WD TV playing .MKV files? You have to watch closely to the lips of the actors, of course some scenes you'll notice it more than others. Like when the actors are shouting really fast, or just have a long line to say.

thanks the wife thought i was being very picky, but i have had the same problem..mkv's with aac where the worst!

themk

02-19-09, 06:12 AM

Hi guys!

I've read on another forum, that there's a WD software engineer active in this thread. Is this true?

I'm a happy owner of the WD since a few days and have 3 suggestions so far:

1 - the stand-by energy consumption is almost as high as the consumption while playing a movie. Well, guess what I would suggest. ;-)

2 - there's no volume control, which isn't a very big issue for most devices, as they have their own volume control or the sound level is just right. But for some headphones which don't have their own volume control a little adjustment could come in handy. And of course the sound level differs among different files.
I've noticed that the D-Pad isn't assigned to anything while in movie-playback-mode. It would be great to assign the up-button to volume up, the down-button to volume down and the enter-button to mute on/off.

3 - Fast Forward is limited to 16x speed. Switching to a scene that is let's say 30 minutes away from the current playback position takes almost 2 minutes. Now getting back to the D-Pad, the left and right buttons aren't assigned during playback-mode as well. So why not assign them to "-/+ ~10 minutes" or "-/+ 5% of the playback time?

I would be glad to see some of these done in an upcoming firmware, if it is possible.

Sorry if any of these issues has already been addressed within this thread. Didn't read the whole thing.

wdmediaplayerfan

02-19-09, 06:38 AM

a big jerk

02-19-09, 08:38 AM

"...computer storage company Western Digital dropped 2,500 [jobs]."

http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=7&a=381614

christoofar

02-19-09, 08:39 AM

Update...I got my 1TB WD Essentials drive in and tested it out. The drive does not go to "sleep" or power off when it is ejected as I can still see the activity light going on the back. THe only way that I got the drive to stop was by unplugging it from the USB.

I use a Seagate FreeAgent Go bus powered hdd with mine & just plug my WDTV AC cord into the switched AC outlet on my receiver. I just eject the drive & power down the WD, and then turn off my AVR when I'm done for the night.
So just run a short extension cord off your AVR & plug in the WD & external adapters, and you are good to go?

themk

02-19-09, 08:44 AM

Hello wdmediaplayerfan and thanks for your respond.

You mean 1.02? I'm using 1.01.02 and will wait for the 1.02 to be released officially.

christoofar

02-19-09, 09:17 AM

Hello wdmediaplayerfan and thanks for your respond.

You mean 1.02? I'm using 1.01.02 and will wait for the 1.02 to be released officially.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/wdtv/

templetun

02-19-09, 09:49 AM

templetun

02-19-09, 10:01 AM

BoboTheBear

02-19-09, 12:39 PM

Hi guys!

3 - Fast Forward is limited to 16x speed. Switching to a scene that is let's say 30 minutes away from the current playback position takes almost 2 minutes. Now getting back to the D-Pad, the left and right buttons aren't assigned during playback-mode as well. So why not assign them to "-/+ ~10 minutes" or "-/+ 5% of the playback time?

You need the most recent firmware for this.

Press fast forward. While it's fast forwarding, tap chapter skip to have it skip 10 minutes forward or reverse.

fred_be9300

02-19-09, 01:27 PM

The WD engineer is ScottWD, he posted on the forum today. He's not very active in posting, but he says he is listening

he's not an engineer, but a Product Manager.

Given that he posted in the "feature request & bug" thread, and we don't want that one to get as overloaded with regular chit chat as this one ;), I'll repost his message here...

Hi everyone, It's been awhile!

I've been busy launching our new My Book World Edition - home network storage. But don't worry... the development and test teams has been working on coding and testing our new firmware. I will keep everyone posted and let you know when it's ready. No promises but I will try and post a download link to the AVSForum users before we go live globally. So you can be first :)

-ScottWD

BTW, given that he speaks of coding and testing, I suspect (FWIW) they are quite far into the release process for that one... I would think general availability should be about 2 weeks away. No less, otherwise he would have been able to set a date. Not much more, otherwise he would have stayed quiet...

Or I'm just wishful thinking. Don't take my word for it ;-)

templetun

02-19-09, 01:40 PM

are you suggesting that there will be a wd NAS device that we could use with our WDTV's?

OzzieP

02-19-09, 01:44 PM

It might be this: http://www.dvhardware.net/article33444.html

penngray

02-19-09, 02:08 PM

templetun

02-19-09, 02:26 PM

It might be this: http://www.dvhardware.net/article33444.html

seems just like a NAS device. why are they making such a big deal about a product that has been around for years, and cheaper too?

fred_be9300

02-19-09, 03:02 PM

Why is this WD product more popular then the WD MediaMate Product?

I just found the Mediamate here http://www.goharddrive.com/MediaMate-High-Definition-1080i-HDMI-USB-LAN-3-5-p/g05-0069.htm

(from my brief surf around)

1) mediamate doesn't seem to be a WD product

2) mediamate doesn't seem to do H.264 (mpeg4 AVC). Fine if you want to play your old stuff... but already obsolete in a way.

penngray

02-19-09, 04:05 PM

1) mediamate doesn't seem to be a WD product

2) mediamate doesn't seem to do H.264 (mpeg4 AVC). Fine if you want to play your old stuff... but already obsolete in a way.

1) Ebay had it listed as WD so I got it from there...didnt find it anywhere else.

2) Obsolete??? lol, you guys are fooling yourselves if you think anything non-HD is obsolete. Ripping H.264 is still a geeky thing, like linux it may never be may stream for J6P. Its not for you and that is cool but the whole idea that its "obsolete" kind of reminds me how much some people may just be out of touch with what is going on in the real world. Sorry if that sounds a little harsh but the truth here is that nothing here is really mainstream to start with and I can garuntee that unless HD stuff becomes easier to rip it wont matter what devices plays it back it won't survive and we will be just streaming all HD anyways. With that in mind ALL these devices are obsolete unless they do networked streaming.

I have 400+ DVDs ripped, I have had about 10 BDs ripped...I deleted those 10 BDs and Im back to the SDVD stuff because it just works without issue...without complaint and its a one click ripping process. Standard DVD is still winning the war.

BoboTheBear

02-19-09, 05:01 PM

1) Ebay had it listed as WD so I got it from there...didnt find it anywhere else.

Manufacturer is MediaMate.

2) Obsolete??? lol, you guys are fooling yourselves if you think anything non-HD is obsolete. Ripping H.264 is still a geeky thing, like linux it may never be may stream for J6P. Its not for you and that is cool but the whole idea that its "obsolete" kind of reminds me how much some people may just be out of touch with what is going on in the real world. Sorry if that sounds a little harsh but the truth here is that nothing here is really mainstream to start with and I can garuntee that unless HD stuff becomes easier to rip it wont matter what devices plays it back it won't survive and we will be just streaming all HD anyways. With that in mind ALL these devices are obsolete unless they do networked streaming.

I have 400+ DVDs ripped, I have had about 10 BDs ripped...I deleted those 10 BDs and Im back to the SDVD stuff because it just works without issue...without complaint and its a one click ripping process. Standard DVD is still winning the war.

What program do you use to rip? I use AnyDVD. It rips both SD and Bluray with 1 click.

The MediaMate looks interesting but I couldn't find much information online. If you try it out, please do give us a review on this. Per the previous poster, the fact that it can't decode x264 would be a deal breaker for me.

skinnyhoops

02-19-09, 05:02 PM

Regarding the audio sync delay through HDMI output while playing MKV files, here's the response from Western Digital support:

Thank you for your reply.

At time of this writing, we don't have a final solution. Another firmware update is in the works with no ETA yet. In addition, I would say this is a general Blu-ray/disc problem that the industry is reluctant to admit but seems to be slowly fixing?

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
Than B.
Western Digital Service and Support

Jackanory

02-19-09, 05:22 PM

Update...I got my 1TB WD Essentials drive in and tested it out. The drive does not go to "sleep" or power off when it is ejected as I can still see the activity light going on the back. THe only way that I got the drive to stop was by unplugging it from the USB.

Why not try plugging the WD and USB drive into the switched power outlet on the back of your receiver? I programmed my remote so that the receiver switches on first, then my TV, then the WD. When I power off, everything is off!:cool:

Slade2

02-19-09, 06:08 PM

could someone post details of how to reset my JVC-LT32DA8BJ TV`s HDMI port please?.

Via pm or on here would be wicked i think i have concluded that this is now the only solution to my HDMI link problem

thanks in hope full advance :)

Ph8te

02-19-09, 07:45 PM

Why not try plugging the WD and USB drive into the switched power outlet on the back of your receiver? I programmed my remote so that the receiver switches on first, then my TV, then the WD. When I power off, everything is off!:cool:

Its really not that big of deal to me......I was just posting an update...I have two External HDs. Once is a MAxtor that WILL turn off if ejected, the WD does not......I took a look at the product page and it is a limitation of the external Drive not a "bug". I usually dont leave it plugged in anyways as I am still transfering material to the drive on a weekly basis.

BTW I didt put the correct drive I have a WD Elment 1TB Drive, not an essential MB edition.

hiend07

02-19-09, 08:55 PM

Me too. I work in TV retail and HDMI cables vary. Some will display video on one piece of hardware but not on another. It's a suck it and see situation with HDMI cables. Price is not a factor. The best are sometimes the cheapest. Panasonic are middle of the range price wise but seem to work on anything. I had Avico that didn't work on my WD TV but did on my PS3. Now use a cheap Powerwave brand on my PS3, HTPC and my WD TV no problems. They were only AUS$20 each.
Thanks so much. I'll try to change it and I have another question:)
While I copy multi m2ts files from the original Bluray disk. Which is the best way to play these files or use any tool to merge them forthat we can only play 1 file? Can you suggest ?
Many thanks

microhaxo

02-19-09, 08:59 PM

Man, i really hope the FW comes out soon..

I keep having random Handshaking issues with the HDMI..

Last night i tried to watch a movie and i turned the wd on, then hit HDMI source and it looked like it found it, then the screen stayed black.. Then my WD wouldnt shut off so i had to pull power.. Then when i turned it back on i had no audio, so then i had to reset it and THEN it worked..

not to mention the constant unplugging of my WD drive so it turns off.

So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WD... Get that firmware out ASAP.

anhvy1974

02-20-09, 03:27 AM

Just got the WD HD player to use with Tvi Plasma Panasonic TH-42PV70H but unable to output to the screen
I've tried with the AV and it's ok but failed displaying with HDMI port
I've checked the calbe and it works fine on other system
Plz could any one can help me and show me how to solve the issue ?

Many thanks

I had the same problem and use the same plasma TV. I have changed to HDMI cable but not success. Please let me know when you solve this problem

techflaws

02-20-09, 04:44 AM

BTW, given that he speaks of coding and testing, I suspect (FWIW) they are quite far into the release process for that one... I would think general availability should be about 2 weeks away.
Imagine how much faster and cheaper it would be for WD if they'd release a beta firmware to get free feedback from users on this forum.

e-xTreem

02-20-09, 05:26 AM

ehy guys

is there a site to download HD trailers (720p,1080p) compatible with files supported on WDTV ?

Vuze have trailers in HD but audio isn't working.

Fendi

02-20-09, 05:31 AM

Hi,

Does anyones WD player stay warm after it has been turned off? It is still plugged into the mains. It goes cold after it has been unplugged from the mains, is it still using power being turned off?

I have it plugged into a Seagate Agent Go 320gig which ejects fine and turns off. This I am pretty sure goes cold after a few minutes. The WD streamer doesn't.

Regards

M

ichiban1962

02-20-09, 05:46 AM

Fendi

02-20-09, 06:04 AM

thats because its not totally off its in standby i think

Wow. That is pretty shocking if that is the case. I hit the Power (red) button and all the lights turn off. This is after I eject the external hdd.

Surely I don't have to unplug it from the mains after every use?

ichiban1962

02-20-09, 06:08 AM

ichiban1962

02-20-09, 06:11 AM

Wow. That is pretty shocking if that is the case. I hit the Power (red) button and all the lights turn off. This is after I eject the external hdd.

Surely I don't have to unplug it from the mains after every use?

do you unplug your tv at the end of the night?, or press the power button?
you would be surprised at the amount of electrical products in the home that you think have been turned off but are just in standby (using power all the time)

rusky_g

02-20-09, 06:12 AM

ehy guys

is there a site to download HD trailers (720p,1080p) compatible with files supported on WDTV ?

Vuze have trailers in HD but audio isn't working.

I get mine here:

http://www.hd-trailers.net/

720p & 1080p

esrefb

02-20-09, 06:17 AM

ehy guys

is there a site to download HD trailers (720p,1080p) compatible with files supported on WDTV ?

Vuze have trailers in HD but audio isn't working.

You can also try here (http://74.53.95.28/)

techflaws

02-20-09, 06:17 AM

do you unplug your tv at the end of the night?
Yes, all my consumer devices are connected to power strips with an off switch I flip when passing them on my way to bed or elsewhere. Still, I don't get it why so many devices use that much power on standby.

Fendi

02-20-09, 06:38 AM

do you unplug your tv at the end of the night?, or press the power button?
you would be surprised at the amount of electrical products in the home that you think have been turned off but are just in standby (using power all the time)

I can't say I do.. but it makes sense to. Just the hassle of getting out of bed at the end of the movie to :(.

shadow_cruiser

02-20-09, 07:18 AM

Regarding the audio sync delay through HDMI output while playing MKV files, here's the response from Western Digital support:

Hopefully this is fixed soon. All of my .mkv's are out of sync by a hair

templetun

02-20-09, 09:04 AM

Ok so its not perfect, but what should we expect from this media player?
People are complaining about many issues (compatibility with media files and playback problems)
but if you think about it for a minute the wd hd tv has been designed to play a multitude of video formats,image files and audio files and in my opinion it aint doing to bad!
To me its a work in progress,there is always going to be issues with it but i think given time (and updates!) its going to be a valuable peice of kit for media playback.

The wdtc can't please everyone. I have been waiting around for something like this for years now. Streamers have been around for a while, but I don't want to leave my pc on 24-7. Then the apple tv came out and I thought it was too limiting but it was the only thing i saw with a hard drive. I have been plugging two 16 gig thumb drives in my xbox 360 for music only. It browses great and you can create playlists, but I just wish it showed cover art.

It depends on what you will use the wdtv for, I think i might be 3 steps forward but 4 steps back for some.

ichiban1962

02-20-09, 09:18 AM

The wdtc can't please everyone. I have been waiting around for something like this for years now. Streamers have been around for a while, but I don't want to leave my pc on 24-7. Then the apple tv came out and I thought it was too limiting but it was the only thing i saw with a hard drive. I have been plugging two 16 gig thumb drives in my xbox 360 for music only. It browses great and you can create playlists, but I just wish it showed cover art.

It depends on what you will use the wdtv for, I think i might be 3 steps forward but 4 steps back for some.

your are right on the mark! after countless years of video file conversions,authoring dvds,correcting aspect ratios and generally spending bleeding ages correcting other peoples mistakes, those inconsiderate people at Western Digital release a media player in my price bracket, simple to use and simple to set up that plays what i want it to play....
who do they think they are?

templetun

02-20-09, 10:00 AM

Ok so I had about 30 minutes to play around with the thing last night. Here's what I discovered. This is without the firmware update, sorry.

I am using a patriot and corsair 16 gig usb thumb drives loaded full with music and 1 move. I havent checked the transfer rates as compared to hard drives, but when accessing songs there is a bit of lag. But it is tolerable. When navigating albums and selecting songs it's a bit clunky.

Music cover art-----
The way this thing displays music is a joke, personally. I found my 360 is much more straight forward. When set to thumbnail view, NONE of my cover art shows and I don't think it's meant to either, you also have to move the cursor onto each item before you know what it is, then you select the artist, and it displays all the songs from all of their albums, but they are all mixed up. SOME of the cover art appears in this menu. I have painlessly spent hours updating my 30 gigs of music using media monkey and itunes. I know all of my metadata cover art is tagged to each track as well as in each folder, however not all of the art showed up. bummer.

The best way to browse music IMO is to view by "Folder" and change thumbnail view to "list". This way it list your artists by name and when you click on them you can then choose by album. However, this list display removes all changes of looking at cover art. Not what I wanted.

I need to read through the manual, but I could not figure out how to create a playlist. It will read m3u playlist data , but can I create a playlist on the fly? I will research.

had a dvd rip backup and loaded the vido_ts and vob files on the thumb drive to play. I didn't copy all the vob files because it was taking too long, so I just browsed through a couple (the first 3 vob files). The picture indeed looked very clear. I did notice the aspect of the picture looked a little zoomed in though. similar to watching netflix movies through the xbox 360. The 5.1 Dolby digital sounded incredible, I have to say. I have a new pio 1018 receiver and did just dial it in recently, but I have never heard surround sound so detailed and crisp. Tonight I will update the firmware and compare this dvd in my oppo 980 dvd player.

The only other products that are comparable to this IMO are the Popcorn hour (which will solve the hard drive turning off problem because you install your own into it) and the apple tv which I need to look at more. Bummed out with the music interface, but impressed with movies. did not look at pictures.

Ok, so I updated the firmware. I would be using the wdtv 80% music 20% movies. Nothing changed with the music navigation. Very poor imo. You cannot create playlists. Pretty much listen to an album or a song. Album art and genres were missing or incorrect. I don't know what kind of metadata they are looking for to display the info, but im not going through my music again to please this thing. All my music shows up correctly in mediamonkey and itunes, this should be enough.

I took the movie "Trading places", the one I tested out b4, and played the dvd in my pc's drive (vga cable out to my 40"lcd tv), I played it again in the wdtv (vob files) and then played the same disc in through my oppo dvd player (980). The stretched out screen looked the same in all, it was normal, i guess i wasn't used to seeing a movie that fit the entire 16:9 ratio. The movie sounded incredible crisp through my pc (finally hearing the benefits of my striker pc card). 2nd, the wdtv sounded a bit more live and detailed than my oppo. The picture might have been a little sharper too. How are these oppos so highly regarded is a little box can play dvds better? (!!!)

So I tried using Handbrake but it was going to take 2-5 hours to convert a dvd to ANY of its formats. too long. it made me remember the days of using tmpgenc to convert dvds to svcd to play on cd's and realized I don't have time for that bs anymore.

all in all, the easy way out would be to just put your vobs on a huge hard drive, and this this will play them very well. It just fell very short with music.

Tut_Ank

02-20-09, 10:39 AM

For all of those who are holding their horses for the firm upgrade, a couple of days ago on the firmware thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1100062) on this very site someone managed to extract the original firm. You can get it here:

http://root.unknown.sk/wdtv/download/fw/wdtv_fw_1.00.01-factorydefault_fw.rar

Now you can try the 1.01.02 and if not pleased rollback.

On that site you can also find unoficial frimwares that support ext-3 fs, wireless, and usb-to-rj45 network adapters and more things....

Edit: Oh. I forgot to tell: they got a Samba Server working on the WDHD, so the movie cover and navegation is closer, I still hope to find it in an oficial firm release, but in the meantime...

techflaws

02-20-09, 10:42 AM

who do they think they are?
Apparently ppl who can get away with putting in pointless new features like filesize display in the filebrowser instead of fixing any of those bugs still in?

Tut_Ank

02-20-09, 10:59 AM

Apparently ppl who can get away with putting in pointless new features like filesize display in the filebrowser instead of fixing any of those bugs still in?

<ironic>
Yes, and the customers, those suckers requesting new useless features like DTS downsampling, proper subtitle support on more languages, cover support, DVD menu navigation, dynamic auto resolution based on the file being played, ext3 support, DVD/Blueray and network USB support,... all that sutupid pointless stuff.
</ironic>

christoofar

02-20-09, 12:16 PM

Why is this WD product more popular then the WD MediaMate Product?

I just found the Mediamate here http://www.goharddrive.com/MediaMate-High-Definition-1080i-HDMI-USB-LAN-3-5-p/g05-0069.htm

Is it the same but with an enclosure and networking? I would love that instead of two enclosures.

It's inability to support FLAC files would be a deal breaker for me

BoboTheBear

02-20-09, 02:07 PM

<ironic>
Yes, and the customers, those suckers requesting new useless features like DTS downsampling, proper subtitle support on more languages, cover support, DVD menu navigation, dynamic auto resolution based on the file being played, ext3 support, DVD/Blueray and network USB support,... all that sutupid pointless stuff.
</ironic>

Sounds like you'd be happier with a Popcorn Hour. I've never used one but I think it has what you're looking for. It costs 2.5x the WDTV tho.

I really don't understand people who complain about "missing" features that were never advertised or never included. I'm not talking about bugs but things like network connectivity, DTS decoding/downmixing, etc.

Nowhere in the spec sheets does it say it supports VOB/ISO containers, but it does and it's my primary use for this. Do I wish it could do some things better? Hell yeah! Do I feel like I got ripped off? Hell no. I know its limitations and I accept them, especially at its price point. If I didn't, I would just return it to the store and be done with it.

If I wanted this to do everything I personally wanted, I'd probably need to build a HTPC. I don't want to deal with the extra cost or complexity, yet.

I'm eagerly looking for the next firmware. I'm realistic tho and I'm not counting on them to introduce a slew of new features. Again, I'm not talking about bug fixes.

If they never introduce new features and introduced a WDTV2 with networking, DTS decoding, full DVD menu support etc at $200 I wouldn't be pissed like some people would be. It'd be awesome if they included all this in new firmware instead but seriously, it currently does what it's advertised to do (in most cases, very well) and at $100 it's a serious bargain.

Just my .02.

Tut_Ank

02-20-09, 02:25 PM

Sounds like you'd be happier with a Popcorn Hour. I've never used one but I think it has what you're looking for. It costs 2.5x the WDTV tho.

I really don't understand people who complain about "missing" features that were never advertised or never included. I'm not talking about bugs but things like network connectivity, DTS decoding/downmixing, etc.

Nowhere in the spec sheets does it say it supports VOB/ISO containers, but it does and it's my primary use for this. Do I wish it could do some things better? Hell yeah! Do I feel like I got ripped off? Hell no. I know its limitations and I accept them, especially at its price point. If I didn't, I would just return it to the store and be done with it.

If I wanted this to do everything I personally wanted, I'd probably need to build a HTPC. I don't want to deal with the extra cost or complexity, yet.

I'm eagerly looking for the next firmware. I'm realistic tho and I'm not counting on them to introduce a slew of new features. Again, I'm not talking about bug fixes.

If they never introduce new features and introduced a WDTV2 with networking, DTS decoding, full DVD menu support etc at $200 I wouldn't be pissed like some people would be. It'd be awesome if they included all this in new firmware instead but seriously, it currently does what it's advertised to do (in most cases, very well) and at $100 it's a serious bargain.

Just my .02.
No, Im really very happy with the product, of the things I said I'll like all but the network, that I don't need, the ability to read DVD, BR will bi nice, but looks like this features will come from unoficial firmwares, I don't thik that some of the fatures requested are crazy. epecially the good subtitle support, the DVD Menus, display covers and the DTS downsampling I never bought a PSH because I don't really need network would not use it, but some users will, thats why is what they started from when crating the "other" firmwares and looks like they are succeding...

BoboTheBear

02-20-09, 02:38 PM

Just curious, is DTS downmixing something they can do without a DTS license? I know DTS decoding requires a license from them that's not cheap. Does this apply to the ability to downmix also?

Lt. Dang

02-20-09, 02:57 PM

Why is this WD product more popular then the WD MediaMate Product?

I just found the Mediamate here http://www.goharddrive.com/MediaMate-High-Definition-1080i-HDMI-USB-LAN-3-5-p/g05-0069.htm

Is it the same but with an enclosure and networking? I would love that instead of two enclosures.

It does not support the formats I want and it is only 1080i - it can't do 1080p which is what I want.

The WD TV does what I want, and for less money - it's a no brainer decision.

Regards,

Lt. Dang

christoofar

02-20-09, 02:58 PM

I think maybe some people should just take it easy for a bit & let WD work on fixing some of these issues.
This thing just came out to market not that long ago, they have already released an updated firmware and are working on a new one, we are in a world recession/depression, and workers are getting let go all around.
All things considered, I think Western Digital should be commended for this great affordable product.

Itsdon

02-20-09, 03:03 PM

I know a lot of folks don't want to (or can't) upgrade their receiver to one that supports HDMI switching but it is the future. I have the Onkyo 605 (couple years old now) and the WD bitstreams DTS perfectly to it via HDMI, it sounds great! I love this stupid little thing.

dangerdoc1

02-20-09, 03:48 PM

As a side note:

Does anyone know how well these things are selling? I hope they are moving enough to keep them interested in upgrades and future models.

joshjoshlol

02-20-09, 07:14 PM

Hopefully this won't get lost in the mix of this huge thread...

Is there a way to change the number of reference frames in an AVC file without having to fully re-encode it? I saw through the search function that somebody asked this very question earlier, but it was washed away amongst a tidal wave of firmware speculations and trollings. I know it's possible to change AVC profile level in a hex editor, and I'm hoping that a change in reference frames could be just as simple...

Monkeyface66

02-20-09, 07:54 PM

No.

You just can patch it so that it looks like as if the file is High Level 4.1, but that sure won't help you.

aos007

02-21-09, 01:56 AM

Regarding power usage on standby, it's still very much "on" after it's turned "off". I measure 7W on standby, 8W when "on". When playing music it still consumes 8W and movie playback isn't much different from what I recall (9W?). So the standby is kind of a gimmick, though actual power usage is very small.

techflaws

02-21-09, 02:03 AM

I think maybe some people should just take it easy for a bit & let WD work on fixing some of these issues.
I don't think our comments here do stop them from doing whatever it is their doing. Obviously they're not obligated to reply or even read here.

This thing just came out to market not that long ago, they have already released an updated firmware
Which introduced pointless new features instead of fixing all bugs.

we are in a world recession/depression, and workers are getting let go all around.
So not satisfying the customers to the best of their abilities is the way to get more units sold and keep their jobs? I'm astonished to see that some people consider it perfectly normal to see products getting rushed to the market with customers already factored in to do beta testing.

BoboTheBear

02-21-09, 02:22 AM

Which introduced pointless new features instead of fixing all bugs.

Version 1.01.01:

New Features:
• Added .MKV chapter selection for video playback for MKV with chapter support
• Added .MTS file extension support
• Added .TP file extension support
• Added .TS file extension support
• Added 1080p 24hz support
• Added disk volume name to folder navigation in list mode
• Added EXIF orientation flag functionality for auto picture rotate
• Added file size in filename
• 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
• Added progress indicator for the duration of the FF or REV function
• Added a blinking status LED behavior while drive is mounting; previously the light just stayed on
• Added sequential .M2TS file playback function
• Added additional subtitle support (SMI, SUB, ASS, SSA)
• Added user selectable font size for subtitle support
• Added song title scroll in music playback to prevent truncation
• Added embedded subtitle display in .MKV files
• Added additional 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 display sizing menu for photo playback: Fit to Screen, Full Screen, Keep as Original
• Added accelerating scroll speed based on how long the arrow is held down on the remote when
navigating folders with a large number of files; previously only one, constant speed was available

Resolved Issues:
• Resolved issue when 2 drives were connected, then one drive was disconnected, the files from the
disconnected drive still showed up on the file list but were not playable
• Resolved "repeat one" failure during music playback; previously songs would not repeat
• Resolved artist name truncation issue during music playback
• Resolved issue where WD TV would not turn back on with remote after extended period of
inactivity; previously WD TV had to be unplugged and was unrecoverable with the remote
• Resolved image size and position issues during video playback; previously the image displayed
did not fill the screen until the picture was zoomed in and then out again

Pointless indeed...

Steel A Jeeg

02-21-09, 02:41 AM

I have a question. I just purchased the WD TV player. Out of the box, I'm having problem with subtitles in MKV problems, and .ass subtitle files. I understand that an update can solve these problems. But another problem that I am having is that some MKV files are too big to fit the screen of my TV. I can use the pan feature to pan left and right, and still see some of the picture that is beyond the "borders" of my screen.

I have a 32" LCD 720p TV, if that helps. I'm wondering if the most recent update could fix that as well?

fred_be9300

02-21-09, 02:54 AM

I have two External HDs. Once is a MAxtor that WILL turn off if ejected, the WD does not...... I took a look at the product page and it is a limitation of the external Drive not a "bug".

BTW I didt put the correct drive I have a WD Elment 1TB Drive, not an essential MB edition.

Could you identify which Maxtor this is? I'm in the market for a new 1TB drive, and that seems like a useful feature. Thx

joshjoshlol

02-21-09, 03:00 AM

What is your problem with .ass files in .mkv containers, exactly? The recent firmware upgrade addresses functionality of .ass in matroska, but there is still a major issue of text based subtitles not properly displaying tags such as italics. Upgrade your firmware and see if it doesn't fix your main issues.

sinker442

02-21-09, 07:47 AM

techflaws

02-21-09, 10:52 AM

Pointless indeed...

New Features:
• Added file size in filename

Unresolved Issues:

External subtitles (srt, ass, ssa) are out of sync most of the time.
(e.g. 720p dxva compliant x264 .MKV video files in conjunction with external .SRT subtitles)
The texts are displayed too late. (Embedding the subtitle into the video file temporary solves the issue)

If external subtitles have two or more lines inside them, the -last- line is not centered.

Embededd subtitles stop being displayed approx. 10 seconds before the end of the video file is reached.

Embededd subtitles are rendered a lot uglier than external subtitles and words are cut right in the middle and continued in the second line when subtitle lines exceed the display width.

Embedded subtitles disappear, when the "displace image" function (repositioning of the picture) or the "zoom" feature is used during video playback with activated subtitles.

In "1080p 24Hz" display resolution mode, 23.976 fps video files (e.g. .M2TS) suffer a short stuttering/juddering in an exactly 40-seconds cycle.
This juddering usually occurs, if the device outputs fixed 24.000 fps whereas it should output 23.976 fps.

In "1080p 24Hz" display resolution mode, 23.976 fps video files in .MKV containers stutter extremely hard every ~25 seconds for about 10 seconds.
Remuxing to the .M2TS container temporary solves the issue, but the 40-seconds-cycle juddering is still present then. (Please take a look at the other bug report where the 40-seconds-cycle juddering is described in detail)

Several "media library issues" in the MUSIC file browser:
In "Album" view mode, audio tracks are displayed in alphabetical order whereas they should be displayed in TRACK order.
In "Folder" view mode, the filename incl. extension of the audio track is displayed during playback whereas it should display the track title name which is noted inside the audio track's tag.
In "Artist" view mode, all the available audio tracks by the same artist are displayed together in a huge single list whereas different albums by the same artist should be separately listed within the "Artist" view mode. ("hierarchical browsing": first the artist, then their albums)
In "Genre" view mode, "hierarchical browsing", too. This means first the genre, then the artist and then their albums.

USB power is not entirely cut off when USB storage drives are ejected or the WD TV is shut down via remote.
Note: When the WD TV is shut down via remote, it should automatically eject all connected USB storage drives first, so that the drives can go to sleep immediately.

There is a weird "black level" issue that affects the HDMI video output in a different way depending on 1) the selected resolution in the settings menu (AUTO or a fixed resolution) and 2) the video file.
Sometimes, the WD TV produces a "limited" range (16 to 235), but flags it as "full RGB" (0 to 255) and sometimes it produces a "full RGB" range (0 to 255), but flags it as "limited" (16 to 235).
This issue results in a "Black Crush" and "White Crush" on the TV.

Skipping/stuttering DTS audio issue through digital optical out about every 10 seconds in many .MKV container video files.
(remuxing to .M2TS container temporary solves the issue)

FF and REV (+10 minute jumps) do not work properly during playback of many .MPG, .MPV, .M4V, .VOB and .M2TS files.
(When "play" is pressed, the player jumps to a completely different postion than displayed in the progress indicator.)

The correct "display aspect ratio" should be read out off the provided .IFO file when a DVD-VIDEO .ISO file or a DVD-VIDEO folder is played back.
Currently, the WD TV seems to read out the aspect ratio information off the individual .VOB files, which sometimes causes a letterboxed playback with squeezed picture and wrong aspect ratio.

The "Scanning the attached USB device ..." notification does pop-up when "media library" is set to ON, but NOT when "media library" is set to OFF.

The "disk volume name to folder navigation in list mode" feature seems not to work properly. (Or there is a misunderstanding in its real function)
It still says "USB1" and "USB2".

System fonts sizes and subtitle font sizes are too small when COMPOSITE output is used on a CRT TV.
(This is not really a bug, but all of the displayed text looks really tiny on a SDTV, so it could be considered as an issue.)

It seems that a fixed gain is applied to the audio tracks during playback.
The test has been carried out using a test signal (.wav file), of a sinusoidal waveform at f=1Khz recorded at 0dB digital level. The top and bottom halfs of the waveform are thus heavily clipped.
This issue can sometimes cause an audible distortion on some audio recordings that have been mastered at high recording levels.
The applied gain affects both the digital and the analog outputs of the WD TV.

24bit/96KHz FLAC audio files get internally down-sampled to 48KHz through digital optical out whereas they should be passed through untouched.

The WD TV sometimes sounds “jittery” during playback of lenghty audio files (e.g. flac image files bigger than 100.000 KBytes or large WAV files).
There are random audible "clicks" in the sound.

The CURSOR buttons on the remote react inverted (left = right, up = down) when the "displace image" function (repositioning of the picture) is used during photo and video playback.

german GUI translation sucks

PJfan

02-21-09, 11:09 AM

Hello fellow WD HDTV users, I cannot play the MOV file taken with my Panasonic Lumix TZ5 camera in high-defination mode. I see that it's in Quicktime with the M-JPEG format. I can use the included Mediaconverter to convert it to AVI and it will play. This is a pain though.

General
Complete name : F:\PICTURES AND VIDEOS\Diamond Elite Level 5 2nd Prelim\Diamond Elite Level 5 2nd Prelim 002.mov
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Original Apple specifications
File size : 113 MiB
Duration : 37s 0ms
Overall bit rate : 25.6 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2009-02-08 14:32:18
Tagged date : UTC 2009-02-08 14:32:18
Writing library : pana

Video
ID : 1
Format : M-JPEG
Codec ID : jpeg
Duration : 37s 0ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 25.6 Mbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.924
Stream size : 113 MiB (100%)
Encoded date : UTC 2009-02-08 14:32:18
Tagged date : UTC 2009-02-08 14:32:18

Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Unsigned
Codec ID : raw
Duration : 37s 0ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 64.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 8 000 Hz
Resolution : 8 bits
Stream size : 289 KiB (0%)
Encoded date : UTC 2009-02-08 14:32:18
Tagged date : UTC 2009-02-08 14:32:18

Lt. Dang

02-21-09, 11:32 AM

New Features:
• Added file size in filename

Unresolved Issues:

External subtitles (srt, ass, ssa) are out of sync most of the time.
(e.g. 720p dxva compliant x264 .MKV video files in conjunction with external .SRT subtitles)
The texts are displayed too late. (Embedding the subtitle into the video file temporary solves the issue)

If external subtitles have two or more lines inside them, the -last- line is not centered.

Embededd subtitles stop being displayed approx. 10 seconds before the end of the video file is reached.

Embededd subtitles are rendered a lot uglier than external subtitles and words are cut right in the middle and continued in the second line when subtitle lines exceed the display width.

Embedded subtitles disappear, when the "displace image" function (repositioning of the picture) or the "zoom" feature is used during video playback with activated subtitles.

In "1080p 24Hz" display resolution mode, 23.976 fps video files (e.g. .M2TS) suffer a short stuttering/juddering in an exactly 40-seconds cycle.
This juddering usually occurs, if the device outputs fixed 24.000 fps whereas it should output 23.976 fps.

In "1080p 24Hz" display resolution mode, 23.976 fps video files in .MKV containers stutter extremely hard every ~25 seconds for about 10 seconds.
Remuxing to the .M2TS container temporary solves the issue, but the 40-seconds-cycle juddering is still present then. (Please take a look at the other bug report where the 40-seconds-cycle juddering is described in detail)

Several "media library issues" in the MUSIC file browser:
In "Album" view mode, audio tracks are displayed in alphabetical order whereas they should be displayed in TRACK order.
In "Folder" view mode, the filename incl. extension of the audio track is displayed during playback whereas it should display the track title name which is noted inside the audio track's tag.
In "Artist" view mode, all the available audio tracks by the same artist are displayed together in a huge single list whereas different albums by the same artist should be separately listed within the "Artist" view mode. ("hierarchical browsing": first the artist, then their albums)
In "Genre" view mode, "hierarchical browsing", too. This means first the genre, then the artist and then their albums.

USB power is not entirely cut off when USB storage drives are ejected or the WD TV is shut down via remote.
Note: When the WD TV is shut down via remote, it should automatically eject all connected USB storage drives first, so that the drives can go to sleep immediately.

There is a weird "black level" issue that affects the HDMI video output in a different way depending on 1) the selected resolution in the settings menu (AUTO or a fixed resolution) and 2) the video file.
Sometimes, the WD TV produces a "limited" range (16 to 235), but flags it as "full RGB" (0 to 255) and sometimes it produces a "full RGB" range (0 to 255), but flags it as "limited" (16 to 235).
This issue results in a "Black Crush" and "White Crush" on the TV.

Skipping/stuttering DTS audio issue through digital optical out about every 10 seconds in many .MKV container video files.
(remuxing to .M2TS container temporary solves the issue)

FF and REV (+10 minute jumps) do not work properly during playback of many .MPG, .MPV, .M4V, .VOB and .M2TS files.
(When "play" is pressed, the player jumps to a completely different postion than displayed in the progress indicator.)

The correct "display aspect ratio" should be read out off the provided .IFO file when a DVD-VIDEO .ISO file or a DVD-VIDEO folder is played back.
Currently, the WD TV seems to read out the aspect ratio information off the individual .VOB files, which sometimes causes a letterboxed playback with squeezed picture and wrong aspect ratio.

The "Scanning the attached USB device ..." notification does pop-up when "media library" is set to ON, but NOT when "media library" is set to OFF.

The "disk volume name to folder navigation in list mode" feature seems not to work properly. (Or there is a misunderstanding in its real function)
It still says "USB1" and "USB2".

System fonts sizes and subtitle font sizes are too small when COMPOSITE output is used on a CRT TV.
(This is not really a bug, but all of the displayed text looks really tiny on a SDTV, so it could be considered as an issue.)

It seems that a fixed gain is applied to the audio tracks during playback.
The test has been carried out using a test signal (.wav file), of a sinusoidal waveform at f=1Khz recorded at 0dB digital level. The top and bottom halfs of the waveform are thus heavily clipped.
This issue can sometimes cause an audible distortion on some audio recordings that have been mastered at high recording levels.
The applied gain affects both the digital and the analog outputs of the WD TV.

24bit/96KHz FLAC audio files get internally down-sampled to 48KHz through digital optical out whereas they should be passed through untouched.

The WD TV sometimes sounds “jittery” during playback of lenghty audio files (e.g. flac image files bigger than 100.000 KBytes or large WAV files).
There are random audible "clicks" in the sound.

The CURSOR buttons on the remote react inverted (left = right, up = down) when the "displace image" function (repositioning of the picture) is used during photo and video playback.

german GUI translation sucks

None of the above corrects your original mis-statement about the firmware update being pointless - it obviously wasn't.

It’s funny that your signature motto is appears to be more optimistic than you are. :)

Regards,

Lt. Dang

techflaws

02-21-09, 12:05 PM

None of the above corrects your original mis-statement about the firmware update being pointless
If you read my statement again you'll see that I don't think it to be pointless but that it has some pointless features like file size display which should have been dropped in favour of fixing the remaining bugs. Admittedly it also didn't help that the WD support tried to blame my subtitles issues on my TV instead of their box.

It’s funny that your signature motto appears to be more optimistic than you are. :)
Not really. Concerning the number of stupid, unnecessary design flaws consumers are forced to cope with in todays devices it merely states that it simply can only get better cause it's as bad as it gets.

Tut_Ank

02-21-09, 12:13 PM

...
Unresolved Issues:

... In "1080p 24Hz" display resolution mode, 23.976 fps video files (e.g. .M2TS) suffer a short stuttering/juddering in an exactly 40-seconds cycle.
This juddering usually occurs, if the device outputs fixed 24.000 fps whereas it should output 23.976 fps.

In "1080p 24Hz" display resolution mode, 23.976 fps video files in .MKV containers stutter extremely hard every ~25 seconds for about 10 seconds.
Remuxing to the .M2TS container temporary solves the issue, but the 40-seconds-cycle juddering is still present then. (Please take a look at the other bug report where the 40-seconds-cycle juddering is described in detail)
...

Skipping/stuttering DTS audio issue through digital optical out about every 10 seconds in many .MKV container video files.
(remuxing to .M2TS container temporary solves the issue)

Most of the rest are real glitches, but 24Hz is not 23.976 they are diferent frecuencies, ONLY some Plasma/LCD are supporting 24HZ called also truecinema and it is 24.000 not 23.976 as far as I know, 23.976 is not supported by any TV set, but it can be converted to standard 30Hz NTSC by doing the ugly Thelecide thing...

There is one frame diference every 1000 frames from 23.976 to 24 fps. do the calculation yourself that is every 41.6 seconds so it is normal that if the WDHD's output is set to 24 and the movie is 23.976 it has to have one duplicated frame every 41 seconds. That should not happen if you play 24fps material wich is what this mode is dessigned for. ONLY to play 24fps material on TV sets that SUPPORT IT (setting the tv also to 24fps) again (24!=23.976)=True.

As for the DTS stuttering its also a problem with the files encoded. WD can easly fix it, but is a problem of the media, not the player, it only happens of files that have the wideo and one audio track from a source at different fps as the audio of the other track, It happens a lot in Europe where release groups take the BRRip form a US Blueray at 23.976 FPS and the Audio of a PAL DVD and mux them together without adjusting the length of the audio tracks. then the BOX is behaving in the wrong way, its playing the material at the marked speed (23.976 fps) and then needs to do some jumps in the audio to catch up with the video, the approach a PC does to play this file is much more logical, plays the video at an speed that matches the audio of the track being played (24, 23.976 or 25 depending of the source) and then this problem goes away.

Some American said in this forum that everythig works fine if you are american as most of the problems dissapear. This is not completely true, as some of the problems in your list are still present, but WD is selling this product world wide. I bought mine in Europe and at a higher prize (99€, about 140$) so they have to support this problems or else, do as Popcorn does and not distribute their products outside their country... since they are selling theis product on PAL countries and on countries with different char sets they should provide good subtitle support on all officicial langs of the countries they sell their products (I think they will, but they should already have from the begining)

Lt. Dang

02-21-09, 01:48 PM

If you read my statement again you'll see that I don't think it to be pointless but that it has some pointless features like file size display which should have been dropped in favour of fixing the remaining bugs. Admittedly it also didn't help that the WD support tried to blame my subtitles issues on my TV instead of their box.

So you expect your words to be taken literally and precisely? OK….

Which introduced pointless new features instead of fixing all bugs.

You didn’t seriously expect all bugs to be fixed in that one single release did you? Or am I not supposed to take that bit literally? Maybe in future you could underline the bits you mean and not the bits you don't? That would really help.

Not really. Concerning the number of stupid, unnecessary design flaws consumers are forced to cope with in todays devices it merely states that it simply can only get better cause it's as bad as it gets.
Exactly my point, only an optimist would accept that something is already as bad as it is ever going to get and that things, like the WD TV, can only get better. :)

Regards,

Lt. Dang

fred_be9300

02-21-09, 01:57 PM

guys, guys...
so for one the glass is half full, and for the other it's half empty... I'm sure you're pretty much in agreement on what's in the glass, so stop filling up the thread, enjoy your Saturday, and be patient till the next release ;-)

Lt. Dang

02-21-09, 02:03 PM

pumafred

02-21-09, 04:07 PM

Anyone here knows why I cannot watch this movie trailer downloaded from Yahoo?

Mediainfo:
General
Complete name : D:\My Documents\My Films\Movie trailers\Monsters vs Aliens.mov
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Original Apple specifications
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt
File size : 98.2 MiB
Duration : 2mn 30s
Overall bit rate : 5 479 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-17 08:30:08
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-17 08:30:16
Writing library : Apple QuickTime

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 2mn 30s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 349 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 532 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.406
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 24.000 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.327
Stream size : 95.9 MiB (98%)
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-17 08:30:06
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-17 08:30:16

Audio
ID : 3
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 2mn 30s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 2.29 MiB (2%)
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-17 08:30:08
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-17 08:30:16

3mar67

02-21-09, 06:34 PM

Not really. Concerning the number of stupid, unnecessary design flaws consumers are forced to cope with in todays devices it merely states that it simply can only get better cause it's as bad as it gets.

That's why this is funny...

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/sony_releases_new_stupid_piece_of

feces

02-21-09, 08:28 PM

Steel A Jeeg

02-21-09, 09:04 PM

Check your TV settings. You probably have some kind of zoom enabled...

I have a Sanyo LCD TV. It's obviously not the best quality TV on the market, but from what I can tell it seems like it overscans a good portion of the image. So hard-subtitled shows are cut off to the point that it's unreadable. I've yet to be able to find a solution to this problem, as there are no settings in the menu to fix it.

But with the WDTV, a good portion of certain "wider-than" widescreen videos are completely cut off, along with the usual overscan.

Steel A Jeeg

02-22-09, 01:09 AM

Now I'm getting the choppy AVI problem too.

Most of my video files are AVI. If I continue having that problem, I really have no reason to own this anymore. Which is disappointing, to say the least.

DanDaMan069

02-22-09, 01:40 AM

Hey all, I have a question, I have the extended versions of the Lord Of the Rings Trilogy, 2 disks per movie like return of the king d1 and return of the king d2. If i make 2 iso files, 1 for each disk and put them in the same folder will they play both files or will I have to start the second iso file? Thanks :confused::confused:

no...just like your dvd player cannot read 2 dvds at the same time...or at least back to back..you have to eject the dvd and put in the second one...same thing with the WD player.. it will only read 1 iso at a time... you will have to select the second iso after the first one finishes.. but if it bothers you to have to start the second iso...why not use a video editing or muxing program to join the 2 movie parts together?? just a thought... or even better...it is pointless to copy your dvd to iso format since the WD doesnt do menus anyway..why not make your dvd's to 1 vob file...for just the movie..then you can put both of your dvds in the same folder as two vob's...and hit play and it will play both:)

I have a Sanyo LCD TV. It's obviously not the best quality TV on the market, but from what I can tell it seems like it overscans a good portion of the image. So hard-subtitled shows are cut off to the point that it's unreadable. I've yet to be able to find a solution to this problem, as there are no settings in the menu to fix it.

But with the WDTV, a good portion of certain "wider-than" widescreen videos are completely cut off, along with the usual overscan.

the WD does not overscan the videos?? i think maybe if you are playing dvd rips and if you are using the orginal firmware...you have to zoom in using the options button and when you zoom out..then the picture displays correctly..i think that was a bug only on the original firmware and only with dvd rips... if you are on the current firmware, then the problem is definately your TV.. most TVs with hdmi connection have a "just scan" mode...that will make sure you have no overscan on...just whatever the input is... i use the 16X9 mode, as it ony makes it a tiny bit bigger than the just scan mode..because when i switch back to watching HD cable, i can see some digital lines on certain channels.so i have to switch back to 16X9 to get rid of those lines.

Now I'm getting the choppy AVI problem too.

Most of my video files are AVI. If I continue having that problem, I really have no reason to own this anymore. Which is disappointing, to say the least.

all i play on my WD is h264 MKV's..and they play perfectly fine...and i have 400+ now.. and i have my favorite movies in full 1920X1080, and they play perfectly! DTS plays perfectly also...as do all my embedded or external subs.... for those of you who just want to play dvds and avi's...i suggest other players that do that and that only... as a matter of fact.. I have a Pixel Magic HD mediabox that is hdmi and fiber optic audio and can play up full 1080p WMHD and DIVXHD,etc... and it plays avi's and full dvd iso's with menus and everything..even has thumbnails:) pretty much the highest end player you can get...but no h264 option.. it has time search,upconverting to 1080p,full size back lit remote,custom background on player menu,etc.. gonna put it on ebay, unless somebody from here wants it first?? it also can have a 3.5" hard drive up to 750GB internal, and supports 2 external USB's for a total of 3 hard drives.. still sells for $400 in high end electronic stores..will sell for more than half price;)

Papadopoulos Per

02-22-09, 02:00 AM

Steel A Jeeg

02-22-09, 02:20 AM

the WD does not overscan the videos?? i think maybe if you are playing dvd rips and if you are using the orginal firmware...you have to zoom in using the options button and when you zoom out..then the picture displays correctly..i think that was a bug only on the original firmware and only with dvd rips... if you are on the current firmware, then the problem is definately your TV.. most TVs with hdmi connection have a "just scan" mode...that will make sure you have no overscan on...just whatever the input is... i use the 16X9 mode, as it ony makes it a tiny bit bigger than the just scan mode..because when i switch back to watching HD cable, i can see some digital lines on certain channels.so i have to switch back to 16X9 to get rid of those lines.

I have no options like that on my TV. It's a Sanyo LCD 720p (DP26746), and the picture options are pretty much limited to color and contrast settings.

As for the AVI problem, I was told that the WDTV was good for them. And for the price, I wasn't looking to spend much more. Is this something that could possibly be corrected in another update? Or can I convert the files myself to fix this?

Rob100

02-22-09, 02:45 AM

That should not happen if you play 24fps material wich is what this mode is dessigned for. ONLY to play 24fps material on TV sets that SUPPORT IT (setting the tv also to 24fps) again (24!=23.976)=True.

Can you give us an example of a "consumer" source which is 24fps?

99.9% of all Blu-ray, HD-DVD, "film" based TV shows (after IVTC the source) are all 23.976Hz. When everyone talks about 1080p24 they really mean 1080p23.976.

24Hz output is useless in the real world, we need 23.976Hz output.

techflaws

02-22-09, 02:57 AM

You didn’t seriously expect all bugs to be fixed in that one single release did you?
Actually, I expected them to thouroughly test the device prior to release (even with external beta testers) so that it wouldn't have any bugs when it came out. I know, silly me!

Still, it's gonna get interesting when these habits get applied to other products like planes.

since they are selling theis product on PAL countries and on countries with different char sets they should provide good subtitle support on all officicial langs of the countries they sell their products (I think they will, but they should already have from the begining)
Or support idx/sub properly.

DanDaMan069

02-22-09, 03:13 AM

I have no options like that on my TV. It's a Sanyo LCD 720p (DP26746), and the picture options are pretty much limited to color and contrast settings.

As for the AVI problem, I was told that the WDTV was good for them. And for the price, I wasn't looking to spend much more. Is this something that could possibly be corrected in another update? Or can I convert the files myself to fix this?

i just downloaded the manual for the 32 inch model tv you have....same model number at the end746.... except this was a 32 tv, so it was 32746..

anyways, you should have a button called the PIX SHAPE button on the bottom left of the remote...that changes it from 4:3,16X9,and zoom 1 and 2... except sanyo calls it pix1,pix2,etc.. that should be your problem..

Steel A Jeeg

02-22-09, 03:30 AM

i just downloaded the manual for the 32 inch model tv you have....same model number at the end746.... except this was a 32 tv, so it was 32746..

anyways, you should have a button called the PIX SHAPE button on the bottom left of the remote...that changes it from 4:3,16X9,and zoom 1 and 2... except sanyo calls it pix1,pix2,etc.. that should be your problem..

No, I use that button. The 4 options are very drastic, and quite noticeable when you're on the wrong on. I'm always on 16X9. It's definitely a problem with the image itself, because if I burn a DVD using convertxtodvd, I can add a small black border around the video to get rid of the problem.

Also, on the topic of the AVI problem that myself and another poster had, I've gone through a lot of my AVIs, it seems that almost HALF of them will not play without becoming incredibly choppy, or freezing up altogether.

Tut_Ank

02-22-09, 05:04 AM

Can you give us an example of a "consumer" source which is 24fps?

99.9% of all Blu-ray, HD-DVD, "film" based TV shows (after IVTC the source) are all 23.976Hz. When everyone talks about 1080p24 they really mean 1080p23.976.

24Hz output is useless in the real world, we need 23.976Hz output.

All movies produced in celuloid That is real movies, not video produced ARE 24fps, in PAL countries, when converted to DVD they where speeded up and played at 25fps, in NTSC countries, slowed down a bit (23.976) and then telecided to 30/1001 fps.
So all comercial movies are 24.000 fps since the HDMI is present almost ALL movie material in Blue-Ray and HDDVD can be played in 24 fps using the right player qnd viewed on the right TV, IF your BR player and your TV doen't support this technology is not WD fault, they didn't invent 24p it was a feature introduced by the HD players (both BR and HDDVD) Sony calls this truecinema and Panasonic just 24p. THE BR Player has to support this, but if your doesnt or you are playing pipped material not done in 24p, no wonder youve never seen it. it will be easier to list BR relases that don't support 24p and the list will be really short...

fits79

02-22-09, 05:16 AM

Is there a possibility to add support for external dvd-rom threw usb and dts sound at the next firmware update?
A lot of thanks.

dv08

02-22-09, 05:44 AM

Is there a possibility to add support for external dvd-rom threw usb and dts sound at the next firmware update?
A lot of thanks.
Let me have a look .... Yes of course and an extra option for washing the dishes and cooking pancakes.

Oh man! Post your Change Request here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1100499)

10secondbob

02-22-09, 06:55 AM

Anyone had any problems with the box completly freezing up and only way to do anything is pull the plug and let it reboot?

This is witha WD passport 320gb drive. Only noticed it after new firmware installed.

Rob100

02-22-09, 08:34 AM

All movies produced in celuloid That is real movies, not video produced ARE 24fps, in PAL countries, when converted to DVD they where speeded up and played at 25fps, in NTSC countries, slowed down a bit (23.976) and then telecided to 30/1001 fps.

Yes, I know all that. I'll agree with you on this part.

So all comercial movies are 24.000 fps since the HDMI is present almost ALL movie material in Blue-Ray and HDDVD can be played in 24 fps using the right player qnd viewed on the right TV, IF your BR player and your TV doen't support this technology is not WD fault, they didn't invent 24p it was a feature introduced by the HD players (both BR and HDDVD) Sony calls this truecinema and Panasonic just 24p. THE BR Player has to support this, but if your doesnt or you are playing pipped material not done in 24p, no wonder youve never seen it. it will be easier to list BR relases that don't support 24p and the list will be really short...

I do not agree with this. With exception of one Blu-ray (American Pie) and HD DVD I own (total approx 150 movies) they are all at 1080p 23.976fps.

American Pie (German Blu-ray) is the only one which is truly 24fps.

If the movie is authored on disc at 1080p23.976 then the player cannot output at 24Hz without judder - end of story.

I have 3 x standalone Blu-rays players, a PS3 and 2 x HD DVD players all of which output "1080p24" at the correct frequency of 23.976Hz.

You need to get your facts straight... Calling 23.976Hz "24p" is no different from people saying that NTSC TV runs at 60Hz which as we all know is really 59.94Hz.

WD need to add 23.976Hz output.