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145K views 844 replies 187 participants last post by  IdahoBill 
#1 ·
***this post was edited on 12/21 due to recent firmware updates for the WDTV live smp.****



Is this the correct process to start an official thread? This is a bit of a read. My apologies for the time-challenged.


Anyway, there are some random threads discussing these players and I thought they should have their own thread.


After reading a lot of reviews and product Q&A on Amazon and email responses from Eric @ KDlinks, I decided to purchase and demo the HD720 to see if it fit my needs. I have kind of a "I want everything" approach to my media, but as I have been researching set-top media players I have realized that there are all sorts of compromises I have to be willing to make. I can put together a HTPC and have zero compromises although, I am kind of getting tired of dealing with the routine OS (Win7) maintenance and all the tinkering. WMC7 with "MyMovies" collection management software was great, but my interest in maintaining this 5-year setup is waning due to the lack of BluRay support. I was hoping Windows 8 would have native BR support with WMC8, but that's a different story.


Anyway, I purchased the WDTV live streaming media player about a month ago. It is my basis for comparison.

Pros: interface looks great to me. I like that I can change the views of folders. Pretty straight forward.

Cons: ***Only passes DTS core not DTS-MA.*** ***It does not handle main movie BR rips with seamless branching.(possible fix with recent FW update)*** This is when the main .m2ts movie is split up between multiple files. It only plays the largest or first .m2ts file. It got hung up on every BD file I played. Had to power-cycle the player. ***There are also known problems with the rear usb port.***This is not a thread to discuss the WDTV smp. This is just a brief summary of my experiences which led me to look elsewhere. I do really like the WDTV and am considering putting it in the bedroom for some light-duty work.


What I want: I want to rip my disc to the pc once and that's it. The full disc in either BDMV or ISO. I want to walk over to my media streamer, turn it on and play that rip through my wired network. Simple. Now, I can hear the people, rip/remux to single.m2ts, rip to MKV, players don't support ISO, rip main movie only, what about Cinavia. These are all great options/concerns but I really don't want to spend that much time doing all this. It would be quicker over the long haul to just walk over to the shelf and pick the movie out and play it in the PS3. I want the option to be able to put the rip back onto disc (in case the actual disc gets lost, damaged) with minimal effort and 100% quality.

The KDLINKS HD720 (Realtek 1186 chipset)

I went with the 720 over the 700 because for $20 more I have the ability to house a HDD in the unit. According to the website, it offers 4TB support.

The interface is really bad. Ugly. And the app selection is equally as ugly. The menu interface is ok to navigate, some of the options are so-so explained with the accompanying paper manual. There is a video on YT that goes over this model, but it lacks any actual media demonstration and just serves as a brief overview. The remote feels....strange. The buttons have this rubberized "click" feel to them. Browsing network folders over wi-fi was painfully (deal-breaker) slow. Turning off auto-scan in the setup menu might solve this, although that might be just for internal hdd media. It also took a long time for my folder.jpgs to populate the thumbnails on the folders. Turning off wi-fi and connecting my cat6 cable made the system a lot more speedy.


My test media: "Oz the Great and Powerful". This movie is split among three .m2ts files. It has a 20 second "Disney" intro .m2ts, a 10 second opening credit .m2ts, and then the last half of the opening credits followed by the main movie (30GB) .m2ts. I ripped this disc four ways using dvdfab:

1. Full disc ISO

2. Full disc BDMV

3. Main movie BDMV

4. Main movie rip to single .m2ts file


These movies are sitting on my computer's HDD in the office. The Kdlink player is in the livingroom, connected via cat6 on gigabit network. HDMI to Yamaha 673 reciever, through to a 40" Sony LCD.


I went into the kdlinks and selected "Network", clicked on my workgroup folder and all my media appeared. Hovered over the folders and clicked on the play button on the remote. The "Use BD-lite menu" appeared on the ISO (i think), which was nice. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that it played the movie right away with all .m2ts files in order. Clicking on the subtitles button on the remote brought up a menu that let you choose different subtitles, and the info button displayed DTS-MA, as well as my yamaha 673 receiver. The audio button let me select between different audio tracks, AC3 (DD), probably some commentary tracks, DTS, and DTS-MA. No actual movie menu (BD-lite). I know I won't get this. The movie looked and played* great! Same as having the disc in my ps3. I need to experiment more with this unit and will report back. I am hoping others will chime in.


*Questions:

It's not without some minor hiccups of course.


1. I can't remember which one of the 4 rips this occurred on, but the subtitles are on by default. Going into the menu is easy enough to change this but......


2. Every time I power the unit on and connect to Netwok->workgroup, it asks for a password. There is no password set up for my media on my pc. I have to clear the username and PW to connect. After doing it the first time it added the shortcut to my "favorites" location. I a assuming that I should access my fav location to bypass the logon screen from now on?


3. The following has the potential to be a big problem. I mentioned the movie above was split into 3 files. I noticed during the transition between the files the video would pause for a brief second. It is very similar to network buffering. In fact that is what I thought it was until I noticed it happened at the same 2 spots in the movie. I hoped on my pc and played the 2 smaller .m2ts files in pdvd and confirmed the pause was due to the changing of the .m2ts files. It was sort of like the layer-brake with DVD9 discs, but more of a stutter. I played the (#4) single.m2ts file rip. It did not stutter at all, played smoothly. Assuming most branched BD movies only have a couple splits, this is not a huge problem. Have you guys seen movies (main movie) split into a ton of .m2ts files? This would be bad then.


I would love to hear other who have purchased these KDLINKS media players chime in.


Thanks for reading!
 
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#2 ·

I have a WD TV Live media player too but I'm also currently looking for other options, the KDLinks 700/720 was one of them. I bought the WD TV for $89. The 700/720 are $139/$159. I don't see the 700/720 being worth that extra $70 just for 2 or 3 extra formats that it can play. From your review it seems that KDLinks plays basically the same formats as the SMP except it doesn't have a HDD slot.
 
#3 ·
I did some more testing last night with the SMP. I tried playing the ISO and it defaulted to playing the largest .m2ts in the folder. It did the same thing with the BDMV folders too. It seems the Kdlinks makes use of the playlist file in the rip while the SMP does not. This is probably not a huge deal for many people. I guess I'm a little different with my media.


The DTS-MA stream only registered at 5.1 DTS on my receiver while the same file registered at 7.1 DTS-MA on the Kdlinks.


Of course, playing the same ISO on powerdvd on my HTPC downstairs accessed the full menu and everything.



For $20 more, I think it is worth having the hhd slot. You never know if you will need it for something in the future. What I would like to do is put my music on that internal hdd and use the thing as a NAS. Does anyone know if it will wake on lan? It does have a sleep mode.


I love the look and size of the SMP, and the interface as well. It looks great. But it did bug out on everything it played (on an attached hdd). The apps are much better on the smp too. The KDL is really just for file access.
 
#4 ·
It also allows full menu support for dvd rips too, in case anyone was wondering. (playing them through network shares).



2. Every time I power the unit on and connect to Netwok->workgroup, it asks for a password. There is no password set up for my media on my pc. I have to clear the username and PW to connect. After doing it the first time it added the shortcut to my "favorites" location. I a assuming that I should access my fav location to bypass the logon screen from now on?
---I went into network shares, workgroup, and there is a "Favorites" folder there, next to your main network share. Clicking on the favorites accessed my bookmarked location without having to type a password.


Still stuck on these two though:


1. I can't remember which one of the 4 rips this occurred on, but the subtitles are on by default. Going into the menu is easy enough to change this but......

3. playback stutters when changing .m2ts file, for movies with multiple .m2ts files.
 
#5 ·
I think the lack of a blu-ray licence by all new media players means that movies that are split/branched tend to not play smoothly. There must be some structural information not being read. I've seen this on a new Dune and WDTV. I remux into a single m2ts or mkv file for split or branched movies. An older media player with a blu-ray licence should be okay, but I've not personally owned one.
 
#6 ·
Yes, it's a problem with streaming the BD rip over the network. Eric from Kdlinks said it is due to network buffering. Sometimes the skip is a very brief frame-hang and others it actually cuts out the last frame. It is very distracting. Luckily, there are not a huge amount with seamless branching, and a lot of those only have 2 or 3 files on a playlist. "The Internship" has about 20-something .m2ts files that make up its playlist. That's really bad news. "Safe" has about 12, and the way that movie jumps around, add in the skipping/hang, it will make you think it's playing back all screwed up.


Yes, mabuk, muxing into a single.m2ts file will solve this, although I don't particularly find this a favorable solution. Playing the files from a connected or internal HDD should solve this too.


Apparently, I would be able to see the internal HDD of the KDL as an attached network place from my pc. I could just use the internal hdd as a storage place when I rip. I'm not sure how long it would take to send a 35ish GB files through my network....
 
#7 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by johnBlanker  /t/1500875/official-kdlinks-hd-streaming-media-player-thread#post_23986358


Yes, it's a problem with streaming the BD rip over the network. Eric from Kdlinks said it is due to network buffering. Sometimes the skip is a very brief frame-hang and others it actually cuts out the last frame. It is very distracting. Luckily, there are not a huge amount with seamless branching, and a lot of those only have 2 or 3 files on a playlist. "The Internship" has about 20-something .m2ts files that make up its playlist. That's really bad news. "Safe" has about 12, and the way that movie jumps around, add in the skipping/hang, it will make you think it's playing back all screwed up.


Yes, mabuk, muxing into a single.m2ts file will solve this, although I don't particularly find this a favorable solution. Playing the files from a connected or internal HDD should solve this too.


Apparently, I would be able to see the internal HDD of the KDL as an attached network place from my pc. I could just use the internal hdd as a storage place when I rip. I'm not sure how long it would take to send a 35ish GB files through my network....

See the other thread for some info on this. Network transfer speeds are really slow with this unit.
 
#8 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by johnBlanker  /t/1500875/official-kdlinks-hd-streaming-media-player-thread#post_23986358


Yes, it's a problem with streaming the BD rip over the network. Eric from Kdlinks said it is due to network buffering. Sometimes the skip is a very brief frame-hang and others it actually cuts out the last frame. It is very distracting. Luckily, there are not a huge amount with seamless branching, and a lot of those only have 2 or 3 files on a playlist. "The Internship" has about 20-something .m2ts files that make up its playlist. That's really bad news. "Safe" has about 12, and the way that movie jumps around, add in the skipping/hang, it will make you think it's playing back all screwed up.


Yes, mabuk, muxing into a single.m2ts file will solve this, although I don't particularly find this a favorable solution. Playing the files from a connected or internal HDD should solve this too.


Apparently, I would be able to see the internal HDD of the KDL as an attached network place from my pc. I could just use the internal hdd as a storage place when I rip. I'm not sure how long it would take to send a 35ish GB files through my network....

I have an internal HDD in my KDL and can see it from my PC on network, very convenient. Has anyone confirmed the pause between m2ts files isn't a problem when the files are on the internal HDD? I've seen the subtitles forced on issue too but can't remember which type of file/dir I was doing at the time.


I know trying to play on the KDL BDMV folders that include multiple m2ts files doesn't work properly -- I e-mailed tech support and they confirmed this is a "no go" and recommended an ISO instead which I've been doing and seems to work fine.


I heard Disney is starting to go crazy with multiple m2ts files and that Monsters University has something like 100 m2ts files so this trend may continue.


Is it easy in DVDFab to specify output as a single m2ts file? If so that may push me to buy that program as I know more media servers/BD players will play m2ts files (e.g., my Oppo BD-93 will) vs. ISO files that my Oppo used to play but now won't I guess per MPAA making Oppo update firmware to remove that feature. So if it's just as easy to get a single m2ts file with DVDFab as it is to make an ISO I'd pick m2ts so I wouldn't be as limited by what media servers/BD players I can play it with.


DvdFab appears to sell multiple products each with their own pricing -- Bluray Copy, Bluray Ripper, etc. Can you be specific which DvdFab product is used to read a Bluray that has multiple m2ts files and output a single m2ts file?


I recommended to KDL that they pursue providing a way to update firmware through their GUI including notifications of when new firmware is available. And an alternative is to provide a way to subscribe to e-mails notifying of firmware updates including the release notes in the e-mail. I also asked about .mpo support to be able to view 3D photos from a digital camera on the KDL.


I'm coming from a Popcorn Hour which was very buggy, it would stutter and lockup when FF/REW on m2ts files periodically, very annoying. I haven't seen any problems in this area on the KDL which I'm happy about.
 
#10 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by WynsWrld98  /t/1500875/official-kdlinks-hd-streaming-media-player-thread#post_23987126


I have an internal HDD in my KDL and can see it from my PC on network, very convenient. Has anyone confirmed the pause between m2ts files isn't a problem when the files are on the internal HDD? I've seen the subtitles forced on issue too but can't remember which type of file/dir I was doing at the time.
Sometime the sub are on by default. You can turn them off via remote or, Eric did say that there is an option in the settings to turn them off globally.


I know trying to play on the KDL BDMV folders that include multiple m2ts files doesn't work properly -- I e-mailed tech support and they confirmed this is a "no go" and recommended an ISO instead which I've been doing and seems to work fine.
As per my very first thread, I did not encounter any such problems playing back BDMV folders. I used a disc with known seamless branching and it played back the correct files in order (with the problems of the pausing between .m2ts files of course). There was no difference in playback between ISO or BDMV. What problems did you experience?


I heard Disney is starting to go crazy with multiple m2ts files and that Monsters University has something like 100 m2ts files so this trend may continue.
133 to be exact. I just checked. Wow, that's a lot of files. This will obviously be unwatchable. I will have to mux this into one .m2ts to play with the Kdlinks.


Is it easy in DVDFab to specify output as a single m2ts file? If so that may push me to buy that program as I know more media servers/BD players will play m2ts files (e.g., my Oppo BD-93 will) vs. ISO files that my Oppo used to play but now won't I guess per MPAA making Oppo update firmware to remove that feature. So if it's just as easy to get a single m2ts file with DVDFab as it is to make an ISO I'd pick m2ts so I wouldn't be as limited by what media servers/BD players I can play it with.


DvdFab appears to sell multiple products each with their own pricing -- Bluray Copy, Bluray Ripper, etc. Can you be specific which DvdFab product is used to read a Bluray that has multiple m2ts files and output a single m2ts file?
Yes, I just started learning about this. It is their "Ripper" module. It cannot be easier. Select Ripper, and choose the "M2TS Passthrough" profile. It picks the movie for you***and spits out one .m2ts file. It just spits out the file though. It is not accompanied by the bdmv, profile, stream, etc folders. Burning this back onto a BD disc should be easy in imgburn, it puts those files back on to make it work with a BD player, but I haven't tried this yet.


***using BDinfo I can see several profiles with what looks like extended editions. I will read up to know what title to pick. I have been leaving both the full rip and the single m2ts file just to be safe until I know I have picked the correct movie. MakeMKV is also very straightforward to use.



I recommended to KDL that they pursue providing a way to update firmware through their GUI including notifications of when new firmware is available. And an alternative is to provide a way to subscribe to e-mails notifying of firmware updates including the release notes in the e-mail. I also asked about .mpo support to be able to view 3D photos from a digital camera on the KDL.


I'm coming from a Popcorn Hour which was very buggy, it would stutter and lockup when FF/REW on m2ts files periodically, very annoying. I haven't seen any problems in this area on the KDL which I'm happy about.
Good idea on the FW suggestion. I have heard that about the PCH's. My WDTV smp did the same exact thing playing files off an attached HDD.
 
#11 ·
I think the pausing between m2ts files is only a problem when streaming a bdmv folder from another pc to a player via your network. My HTPC using powerdvd did the same thing before I realized what what happening. In my 3+ years of playing BD rips of an HTPC hooked directly to my tv (files on the machine), I have never encountered this pausing thing. Surprising with all the posts I have made in all these different forums, NO ONE has ever mentioned this! My process is a little different though. Most people mux to one m2ts or MKV.
 
#12 ·
Re: DVD Fab if I'm ripping my commercially pressed Blurays to a single m2ts file do I need DvdFab's PassKey in addition to their Bluray ripper? The output audio formats list generic things like DTS, does it output DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD (if present in the source Bluray)? It's odd their website doesn't list them.
 
#13 ·
#14 ·
You do not need pass key. The copy module rips main movie or full movie, the rip module rips to a different format, or pass through. They all export full audio, whatever is on the disc. Or you can choose to include other audio stream, or convert the audio to ac3. There is really nothing this software cannot do.
 
#15 ·
Big problems last night with the kdl. It kept hopping back to the main menu. I clicked on file manager, network, workgroup, and then bam, it went back to file manager. WTH?


Luckily I still had the width smp. It played my m2ts file. At the very end I wanted to rewind the credits a hair. Rewound it 5 seconds and hit play and it went to some chapter 20 minutes into the movie. Frustrated I'm getting.
 
#16 ·
I've ordered on of these 720s but won't be able to try it out for a few weeks. I'm not planning to use it networked - only with internal or attached hard drives. My plan was to rip BD and DVD to ISO using AnyDVD. Does this playback issue mentioned here occur when playing the ISO in this way or is this a playback over a network issue? Can anyone speak to their experiences when using the 720 this way. Thanks



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
#17 ·
G1nger: I'm doing the same approach you are planning, don't want to introduce issues with streaming over network. I can see my 720 on the network and copy files to the internal hard drive I put in the 720 via copying them from my desktop PC then play files directly from the 720 internal hard drive. I've started creating ISOs with AnyDvd and so far so good on the 720 but have only watched a couple. If the Bluray has the whole movie in one m2ts file I just copy the m2ts file to the 720 hard drive, otherwise I create an ISO if the movie is spread across multiple m2ts files. Since fewer and fewer devices are allowed to playback ISOs (MPAA?) I'm going to try DVDFab's DVD Ripper as a test to create a single m2ts file from a Bluray that has the movie spread across multiple m2ts files.
 
#18 ·
johnBlanker: sorry for off topic question, I downloaded DVDFab Bluray Ripper, doing my first "M2TS Passthrough" of a Bluray that contains multiple m2ts files to test it, I selected m2ts as the output file format. I didn't see a way to say no subtitles, is there a way to do this? Since the 720 seems to sometime have subtitles on as a default on certain files I would prefer to rip and not have the subtitles in at all.


You mentioned something about a global way to turn off subtitles in the 720, I haven't seen this option. If you know where it is can you please explain how to get to it?
 
#19 ·



All the elements I circled on that row are editable. You can set the start/end points, select/leave out certain audio, and select/deselect subtitle tracks.


The wife has the living room tonight, music awards are on.


I'll check later. But it is in one of the setup menus. You will see an option that says something like "Subtitles auto-on". Just turn that off.
 
#20 ·
Eric wrote back and suggested I use NFS server not workgroup network shares. THis is really outside of my ballpark of comprehension at the moment. I think when sharing a folder on a windows machine, this called samba shares, right? So NFS is something different and seems like it takes a bit more work to set up.


How long does it take you guys to send a BD rip through your network over to the HDD on the kdlinks?



Have to admit, my attention have been migrating over to the Micca player. I have not given up on the kdlinks, and Eric is very supportive over email. I hear that the Micca people are really into updating the firmware on a regular basis. They kind of have a reputation and have proven themselves. Just like WDTV. If this KDlinks company doesn't make it, then we are kind of SOL.


I don't like the fact that I cannot change the view of the folders. The jpg cover art is just a bit too small and there are no alternate views.
 
#22 ·
Re: How long does it take you guys to send a BD rip through your network over to the HDD on the kdlinks?


Somewhere in the 30-60 minute timeframe depending on size of m2ts/iso. It takes the same amount of time it took me to copy files from my desktop PC over network to the Popcorn Hour.
 
#23 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by G1Nger  /t/1500875/official-kdlinks-hd-streaming-media-player-thread#post_23989999


I've ordered on of these 720s but won't be able to try it out for a few weeks. I'm not planning to use it networked - only with internal or attached hard drives. My plan was to rip BD and DVD to ISO using AnyDVD. Does this playback issue mentioned here occur when playing the ISO in this way or is this a playback over a network issue? Can anyone speak to their experiences when using the 720 this way. Thanks



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I just experienced the same playback stutter when playing a seamless branched BD rip on the internal HDD. Although there was no pausing or stuttering, it chopped off the last second or so when it switched .m2ts files. I tested sending "the Internship", which it's main playlist is comprised of three .m2ts files, through my gigabit network. 39.4 GB filesize sent from pc through 2 gigabit routers to the KDL. Max transfer rate was 7.4MB/ps. It took over an hour. I don't think I would want to use the kdl as my target for ripping so that means 30 minutes to rip + over an hour to transport. Regardless of a Realtek limitation or a 100mbps lan port, this sucks.


The internship only consisted of 3 files to make up the movie but you can definitely tell it stuttered during the transition. This sucks too. Take a movie like Monsters U and that's a total disaster. I suggest ripping to one .m2ts file if you can.

Also the "import movie information" did not work at all.


I think I am going to keep it all things considered. I love the looks of the WDTV, but it won't play back seamless branched movies, (only the largest one), it won't play a bdmv folder easily either. You have to open up the STREAM folder and find the largest .m2ts file and play that. And after all that, it is a play and stay kind of player. Any ff/rr and it will screw up playback.


At least the kdlinks can handle all that, just not pretty. I don't really need the 720, I guess just the 700 would have done. Oh well.
 
#24 ·
Anyone have 1080p 24Hz turned on? My Epson 6010 projector is 1080p 24Hz capable but when I turn that option on in the KDL it causes problems. What appears to be happening is when an ISO switches from one m2ts file to another it puts the recording into a semi-fast forward mode, it's fast forwarding slightly and audio is fast forwarding as well. So I'm curious if anyone else has enabled this option.
 
#382 ·
You, sir, have solved my HD audio dropout issues on my AIOS HD Media Center! When DTS HD MA and Dolby TrueHD were played on Blu-ray movie files, it was touch and go as the audio would intermittently dropout whether you played the file long enough, if you paused, reversed or fast forwarded. I used to have to reset the input on the receiver all of the time to get the HD audio to return.
 
#25 ·
Thanks johnBlanker. So if the solution for seamless multibranch BD playback seems to suggest a remux to one m2ts file what is the easiest recommended way to do that using free tools (other than AnyDVD or DVDfab) for the rip?


I know this is off topic but I've heard of MakeMKV. Has anyone here used that with these kinds of movies? All I really want is to keep the main movie and the english HD audio track. Can MakeMkV compile the correct m2ts files together for seamless playback?


Kind of funny - I was looking for a simple way to play ripped BD movie from a HDD - with this news it seems its still going to require some work no different than my traditional approach to rip and re-encode (using BD rebuilder) and then burn to disc for playback in either my standalone BD player or PS3.


Thoughts?
 
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