*New* Western Digital - WD TV HD Media Player - Page 9

Reviewer writes:
---------------------
"I hooked up an external drive to this unit with a Ethernet port. Dragged and dropped divx files from my pc to my drive and it automatically saw the videos without having to power cycle...
---------------------
Can anyone figure out what drive this guy has?
Is it some NAS with USB port? AFAIK, this port on NAS is usually for USB printer. In our case, we need concurrent (or may be switched) access to NAS as a client via USB port. He claims "without having to power cycle..."

That's a good point. But have you seen the statistics on how many people do torrents?

I suspect many of them don't do wireless or networking.

Any idea on how to create a video playlist for this device? I've been unable to create one successfully with Mplayer and other media players. It simply doesn't show up in the browser, even though it's on the drive.

Anyone have any success creating video playlists for this thing?

Well, no harm certainly. This will be my last post on the subject, since I don't own one; my OP was simply that I was surprised this seemed to be so instantly popular (which likely supports your position GT...someone's buying 'em), as it didn't offer anything new.

Enjoy,

CD

I think someone else metioned this already, but XBOX360 encoded WMV do not play. Anyway to play them?

Also, all my MKV files play vid fine, but no sound at all via HDMI. Plays fine with VLC on PC. Anyone else has this problem and know how to fix it?

TIA!

The WD box will not process audio at all. You need to go to system settings and set audio to digital. This will then pass the bitstream of either DD or DTS from your MKV files to your receiver.

Thanks for the reply. Then I have to use an optical cable? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of HDMI?

if your receiver can decode audio on the hdmi then you good, hdmi will work. if you receiver cant then you have to use optical.

if you file has dd or dts only then you have to use receiver capable of doing dts or dd, if your file has stereo then you can hook it up to something that doesnt.

alot depends on your setup.

Would love to know. This was my idea from the start. I think the Ximeta based NDAS boxes should work, but for the network side to be active the WD TV either has to have power unplugged (not just in standby mode) or the USB connection unplugged.

I'm pulling the trigger the moment someone figures out how to get it to work over the network for under 100 dollars.

It's cheap, plays all the video ph does, less than 1/2 the price, available locally so no paying shipping, much much bigger name. Most people do not have a NAs, adn if they do most are not over 1-2 TB which can easily be eaten up by Usenet. Just keeping a computer as the main downloader and moving movies over to a different drive to watch is wicked easy and will even save energy because you won't have to keep all your **** on all the time. I'm still stunned as to why anyone wouldn't be interested unless they've already payed for a ph. You keep saying it doesn't offer anything new, well you've been overlooking the fact that it's available right down the road for most of us. Is much much cheaper and is a company that people have heard of, all of these things the ph is not. While it's one of the best network media tanks, a lot of people don't want to spend that much to see if it will work for all of our movies.

I know I was more than a little bummed when my hd-dvd player became obsolete, this allows me to be physical format free for a very low cost entry point.

Could the WD TV HD media player be used in a vehicle (powered by a dc power adapter) with a DVD player which has AV inputs? Obviously the composite video input would have to be used.

wattsup

well i hate to admit it but im probably going to take this back and build a htpc for a little more. the fact that this doesnt do 1080p mkv, or read from iso's. i like the idea of having upgradable hardware so i can do all the audio stuff. is this hdmi 1.3a if so they might be able to do a firmware upgrade to support. but right now there are to many advantages a htpc have over this, even though it will run around 300 as opposed to 100.

Mine plays 1080p mkvs just fine.

So basically, if you try to play an MKV with DTS through HDMI, without using an optical cable or receiver, you are screwed?

Mine seems to work with AC3 2.0 MKV files, but any 5.1 audio wont play through the HDMI.

Is vc1 in a .ts or .m2ts confirmed?

Someone said There Will Be Blood (vc1) .m2ts didn't work...

It will work. If your receiver can decode audio via HDMI, then you should be getting full 5.1 through HDMI.

Yeah I know it works like that, but what if I dont want to use my receiver and just get sound through the TV? Late at night, I dont want to use the receiver.

Then hook up the optical cable to your TV. You can have them both hooked up simultaneously.

Im not aware of any TV that has an optical in, and for that matter, a DTS decoder.

Hi-Jack, have you got hold of one of these units yet?...I'd be interested in hearing your feedback.

Also, would be good to get a list of what it does and does not play....like dts in wav file etc...

K

its reading isos for me just fine. i am disappointed that it doesn't do embedded subs for mkvs.

For anyone interested, I just tested it with my Kill-A-Watt, and this thing pulls only 7 watts when decoding a Blu-Ray .m2ts file. Pulls 5 watts when idle.

I have a few questions in my mind. I hope some of you guys can help.

1- If I buy this in the U.S., will it work in Europe with PAL LCD TVs?

2- Could you please look at the adapter and tell me if it works only with 110V or between 100-240Vs?

3- Can you change the font size of the subtitle? How about the location of the subtitle?

Thank you.

I have not had much time to play with the WD TV I picked up from BestBuys on Monday. Since that time my computer has been converting my 200+ home video clips which I discovered were in an AVI format the unit would not decode. I sure hope the conversions fixed that, as those home movies are my justification for the purchase.

My setup is a 500 gig external WD drive connected to the WD TV and the WD TV connected to my HD LCD TV via HDMI. The biggest pain will be updating/uploading the files on/to the hard drive. I have a media computer near by. A ten foot USB cable would reach the external drive without moving it. I thought about acquiring a two port USB switch. However, since 500 gigs is currently just enough, I will probably be upgrading the external drive. I am thinking looking for a 1 TB USB/NAS combination, since there is a network connection near by.

From what I have read above, I am assuming the following (please correct me if I am wrong):

The USB/NAS will not allow both connections to be live?
The USB connection is the default connection if live?
If I unplug the USB cable or turn the power off to the USB connected device (the WD TV), the network connection will become available (so I can do file maintenence)?

Yea that was me, so other full backups worked fine so it was localized to that rip for what ever reason

Some of mine do, some don't. Is it possibly related to the level 4.1 vs. level 5.1 encoding? I have no idea how to tell which is which.

Load the MKV into tsmuxer, it will tell you under video stream

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=134104

Also use MediaInfo, and you get detailed info, example below:

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 29mn
Bit rate : 6 317 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 6 600 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.299
Writing library : x264 core 56 svn-667C
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-3:-2 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=hex / subme=6 / brdo=1 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=1 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / bime=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / bitrate=6600 / ratetol=1.0 / rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30
Language : English

As you can see the reframes = 8 - thats fine, you get problems when 8 is execeded.

1. Yes, has both 50 & 60 settings in video output.
2. Yes 100-240/50-60hz Need adapter for pins.
3. don't think so.

Which would be doable with a somewhat inelegant workaround: Just buy an X10 remote power switch for about $20. I've got one that has a remote and four power receptacles. I use one of them to do power-cycles of my wireless router when it's acting up. Saves a lot of running up and down stairs.