[towncarblue]

im looking for a media player for my tv. im not too sure what i should buy.

im only interested in playing .mkv and dvd .iso files from a hard drive.

i want perfect picture and flawless playback ,descent navigation speed, the audio is not too much of a concern for me because i only have the speakers that the tv came with and im not planning to upgrade any time soon. i was looking at a dune 3.0 but at those prices im better off building a htpc .

im was looking at the wd tv and the asus o! player but im not sure which one of them is better.


i have a budget of $200 for the player {not including a hard drive}

 

[cstroman]

Those are both good. The Brite-View Cinematube is decent too for about $100. Depends on what kind of outputs you need.

 

[towncarblue]

all i need is a hdmi output and a coax audio output [ might get a soundbar for my tv].

output a 1080p .

i dont want a buggy player.

must support 3.5" hd . i would prefer if it had a space for a hd but if its not possible, a ESATA port would do

 

[cstroman]

Then any $100 player will do that. Just remember that most of those have a pretty basic File Structure type UI. But if all you are using it for is plugging in a Hard Drive, Memory Stick or hooking it to a LAN, then don't spend more than $100 to $150.

 

[towncarblue]

what is the best one currently in the $100-150 price range?

 

[towncarblue]

what is the best one picture quality range at 1080p .mkv files

 

[Derelict_Drvr]

Knowing what I know now, if I were you I would go with the WDTV (Live if you want network capability, HD Gen 2 if all you want to do is play movies from a HDD). Neither the Asus or the WDTV have an internal hard drive but for me that is not a problem. Most players with an internal drive have a cooling fan that may or may not be too noisy.


As far as the UI goes, I prefer the WDTV. I am not fond of the windows 3.11 style file manager UI of the Asus. While it is functional, it is painful to use. The UI on the WDTV is simple and straight forward enough that my 5 year old grand daughter can use it. She knows what icon to choose to watch her movies on both the attached HDD and off the network. I have all my movie listed in thumbnail mode with cover art so she can see and understand what movies are what. I even have the individual folders with thumbnails so she can choose the proper folder in network shares (on the attached HDD I don't have movies seperated into catagories, but she can find her movies by the cover art). The WDTV UI is not 1080p eye-candy like some, but very usable.


Reports are that with the updated firmware the Asus will play DVD iso's with menu support, whereas the WDTV does not. It will play ISO main movie only. Both will play uncompressed Bluray rips from an attached hard drive. Neither one does well trying to stream a Bluray rip from the network. There are some that claim they can with the WDTV Live, but from my experience that is a resounding no. Both will stream standard definition rips pretty well over a network with a good wired (or wireless N on the WDTV Live) connection.


You can pick up an Asus from Amazon.com for about $100. You can get a WDTV Live for about $120. the WDTV HD Gen 2 for about $115 and the WDTV HD Gen 1 for $100.

 

[Derelict_Drvr]



Quote:
Originally Posted by towncarblue /forum/post/18245253


what is the best one picture quality range at 1080p .mkv files

They are both about the same when it comes to picture quality. Where you will need to decide is what options you want. Biggest difference is that the Asus has a combination eSATA/USB port. The WDTV has 2 USB ports. From my experience, there is no need for an eSATA port, unless you have one on the computer and are transferring files that way. I make no difference when playing movies because USB 480Mb/s is plenty fast enough to play anything. eSATA might make a difference if you have a Gigabit network and plan to transfer files that way, but to me, taking the external HDD to the computer to transfer files is just easier to do.

 

[citrixguy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by towncarblue /forum/post/18243668


im looking for a media player for my tv. im not too sure what i should buy.

im only interested in playing .mkv and dvd .iso files from a hard drive.

i want perfect picture and flawless playback ,descent navigation speed, the audio is not too much of a concern for me because i only have the speakers that the tv came with and im not planning to upgrade any time soon. i was looking at a dune 3.0 but at those prices im better off building a htpc .

im was looking at the wd tv and the asus o! player but im not sure which one of them is better.


i have a budget of $200 for the player {not including a hard drive}

I would give a reasl hard look at the AC Ryan Playon. It offers full dvd iso menu support (something the wdtv can only wish for) and you can add an internal HHD.

 

[towncarblue]

i am not interested in networking support at all. i can live with either a external or internal hard drive. as far as dvd menu's im not interested in that feature. all my dvd iso files have the movie only [ dvd menu's are an inconvenience] also im not even sure if i will put my dvd collection on it

what i care about the most is the picture quality.

if the dune 3.0 has better picture quality ill aim for that, or a ps3 [ ill have to convert my .mkv's but thats ok ].


does the ps3 play the mkv/blu-ray converted to _____ files better than any of these stand alone media center"?


right now my pc is connected to my television and it plays the mkv files flawlessly. i just want to take my blu-ray collection and leave them for display without having to risk scratching them or losing picture quality as a tradeoff

 

[towncarblue]

must be able to handle 1080p 24f

 

[towncarblue]

just got the wdtv hd today. my god does the .mkv video quality SUCK

.[ used a 1080p transformers 2 mkv. looks perfect when played from my pc to a 50' samsung]


it was grainy, despite changing settings , it looked like a dvd with terrible upconversion.

i did not update any firmware yet, but if the quality does not improve tonight im returning this.

 

[citrixguy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by towncarblue /forum/post/18255805


just got the wdtv hd today. my god does the .mkv video quality SUCK

.[ used a 1080p transformers 2 mkv. looks perfect when played from my pc to a 50' samsung]


it was grainy, despite changing settings , it looked like a dvd with terrible upconversion.

i did not update any firmware yet, but if the quality does not improve tonight im returning this.

This is why I suggested the POHD

 

[towncarblue]

well i decided to keep the wdtv.

as it turns out the settings on my tv were not correct

somehow they ended up turning into factory stock , most likely when the power went out in my home. / id not suspect the tv settings because the last time the power went out the tv kept its settings


the mkv quality is NOT pc perfect but they were good enough for me


im trying to find out how do i put the thumbnails for my mkv files ?

 

[Derelict_Drvr]



Quote:
Originally Posted by towncarblue /forum/post/18289894


well i decided to keep the wdtv.

as it turns out the settings on my tv were not correct

somehow they ended up turning into factory stock , most likely when the power went out in my home. / id not suspect the tv settings because the last time the power went out the tv kept its settings


the mkv quality is NOT pc perfect but they were good enough for me


im trying to find out how do i put the thumbnails for my mkv files ?

The way I do it Town, is like this: MovieName.folder --> MovieName.jpg + MovieName.mkv. Some people put all the jpg's and video files in one folder, but I find that to be messy. The secret is to name the thumb and the video file EXACTALLY the same way. I.E. G.I. Joe.jpg & G.I Joe.mkv/avi/mp4 , etc.

 

[blackssr]



Quote:
Originally Posted by towncarblue /forum/post/18289894


well i decided to keep the wdtv.

as it turns out the settings on my tv were not correct

somehow they ended up turning into factory stock , most likely when the power went out in my home. / id not suspect the tv settings because the last time the power went out the tv kept its settings


the mkv quality is NOT pc perfect but they were good enough for me


im trying to find out how do i put the thumbnails for my mkv files ?

You made a good choice keeping the WD LIVE. It is the best player in its price range. I had several WDs before moving on to Dune Players. The only issues I had with the WD was lack of power when dealing with large bitrate files over lan and lack of bitstreaming of High Def Audio from all formats. This is a common issue with all players in the $ 100- $200 price range including the POHD.

 

[towncarblue]

WHERE CAN I FIND the best quality thumbnails for the wdtv HD

 

[Derelict_Drvr]



Quote:
Originally Posted by towncarblue /forum/post/18294898


WHERE CAN I FIND the best quality thumbnails for the wdtv HD

I get my thumbs from either movieposterdb.com or Google Images.

 

[schroedk]

I've run my own personal experiments with the WDTV (original), WDTV Live, Asus O!Play, and Popcorn Hour A101 (I think).


What it boils down to is the WDTV Live was the one that I bought a second of for my dedicated theater. All in all, I like the speed, GUI, network capabilities (primarily to delete/copy files from my desktop where I do all my ripping/converting to the WDTV without moving anything physically), ability to playback any and all video and audio formats I throw at it (the Asus won't play my BD files that have TrueHD audio, and my esata port is bad). I really wanted to like the Popcorn Hour, but I hate the GUI, and it was a bear to get it to play nice with my network. It was also slow and clunky compared with the Asus and both WDTV units.


What you'll find is that none of them is perfect, but in my own experience the WDTV live was about as plug and play and reliable as I expected it to be.

 

[towncarblue]

I JUST DUMPED A BUNCH OF THUMBNAILS[same folder as the .mkv] that i downloaded from cduniverse.com and they stop showing on the wdtv mkv files from the letter "T" and foward. i have a total of 31 mkv files. am i supposed to dump he thumbnails somewhere else"? do i have too many files in one folder?

i named the files exactly

i also have the latest wdtv.com fimware


I JUST realized... the wdtv is now not showing me all of my mkv files. do the WDTV HD have file limits whin each folder"??