MKV, DIVX, HD player Where?

PowerHouseDan

I am looking for a affordable solution for a Hardware MKV/DIVX etc player that supports HDMI?Anyone have advice, reviews.

Thanks

knackee

Have a look at the TViX players:
http://www.dvico.com/

Plenty of reviews online

MediaTank

Also check out the NMT based players http://networkedmediatank.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Reviews here www.mpcclub.com

40coats

I've just ordered a couple of popcornhour players for christmas pressies, heard nothing but good things about them.

PowerHouseDan

I think i might hold out for the western digital HD TV for 99euro

Shamo

PowerHouseDan wrote: »

I think i might hold out for the western digital HD TV for 99euro

Pixmania moved the stocked date to the 28th, it was the 21st until today.

Any idea if it's in stock anywhere yet?

PowerHouseDan

Play.com were also ment to stock it from 21st, now its
Temporarily out of stock. This item will be dispatched as soon as it arrives... Thats either i hasnt come in or they sold all there pre sales.

Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player

Shamo wrote: »

Pixmania moved the stocked date to the 28th, it was the 21st until today.

Any idea if it's in stock anywhere yet?

Shamo

I've just put a pre-order down in pixmania so hopefully they'll get them in stock in enough time for christmas!

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

I've just put a pre-order down in pixmania so hopefully they'll get them in stock in enough time for christmas!

You do know Pixmania are useless don't you?

Thinking of getting one of these myself! look very nice indeed

Shamo

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

You do know Pixmania are useless don't you?

Thinking of getting one of these myself! look very nice indeed

I didn't at the start but thinking they are now

It was out of stock when i ordered, then it went "in stock" then it went 25/11/08 now it's back at "in stock"! They had replied to my email this morning saying there was no estimated stock date from the supplier. Asked to cancel the order so i'll get it somewhere else

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

I didn't at the start but thinking they are now

It was out of stock when i ordered, then it went "in stock" then it went 25/11/08 now it's back at "in stock"! They had replied to my email this morning saying there was no estimated stock date from the supplier. Asked to cancel the order so i'll get it somewhere else

Dammit! i was going to order one from them too, despite the fact that they are useless (i ordered a dvd burner form them before that was dead on arrival, lets just say their after sales service is sooooo bad!) Let us know if you find anywhere else that has them! i'll do the same. I know Play.com has them but i don't think they ship electronics to Ireland.....:mad:

EDIT - Just saw they have it for 99 dollaroos on the American Dell site! i wonder do they deliver to here?

MediaTank

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

I know Play.com has them but i don't think they ship electronics to Ireland.....:mad:

Correct, like Amazon they won't ship here.

Shamo

May wait a few days I think and see who gets them in stock. The only UK places i can see that have them are Play.com and Scan.co.uk.

Scan's website doesn't seem to be built for non uk customers and they said in an email that the shipping to Ireland is £25 approx for items under 1kg. That makes it a bit too expensive for my liking!

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

Ireland is £25 approx for items under 1kg

:eek:

Shamo

Just seeing that it has been in stock all day on pixmania if anyone wants to risk buying it to see if it will ship the next day?!

PowerHouseDan

I have contacted Komplett, McKomplett is contacting them the Supplier to see if they will stock it.

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

Just seeing that it has been in stock all day on pixmania if anyone wants to risk buying it to see if it will ship the next day?!

I was going to chance it alright and pay extra for 48 hour delivery. Will have to see if the funds allow it tomorrow

Vic Vinegar

I ordered a wd tv form Pixmania this morning with the 24 -48 hour delivery. Still says in stock so fingers crossed...

Shamo

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

I ordered a wd tv form Pixmania this morning with the 24 -48 hour delivery. Still says in stock so fingers crossed...

If you do order tracking you can see if it's gone to "prepared for delivery" or whatever it is

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

If you do order tracking you can see if it's gone to "prepared for delivery" or whatever it is

It says "Your package is in the process of being prepared by our logistics department and will be sent as quickly as possible."

Promising!

Shamo

See the attached image there, where it says "waiting to be delivered"? If there's a 1 there it means it's actually been taken from stock.

Yes I i have no patience!!

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

Yes I i have no patience!!

Ha! no guff!

It now says:

Your package is ready to be sent. Please find your package number below.

No "1" in the waiting to be delivered as yet though!

There is a "1" on the Qty Del. tho

Shamo

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

There is a "1" on the Qty Del. tho

Nice one! Been sent out for delivery so. Time to place an order I think

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

Nice one! Been sent out for delivery so. Time to place an order I think

I'll not get too excited till it's in my sweaty hands (and working, unlike the last thing they sent :mad:)

Shamo

Got mine today, haven't tested it yet though.

PowerHouseDan

any update shamo?

Shamo

Decided against testing it as it's a present so don't want to break all the seals!

Looks the business though.

I'd say Bombleswizzum should be on sometime with a report!

Vic Vinegar

Shamo wrote: »

I'd say Bombleswizzum should be on sometime with a report!

I'll have mine tomorrow at some stage so i'll post up impressions when i've had a play with it and tested some HD rips!

Vic Vinegar

It came this morning. It's bloody tiny! the remote is half the size of my palm, the wd tv is really small and you literally just plug in and play. I tried out a few mkv files, they looked so crisp! played loads of file types with no problems (from a 500g Maxtor Basics external drive plugged in via usb)

So far it's looking like a great buy!

PowerHouseDan

Have you tried any 1080p mkv files? Heard they can be abit sluggish.

Vic Vinegar

PowerHouseDan wrote: »

Have you tried any 1080p mkv files? Heard they can be abit sluggish.

Yeah, i tried a couple (don't have too many) they were fine! just as smooth as 720p files

viv.ie

PowerHouseDan wrote: »

Have you tried any 1080p mkv files? Heard they can be a bit sluggish.

Hi Got mine Friday,tried two 1080p files(iMax The Alps)it looked quite pixelated, however it was on a 32inch Sony which is not full Hi Def so maybe not quite fair to comment on that.I will try it tomorrow on my full 1080p 40inch Sony and see what its like.I already have a popcorn A100 and I think euro for euro the WD HD is better value,I only really want it to play 720p MKV files with decent audio and apart from not having a DTS encoder built in it is a great media player.I use a home theatre system with DTS support so I don't have a problem with DTS.The WD HD has one great advantage over the Popcorn in that is creates a bookmark on every file you play so if you stop a movie halfway the next time you open it ,it asks you if you want to start from where you left off,if only my popcorn had that:rolleyes:.Picture quality on 720p files are nothing short of brilliant,hardly any buffer time when loading a file.The software interface while being quite basic is on par with the popcorn if anything looks a bit more polished.If anyone else has a WD HD and knows how to display jpeg as thumbnails they might post the info,there is a software disc with it but I have not bothered running it.Does not recognise ts files ( I have a 1080p video ts files on my drive and the WD HD does not see it!I am using a WD Passport drive and the player comes with a nifty stand to hold it.By the way I ordered mine from Pixmania and took about a week to arrive,I buy quite a bit from iBood so 1 week was nothing was fast from what I am used to!

MediaTank

Here's the first review I've seen - pretty complimentary. http://maddhat.com/?p=31

Auvers

just got mine today I will post back with some results later, I have lots of 1080p rips to try it out on :cool:

MediaTank

viv.ie wrote: »

Does not recognise ts files ( I have a 1080p video ts files on my drive and the WD HD does not see it!I am using a WD Passport drive and the player comes with a nifty stand to hold it.

Rename the .TS file to .MPG and it should work.

Auvers

Right gave it a quick test run tonight and I am very impressed

picture quality is very sharp on my 42" LCD TV connected via HDMI. Seems to handle fast action scenes in 1080p bitrate 11580 kbps (The.Dark.Knight.ESiR) with no problems. I tried a number of other video file types and all worked flawlessly so I really think its steal at 100 quid.

oh there is one downside that the WD TV HD can't decode DTS to stereo. DTS only sounds through the optical connector and an external DTS amplifier, and all the subtitles must be in .srt format (UTF-8) in an external file. Subtitles inside MKV don't go. You have to extract it with MKVExtract

But only if it had an ethernet port this would made the WD TV an absolutely fantastic product instead of just a great one.

Vic Vinegar

Auvers wrote: »

and all the subtitles must be in .srt format (UTF-8) in an external file. Subtitles inside MKV don't go. You have to extract it with MKVExtract

I was wondering about that, nice one!

MediaTank

At that price point, there are a number of limitations but there are work arounds

Shamo

Yeah if it had an Ethernet connection and could view shared folders then it'd be brilliant but as was said before they're probably wanting to sell more WD Passports! I doubt the price would jump much in order to support this.

I use the xbox 360 and a server to stream HD media but there's limitations with the xbox as well (Only supports 5.1 in WMVHD, other codecs need their audio converted to stereo). Only takes a few minutes to do this though.

For a 100quid you can't go wrong with what you get, according to what it has been reported to play.

Seriously thinking about getting one myself to go beside the 360 as having 5.1 in HD movies would be nice for a change.

MediaTank

Shamo wrote: »

Yeah if it had an Ethernet connection and could view shared folders then it'd be brilliant but as was said before they're probably wanting to sell more WD Passports! I doubt the price would jump much in order to support this.

I'd expect it to double with the extra circuitry and software support required - SMB, NFS, HTTP, FTP and browsing capability for a start.

MediaTank

Auvers wrote: »

oh there is one downside that the WD TV HD can't decode DTS to stereo. DTS only sounds through the optical connector and an external DTS amplifier, and all the subtitles must be in .srt format (UTF-8) in an external file. Subtitles inside MKV don't go. You have to extract it with MKVExtract

But only if it had an ethernet port this would made the WD TV an absolutely fantastic product instead of just a great one.

At that price point, it will never do DTS downmixing because of licensing costs. But at least it passes it through the SPDIF. No spupport for Master Lossless DTS or TrueHD at any level though.

PowerHouseDan

SOrry i got a bit confused with the Whole DTS sound, Most of my movies are in DTS for my z-5500 now i plan of using this in the bedroom just hooked up to tv, Does DTS not work or just not just in Digital Output?

Auvers

PowerHouseDan wrote: »

SOrry i got a bit confused with the Whole DTS sound, Most of my movies are in DTS for my z-5500 now i plan of using this in the bedroom just hooked up to tv, Does DTS not work or just not just in Digital Output?

its works fine with optical out, so if you have an optical port on your TV your sorted

MediaTank

No TV that I know of has a built in decoder. DTS licensing is costly, so it's usually just available in AV receivers or special decoder boxes. In other words it's unlikely to work even if your TV has SPDIF in.

MT

Shamo

All PowerHouseDan has to do is connect the optical cable from the WD HD device into the z-5500s isn't it?

MediaTank

Shamo wrote: »

All PowerHouseDan has to do is connect the optical cable from the WD HD device into the z-5500s isn't it?

Yes, but he wants to connect the WD HD just to the TV, which won't decode DTS.

PowerHouseDan

Yeah i have a media Centre Downstairs which is connected to z-5500 etc but wanted to buy the WD for another hd tv in bedroom. So will DTS ie mkv with dts soundtracks play in standard sound or is there anyway to get it to play, via hdmi etc.

MediaTank wrote: »

Yes, but he wants to connect the WD HD just to the TV, which won't decode DTS.

MediaTank

OTOH, I believe that the latest firmware for the Popcorn Hour includes DTS to stereo downmixing which could be an option.

PowerHouseDan

anyone?

Auvers

PowerHouseDan wrote: »

Yeah i have a media Centre Downstairs which is connected to z-5500 etc but wanted to buy the WD for another hd tv in bedroom. So will DTS ie mkv with dts soundtracks play in standard sound or is there anyway to get it to play, via hdmi etc.

Thers is no way of playing DTS sound without a decoder. I converted the DTS soundtracks to AC3 sound with this freeware tool PopCorn MKV AudioConverter using this Turorial

it works great

GigaByte

This was just posted over on avsforum by ScottWD from Western Digital

The new firmware update is just about ready for primetime. We've made significant improvements based on community feedback. I will stop by and let you know when it's ready. We expect to have something to you before the end of the year!

There's a thread over there with a lot of useful information that you might like to read. I bite the bullet and ordered one.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1080840

If you're unsure what format the sound is using you can use Media Info to find out

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en