MKV, DIVX, HD player Where?

newbie2

OK, got the WD TV up an running today.
The first thing you notice is the size of the thing - it's tiny. It's about the size and weight of a cheap router. Curious hands could easily pick it up and fling it across the room. The Hard Drive (HD) is a Western Digital My Book Essential 1 TB -and it's a bit more weighty.
Downloaded the new firmware and converted the HD to NTFS (I've got some meaty .mkv files that I wanted to store on it). It still amazes me why the default is always FAT32. Copied the 2 new files to the root directory of the HD. Connected the two things and the WD TV immeadiatly said that there was a frimware update available and preceded to intall it. Good Start.
I decided to test out if it could see all the files that I wanted to play on it so I lashed a couple of albums on it (which contained some album art, .mp3's and a couple of music videos), a couple of .avi's ( one contained a separate .srt file) a few .jpegs and a .mkv file. I just dumpeed all the files and folders directly onto the root directory to see what would happen and sure enough it put all the .jpegs into the photos catagory, the avi's and mkv's in to the videos catagory and the mp3's into the music catagory. the only problem is that the album art went into the photos cat and the music vidoes went into the videos cat ( I know they're supposed to ).
After making a couple of folders on the root directorty of the HD and selecting folders in the settings menu on the WDTV - this problem was solved. I would prefer a little more 'tweakability' on the menu structure as I'm familiar with J-River media center and WMC and customization is the nutz!
Spent most of the evening copying over nearly 500g of movies/photos and music and then fired it up agian today. Got a little shock when I turned it on and I kept gettign the message 'no storage found'. Paniced a bit but then left it there for about 10 minutes and it sorted itself out. It must have been searching the HD. Turned on the Library setting in the settings menu as this helps when you turn it on each time it doesn't take that long to search the HD.
Played all the files I could in the limited time I could get to it today. Everything plays really well and the Hi-Def stuff I have is great and sounds great although I needed to used the digital out for anything with DTS sound. ( I was expecting this and I accept it). the menu is smooth and the playback of all files is smooth. All in all a great player.
A few minor gripes - mostly with the personalisation of the menu - the thumbnails for videos etc but not bad. I'll give it a good thrashing over the weekendand get back to you all.:)

karltimber wrote: »

do they supply a hdmi cable ?

No

MediaTank

Sounds promising and a cheaper alternative to an NMT or TViX.

dpsj

Just ordered the same as you newbie2, hard drive on back order. Better start ripping those dvd's!

dpsj

Hi There,

I finally received this last night. It's tiny, straight forward to install and simple to use.
I have a 28" Sony Wega CRT which is about 6 years old and won't die (which would allow me to go and buy something new). I connected the WD HD TV with the supplied composite AV cable and the sreen definition is pretty awful, it's very difficult to read the menus and settings on the WD. I flicked through a few movies and the quality is very dependant on the compression but that's taken as a given.
Is there any way of improving this? Should I invest in gold plated connectors and all that?
Typically Sony the back of the TV is a joke 2 Scart connections and 1 composite connection.

Any suggestions appreciated. (I know most will say dump the TV, but it's working fine)

newbie2

i think in the WDTV settings there is a screen resolution setting that you can tweak - it shouldn't be that bad. I mean a 28" crt has a ****ty resolution anyway. Check that the out put is the correct format too (ie RGB or PAL). Don't go buying gold plated connectors as this'll be a waste of money.

have a play with the settings on the WDTV itself. Lowering the screen resolution. Setting the size to auto etc. I once connected a pc to a 28" panasonic crt via s-video cable and earhone cable and the quality wwasn't that bad.

if the worst comes to the worst you could try one of these:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=33041&&source=14&doy=search

dpsj

Thanks Newbie2,

Setting changes are fairly limited so the menu screen is still poor, however I was watching 24 Season 1 on the WD HD TV last night and put in the DVD to compare and there was no discernable difference, it was an .ISO file. Definitely need a new TV though!

mickwhytee

Hi guys,

I am new to streaming video around the house, I see they have the Zyxel DMA-1000 on Komplett for very good value.

has anyone used it?
is it any good will it play NTFS from usb storage device via network connected to a server?

Thanks in advance.

Michael.:D

J-blk

The WD TV is the biggest f*cking piece of crap I've ever used. I just got it this week and got around to setting up tonight. It worked just fine out of the box and I watched two videos on it. I then left it for awhile and it went into this "WD" screen saver thing and I couldn't get out of it no matter what I pressed on the remote. I powered the unit on and off and there's no signal on the HDMI no matter what I do (cable verified working with my laptop the same input on the TV). I reset the unit, powered off, unplugged - nothing works. It now only works on composite, which of course is useless. Trying the firmware now but it seems this lasted for one hour, which is about the crappiest thing I've ever owned...

J-blk

Well this is really weird... It refuses to work with the original HDMI cable I plugged in to it (and it did work, for about an hour). I changed to another HDMI cable and it works fine - but the original HDMI cable also still works with my PS3 and Mac so I have no idea what the heck is going on...

It also gave me all kinds of weird issues with losing the HDD after playing a file or not being able to play back mkv files after having just played one, etc. This all happened during the first 3-4 days but now it seems to be solid. Does it have like a burn-in period or something ?

Now that it's working as expected, it's great so hopefully that'll be the end of the various problems...

youcrazyjesus!

The spec says: "AAC/Dolby Digital decodes in 2 channel output only". If I plug the WD TV directly into standalone audio unit via optical cable it won't matter? I.e the standalone audio unit connected via optical can decode the 5.1 properly and this only refers to playing audio via HDMI cable through TV.

Also, a TrueHD encoded audio stream, I take it this is easy to reencode to something else?

kaisersose77

what are people using to create mkv files?

Got an azbox hd satellite receiver which will plays mkv files but only have a 1/2 mkv files due to ****ty broadband crap. So gonna look at converting blu ray/hd dvd to mkv in order to get more use out of that satellite receiver. So if anyone can recommend software it would be appreciated.

MediaTank

kaisersose77 wrote: »

what are people using to create mkv files?

Got an azbox hd satellite receiver which will plays mkv files but only have a 1/2 mkv files due to ****ty broadband crap. So gonna look at converting blu ray/hd dvd to mkv in order to get more use out of that satellite receiver. So if anyone can recommend software it would be appreciated.

You need to back up the DVD/BluRay disc first using something like DVDFab, then there is a plethora of encoding tools out there. I use HandBrake to convert the ISO or VOB files to a H.264 stream in an MKV container. HandBRake does not do DTS at the moment though.

karltimber

have a read of this thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=58641992#post58641992

I used xvid4psp to convert full 22gb blu-ray rips to mkv files.
And then the audio tool from networkmedia tank to convert from dts to ac3.

takes a while alright but worth it. 22gb files take up a lot of space.

K

jamesd

Got my WD today and am very impressed with it

glic83

how much did you get it for?

jamesd

From Komplett.ie , €99 + postage.

Was at someone else house last night and brought the wd with me a a usb key with movies, so easy to connect to any tv in a few seconds

AntiRip

Does ordinary .avi files look pixelated on a 37"+ tv's??

I have a 1TB Seagate (FAT32) will this work on it?
**Just seen a comment on komplett about NTFS Only** Damn all my stuff is on the FAT32 HDD

Absolutely love to get the popcorn hour but this may be a better alternative for me. I just want to play .avi's (just have a couple of .mkv's) in the bedroom instead of connecting the laptop to the telly all the time.

GigaByte

AntiRip wrote: »

Does ordinary .avi files look pixelated on a 37"+ tv's??

They'll look as good as a normal DVD

Lossy

AntiRip wrote: »

I have a 1TB Seagate (FAT32) will this work on it?
**Just seen a comment on komplett about NTFS Only** Damn all my stuff is on the FAT32 HDD

It will play NTFS and FAT32. I have a 500GB NTFS HD and a 2GB FAT USB KEY and both work with the WD. The only downside afaik of using FAT32 on the WD is the 4gb limit per file.


http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=572
Extract from this link:--
External Drive Formats Supported
FAT32, NTFS, HFS+ (no journaling)

AntiRip

Lossy wrote: »

It will play NTFS and FAT32. I have a 500GB NTFS HD and a 2GB FAT USB KEY and both work with the WD. The only downside afaik of using FAT32 on the WD is the 4gb limit per file.


http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=572
Extract from this link:--
External Drive Formats Supported
FAT32, NTFS, HFS+ (no journaling)

thanks for the info Lossy

AntiRip

Lossy wrote: »

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=572

Actually from that WD Link it stats that its requires a my passport portable hard drive.

BTW, if anyone is looking for cheap HDMI cable, this is probably the cheapest around.

Linky to DX

Lossy

AntiRip wrote: »

Actually from that WD Link it stats that its requires a my passport portable hard drive.

Its optimised for the My Passport and My Book WD drives but I think you would be hard pressed to find a mainstream external HD for windows that it would not recognise. Even some USB MP3 players that are classed as mass storage devices have worked too.

Alun

You can connect any USB hard disk you like as well as USB sticks, digital cameras and probably card readers too, in fact anything that acts as a USB Mass Storage class device. I just connected up my Nokia phone and it recognised it.

AntiRip

Just bought one from amazon.co.uk for e99 (including shipping). So saved myself the e13 shipping from Komplett. Looking forward to this! Thanks all for the info

I just don't understand Amazon. You can't order a small memory stick from them but I was able to order this! Strange...

AntiRip

Just got my WD HDTV box. My God, it's tiny! Connected it to my tv and 1TB FreeAgent HDD. Takes a few minutes to scan the hard drive. Pity it doesn't show any artwork just folders. Tried a few mp4, avi and mkv. Plays them all. Was expecting better quality from the mkv (720p) files. I'm only using the composite cables I got in the box (very short only 3 feet) so hopefully will look better when I get my HDMI cable?

Lossy

AntiRip wrote: »

Pity it doesn't show any artwork just folders. Tried a few mp4, avi and mkv. Plays them all.

Try the pre-release firmware:

http://www.wdc.com/wdtvprerelease/

If your .jpg files are named the same as the .avi files the artwork will appear once you have the firmware updated. Just remember that it is a pre-release firmware.

AntiRip

Lossy wrote: »

Try the pre-release firmware:

http://www.wdc.com/wdtvprerelease/

If your .jpg files are named the same as the .avi files the artwork will appear once you have the firmware updated. Just remember that it is a pre-release firmware.

Thanks Lossy for your helpful replies

Will try it out. Thanks

GigaByte

jpg files work great with the lastest firmware. You can download your movie pictures from: www.movieposterdb.com

MediaTank

GigaByte wrote: »

jpg files work great with the lastest firmware. You can download your movie pictures from: www.movieposterdb.com

If you have a lot of movies you could use YAMJ to download the cover art for you. It's designed for the Popcorn Hour, so just ignore all of the other files and copy the.JPG files on to the USB disk.

MT

AntiRip

Lossy wrote: »

Try the pre-release firmware:

http://www.wdc.com/wdtvprerelease/

If your .jpg files are named the same as the .avi files the artwork will appear once you have the firmware updated. Just remember that it is a pre-release firmware.

Thanks guys for the great info. Actually installed this pre release firmware today and my little box doesn't recognize my external hard drive anymore. It also stuck scanning my thumb drive. Damn. Can I revert back to the previous firmware?, that is if I can get it to recognize my thumb drive.

--> You can revert back to previous version. See below