MKV, DIVX, HD player Where?

dcom

Im sorry if my question is off topic but Im curious,
If i bought one of these western digital machines and attached an external hdd would it be possible to download dvds say some box sets (the shield etc) onto the hard drive so that we could watch them without having to change discs etc???

GigaByte

dcom wrote: »

Im sorry if my question is off topic but Im curious,
If i bought one of these western digital machines and attached an external hdd would it be possible to download dvds say some box sets (the shield etc) onto the hard drive so that we could watch them without having to change discs etc???

Thats the idea!

dcom

Thanks Gigabyte. I was going to start my post with 'i know this is probably a stupid question but.......' in the end I didnt but your smiley face makes me think I should have

I was concerned that a dvd of the shield would be coded so that it couldnt be copied or transferred so then the hdd idea would be out the window and i would be back trying to source a muti region mega changer dvd!!!

GigaByte

dcom wrote: »

Thanks Gigabyte. I was going to start my post with 'i know this is probably a stupid question but.......' in the end I didnt but your smiley face makes me think I should have

I was concerned that a dvd of the shield would be coded so that it couldnt be copied or transferred so then the hdd idea would be out the window and i would be back trying to source a muti region mega changer dvd!!!

You don't have to worry about region codes with this HD player. Anyway even if you where making a backup of your DVD you can remove/change the region code using something like DVD Shrink.

DVD Shrink is a great free program for ripping/backing up your DVD's. You can download if from here if you don't already have it.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/CD-DVD-Rip-Other-Tools/DVD-Shrink.shtml

MediaTank

GigaByte wrote: »

You don't have to worry about region codes with this HD player. Anyway even if you where making a backup of your DVD you can remove/change the region code using something like DVD Shrink.

DVD Shrink is a great free program for ripping/backing up your DVD's. You can download if from here if you don't already have it.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/CD-DVD-Rip-Other-Tools/DVD-Shrink.shtml

DVDShrink hasn't been developed in quite a while and so won't back up newer discs (since 2002 I believe). You need something like AnyDVD or DVDFab to do the backup.

zt-OctaviaN

Would you consider putting together a PC?

350 euro will get you what you need

Dual Core intel at 3.0Ghz, Mobo with HDMI, Cube Case with 380W PSU, 2Gb Ram

That will playback 1080P MKV aswell as whatever codec you update it with!!!!!

Run Vista Media Centre or XBMC! Job done!

GigaByte

zt-OctaviaN wrote: »

Would you consider putting together a PC?

350 euro will get you what you need

Dual Core intel at 3.0Ghz, Mobo with HDMI, Cube Case with 380W PSU, 2Gb Ram

That will playback 1080P MKV aswell as whatever codec you update it with!!!!!

Run Vista Media Centre or XBMC! Job done!

He's looking for something affordable, the WD unit is 100 euro's.

You've left out a few items as well, like wireless keyboard and mouse, but more importantly there's no hard drive either?? I'm guessing the mobo doesn't have an optical out connection on it for sound?

Obviously a Media PC would be the best option, but you're not going to build the one you're talking about for 350 euro’s.

MediaTank

GigaByte wrote: »

He's looking for something affordable, the WD unit is 100 euro's.

You've left out a few items as well, like wireless keyboard and mouse, but more importantly there's no hard drive either?? I'm guessing the mobo doesn't have an optical out connection on it for sound?

Obviously a Media PC would be the best option, but you're not going to build the one you're talking about for 350 euro’s.

Agreed. You've also got to buy the Vista software if you go down that route.

dcom

Thanks guys
I will give the WD a go.

D

Shamo

Firmware update has been released. Embedded .mkv subtitles now work and various other stuff.

viv.ie

Shamo wrote: »

Firmware update has been released. Embedded .mkv subtitles now work and various other stuff.

Just done the firmware upgrade and it seems to have sorted out a lot of issues I was concerned about.Firstly 1080p seems to play flawlessly now before there was a lot of pixelation,secondly ts files are now recognised,thirdly if you press next when in FF the files moves forward by 10 minutes this is great for moving through long movies.Loads more upgrades regarding subtitles etc.All in all very happy obviously Western Digital put a lot of time into this upgrade.

newbie2

Orderd mine off komplett just before christmas - realy looking forward to getting it. Glad to hear some of the little problems have been fixed with the latest firmware.

gsxr1

I have a good few MKV file films on my computer and cant watch them on my TV unless I plug a laptop into the TV.

How would one set up the WD player . Would it work by connecting it to an external hard drive?

Can I stream movies via my router from my laptop to the WD player?

My theater system does not have an Optical input. Would I need a new Theater system for this?

thanks

MediaTank

gsxr1 wrote: »

I have a good few MKV file films on my computer and cant watch them on my TV unless I plug a laptop into the TV.

How would one set up the WD player . Would it work by connecting it to an external hard drive?

Can I stream movies via my router from my laptop to the WD player?

My theater system does not have an Optical input. Would I need a new Theater system for this?

thanks

The WD player requires an external USB drive for media. So your movies should be stored on this. It doesn't have any network capability so connecting to a router is out. If you want to stream over the network you need a networked player e.g. NMT or TViX.

If you have HDMI rather than optical you'll be good to go.

MT

wiseolsham

Folks, Ive tried nosing around the web, avforums, avsforums, here and cant seem to find how to embed a jpg into the avi / mkv / mp4 for the library view on the WD TV. Say, using the film poster as the jpeg as opposed to an actual frame from the file.
Surely theres a simple method, or is there?

MediaTank

wiseolsham wrote: »

Folks, Ive tried nosing around the web, avforums, avsforums, here and cant seem to find how to embed a jpg into the avi / mkv / mp4 for the library view on the WD TV. Say, using the film poster as the jpeg as opposed to an actual frame from the file.
Surely theres a simple method, or is there?

Given the capabilities of the player, I doubt that it can be accomplished. FWIW, the NMT players can display a web page with the details of file including a film poster, fan art or the DVD cover for example.

GigaByte

MediaTank wrote: »

Given the capabilities of the player, I doubt that it can be accomplished. FWIW, the NMT players can display a web page with the details of file including a film poster, fan art or the DVD cover for example.

It can already display embedded album art and thumb nailed jpg pictures so I would think it’s certainly capable. Hopefully with the next firmware update it will be a simple case of having a jpg filename with the same title as the movie. A lot of people seem to be requesting this feature.
Fingers crossed!

MediaTank

GigaByte wrote: »

It can already display embedded album art and thumb nailed jpg pictures so I would think it’s certainly capable. Hopefully with the next firmware update it will be a simple case of having a jpg filename with the same title as the movie. A lot of people seem to be requesting this feature.
Fingers crossed!

Fair enough. Fingers crossed too This is what I was referring to http://code.google.com/p/moviejukebox/wiki/MovieJukebox

wiseolsham

Cheers, wasnt looking for anything advanced. The jukebox looks great, but for now, if anyone can help, I just want to embed a jpeg (ie movie poster)into an avi / mp4. Any suggestions?

GigaByte

Embedding into an mp4 is very simple if you use mediamonkey as for avi's you'll have to wait for a firmware fix.

Here's 3 movies I embedded movie art into using mediamonkey. If you right click on the movie in mediamonkey and select properties. You can add the movie art into the file there, see the screen shot below




Then when you hook your usb drive/key or what every you use, you should see something like this: (sorry for the bad pic)

wiseolsham

Brilliant! Thanks a million for that! Nice setup BTW

Auvers

@gigabyte does imbedding the pic work with a .mkv container?

GigaByte

No, hopefully in the next firmware they will support embedded MKV's and folder.jpg or movie_name.jpg.

There's lots of information and help on the AVSForum, here a link to the WD HD TV Player thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1080840&page=1

There's over 120 pages to go through!

livEwirE

Is there any delay in playback of full 1080p MKV files over a USB drive connected to this machine?

GigaByte

The only way you can play any files is through the USB connection. I'm not having any delays with any 1080p MKV files. All play perfectly but I think there was alot of problems before the first firmware came out. I updated the firmware before I played any files.

karltimber

nice bit of kit alright.

just to re-cap -

Use the WD HD player with an external hard drive (by usb) to play 720 ac3 encoded mkv's - correct ?
Mkv's with dts sound can be encoded to ac3 - as per auvers link-correct ?

what size type of external hd's are ye using - WD mybook 1tb ?
can the ext drive be in ntfs to support 5gb+ mkv files ?

side question - what software can I use to encode 25gb m2ts files down to 5gb mkv's.

I have a popcorn but a friend wants to play hd mkv's along with avi's

thanks
k

GigaByte

karltimber wrote:

Use the WD HD player with an external hard drive (by usb) to play 720 ac3 encoded mkv's - correct ?k

Yes.

karltimber wrote:

Mkv's with dts sound can be encoded to ac3 - as per auvers link-correct ?k

Yes, you can keep the dts audio track as well or remove it

karltimber wrote:

what size type of external hd's are ye using - WD mybook 1tb ?k

I'm using a 1TB My Book and a 500GB My Passport

karltimber wrote:

can the ext drive be in ntfs to support 5gb+ mkv files ?

Yes

karltimber wrote:

side question - what software can I use to encode 25gb m2ts files down to 5gb mkv's.k

There's alot of good tutorials out there which you can find on google.

karltimber wrote:

thanks

Your welcome

MediaTank

karltimber wrote: »

side question - what software can I use to encode 25gb m2ts files down to 5gb mkv's.

tsmuxer or RipBot64 will do it. Conversion can take a couple of days though depending on you computer.

karltimber

grand will try it out - have a quad-ex so that may help

should be a good upgrade from a standard media hard drive for playing avi's, now mkv's too.

thx lads

k

MediaTank

karltimber wrote: »

grand will try it out - have a quad-ex so that may help

Should cut it down to 24 hours or so

newbie2

Just got this WD TV media player and a WD myBook 1 TB Drive in the post. I'm looking forward to setting it up and giving it a good aul test. I'll post up results/problems/fixes either later tonight or tomorrow.

karltimber

did you get them both off pixmania ?

k

dpsj

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for some advice, I saw a multimedia drive at Christmas that my brother in law got from iBOOD, it was an argosys one. I liked the idea but thought there might be better ones out there, I assumed that all I'd have to do was take a quick look through the reviews and place an order.
Boy was I wrong, I'm going blind from Googling, and getting more confused every day.

My requirements:
I have no DVD rips on my PC, so I'll only save to whatever format the player can play.
I have some Mini DV footage that would be nice to watch on the TV. I think its .AVI.
The main reason I want this is to burn the kids DVD's on to it as they are destroying them as fast as I can buy them. (Bob the Builders latest adventure €15, destroyed by a teething 12 month old. Do that a few times and this thing would pay for itself.

I think I've ruled out all the fancy network drives and the likes as I don't really need all the bells and whistles (this is the recesion hitting, I normally get the B&W and justify it by saying I'll need it sometime in the future)
I've been reading this thread and I think this WD HD TV is good enough for my needs, if coupled with a tidy external Hard Drive.

My Questions

Why should I opt for this instead of the Iomega Screenplay one that comes with a built in hard drive?

What hard drive 500g to 1tb <€100 would people recommend?

Anything else I should look at Max €200?

MY TV

Sony CRT, but might upgrade next year so HD connection important
Sony Home Cinema, with very poor selection of connections

Thanks for any help.

newbie2

karltimber wrote: »

did you get them both off pixmania ?

k

yep - -after komplett fXXked me around a bit with availability. Ordered on Friday night - Delivered today ( thursday)

newbie2

dpsj wrote: »

Hi Guys.....

.......My Questions

Why should I opt for this instead of the Iomega Screenplay one that comes with a built in hard drive?

What hard drive 500g to 1tb <€100 would people recommend?

Anything else I should look at Max €200?

MY TV

Sony CRT, but might upgrade next year so HD connection important
Sony Home Cinema, with very poor selection of connections

Thanks for any help.

dpsj,
haven't used this yet so cannot give you a definitive reason why you should use the WD TV instead of the IOmega. Waht I can tell from the product description on pixmania is that the IOmega doesn't support .mkv files. While this may not be any use to you as .mkv files are HD, if you do eventually get a HD telly, you'll be futureproofed. Also Hard Drive's have a habit of failing at a remarkablly frequent rate (3 years or so is the expected lifetime for a Hard Drive) so getting an external HD will mean if it does fail you wont have to buy another media player.

You can get a 1TB external hard drive for less than 100 on both komplett and pixmania ( lots of makes - have a search)

Both the WD TV and the Western Digital external 1 TB hard drive cost me €251 (inc VAT and delivery) from pixmania. The same deal on komplett cost me €242 (inc VAT and delivery). you could reduce this cost by getting a cheaper/smaller hard drive.

I'll post my findings on the WD TV later tonight or tomorrow ( the weekend at the latest) and I'll be very critical if needs be, so don't rush out and buy anything until you've done the homework.
Also don't forget that you'll need to get software to rip the DVD's to the hard drive. there's plenty available both free and that cost money. Again homework needs to be done.....

dpsj

Thanks Newbie2, I'll await your findings with great anticipation. I have to get something soon, came home to find a few dvd's posted out the letter box to the driveway by the 2y.o!!

MediaTank

newbie2 wrote: »

d Waht I can tell from the product description on pixmania is that the IOmega doesn't support .mkv files. While this may not be any use to you as .mkv files are HD, if you do eventually get a HD telly, you'll be futureproofed.

MKV is just a container, it can hold SD as well as HD content. But you're right it is a big disadvantage.

karltimber

howdy,

this is what it supports

Video: MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI, Xvid, AVX, H.264, MKV, MOV

I have full blue-ray rips at 25gb each. I renamed some of them from *.m2ts to *.mpeg and they play fine.
Does this unti support Mpeg-hd or am I as well to encode these m2ts files down to mkv, at least to save on space.

-whats avx ?
K

hey 1000 post aswell :D

MediaTank

karltimber wrote: »

-whats avx ?

Are you sure it's not a typo? could be AVC another codec.

karltimber

this is from the WD site

Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),
MTS, TP, TS

edit - just realized that the updated version supports .mts files - full blue-ray rips (*.m2ts) so happy days.
No real need to encode to mkv unless for file size.


do they supply a hdmi cable ?

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?