Western Digital HD 1080 Media Player Queries??

[craigfin]

I'm just about to buy the WD HD media player but I have a few queries that you guys will no doubt be able to answer.

1. Some of the fantastic reviews I read mentioned that not all the audio worked on some of their video files through the HDMI connection. One review said that 80% of their video files didn't play the audio. I want to use the HDMI connection only in my setup. 99.9% of the files I want to play will be my archived DVD collection, DivX, XviD and AVI. My question is, do you think I will have any audio issues with that kind of setup playing those common formats?

2. When I archive my DVD collection I see alot of people convert their DVD's into an ISO image. I believe this is an uncompressed format so what are the reasons / advantages to do this conversion when you aren't saving any storage space? Wouldn't is be easier for me to rightclick, copy and paste onto another harddrive? Can't I then remove the DVD extras using this method?

3. Does the player support subtitles? I'm not interested in the language / hard of hearing subtitles but the parts of a movie when it cuts to another part of the world and they subtitle the conversation.

4. I have a basic 5.1 setup and would like to know if the player will output in surround sound?

Many thanks,

Craig.

[andy1249]

1. Some of the fantastic reviews I read mentioned that not all the audio worked on some of their video files through the HDMI connection. One review said that 80% of their video files didn't play the audio. I want to use the HDMI connection only in my setup. 99.9% of the files I want to play will be my archived DVD collection, DivX, XviD and AVI. My question is, do you think I will have any audio issues with that kind of setup playing those common formats?

The player will decode most audio formats , the ones it cant decode it passes on to an amp for decoding , the list is on the WD site , what you really need to do is to get hold of mediainfo and use this to find out what audio format is in each file you want to play and set the player up accordingly.

2. When I archive my DVD collection I see alot of people convert their DVD's into an ISO image. I believe this is an uncompressed format so what are the reasons / advantages to do this conversion when you aren't saving any storage space? Wouldn't is be easier for me to rightclick, copy and paste onto another harddrive? Can't I then remove the DVD extras using this method?

Converting DVD's to ISO format , as with other formats , has a lot of options , if you keep all the original disc content you should have no trouble playing any of the titles but you wont save anything on disc space , if you remove extra soundtrack options and subtitles files you will save space but the title may not play correctly on the WDTV , hard drives are cheap these days so space might not be that much of an issue.

3. Does the player support subtitles? I'm not interested in the language / hard of hearing subtitles but the parts of a movie when it cuts to another part of the world and they subtitle the conversation.

The player does support subtitles but again there are many ways to add subtitles to archived movies , if your making a divx or xvid with autogk you need to embed the subtitles on to the movie , other options are to add an srt file or an idx file with a corresponding .sub file , the player as it stands can handle subtitles in any of the above formats.

4. I have a basic 5.1 setup and would like to know if the player will output in surround sound?

Yes it will , the HDMI connection is best for this.

The player makes a good shot at covering most video formats , but as said there are many many ways to make mkv's , xvids , divx's amd ISO's and how these are made determine whether or not the player will have trouble with them.

Most files encoded with DD5.1 and standard subtitle tracks will have no issues at all , some files encoded with other formats for sound and with subtitle files that dont match the name of the film title may have trouble playing , but in most cases there is a way to get the title to play as you want it to play.

You will need this piece of software to find out what format each title is using ,
MediaInfo

Heres the WD spec list
WD TV HD Media Player ( WDAVN00 )

One last thing , the unit will most likely ship with the original firmware , you will need to update this straight away as the latest firmware has added a lot of functionality.

Also , on large hard drives the WDTV is quite slow to navigate if there are a lot of titles , this is a budget unit though , and it is pretty good considering how cheap it is. Most reviews take this into account.

[craigfin]

Cheers Andy,

Thanks for the very detailed response. It is most appreciated.

Craig.

[tvdavid]

I have lots of 720P and 1080P files ones 11GB and this wont play very well on my PC or laptop on VLC player but WD TV plays it fine.

But I did have to upgrade it for the files to play.

[duckpond]

do u mean upgrade the 'firmware' to play the 10GB+ 1080p mkv files without stutter??

if so did u upgrade with offical firmware or hacked firmware?

[tvdavid]

Yes thats what I meant.
And I got the offical one from the WD HD TV site.

[ubrain]

I hope I'm not being too dense here but all the talk I've seen around this device relates to downloaded or ripped files.
Am I right in assuming I could plug an external Blu Ray drive into one of the USB ports of this and be able to play back blu rays that way?

I'm thinking, put a blu ray rom drive on one port for brd and dvd duties and a HD on the other for downloaded files and be able to play just about everything back with very little clutter.
...or am I missing something here?

[robtek70]

Originally Posted by ubrain

I hope I'm not being too dense here but all the talk I've seen around this device relates to downloaded or ripped files.
Am I right in assuming I could plug an external Blu Ray drive into one of the USB ports of this and be able to play back blu rays that way?

I'm thinking, put a blu ray rom drive on one port for brd and dvd duties and a HD on the other for downloaded files and be able to play just about everything back with very little clutter.
...or am I missing something here?

Sorry but you are out of luck, the WD cannot access a dvd drive plugged onto the usb ports I have tried. I have another make hd player and that can so maybe in the future WD will bring out a firmware upgrade which will allow this.

[ubrain]

I thought my plan seemed too good to be true.

Thanks anyway!

[Zooks]

Originally Posted by robtek70

Sorry but you are out of luck, the WD cannot access a dvd drive plugged onto the usb ports I have tried. I have another make hd player and that can so maybe in the future WD will bring out a firmware upgrade which will allow this.

Unless you use the Modified firmware & DVDMOD

Good list of mods here


Quote
DVDMOD is a custom unofficial firmware for the Western Digital WDTV, which adds optical drive (cd/dvd drives) and extra filesystem support. I have remixed all official firmware releases and added cdrom support via cd-manager. Yes, this means you can boot with a usb dvd drive connected and play from it on your WDTV now.

Im not sure if this includes bluRay drives but its a start

[ubrain]

Thanks Zooks! Yes, I've since been reading on various forums about some of the mods going on for this box - it's great when something like this happens, where a manuf leaves their system open enough that the users develop the must-have features for themselves.

I see there's network and wireless support been worked out too.

It now seems to me (from this) though, that while the DVD mod allows you to mount an optical drive and read from it, because of licensing restrictions, it still really only allows you to access the content as data rather than playing a movie the way a dvd/BRD player does.
I'm not 100% sure but I think this means that if you try to play a movie from a standard, legit DVD/Blu Ray disk, it wont work because of drm issues - which seems a little ironic as, if you were to rip a disk and then burn it, it would play fine.

I think I might just have to get one and play with it.