Things i should know about WDTV before purchasing

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Can someome tell me the limitations of this unit?

I will be looking to throw all sorts of media at it, from avi, mp4, wmv and mkvs.

I have heard about issues regarding dts sound... is there a problem with this, how is it solved?

Im looking to get this for the family so want a unit that is easy to use, and give minimum problems so id like to know what to avoid with it thats likely to cause a potential headache for myself.

Thanks
 
The WDTV does not support DTS downmix so if your audio is in DTS the WDTV can pass through to an AV receiver/Amp with DTS support to decode it.

If you dont have a DTS amp, dont encode your videos using DTS audio is the simple answer.

The other issue is the general unresponsiveness of the remote, that can be fixed by performing this hack.

The unit is also rather slow at detecting NTFS formatted drives anywhere up to 30 seconds or more when first plugged in, the unit doesn't really turn off so when you power it on (with remote) and it finds the drive thats why. Theres no network support on these units either just in case you didnt know, it can be hacked in but I would not recommend it.

Oh & make sure you have the latest firmware installed too. Just copy it to FAT16/32 USB flash drive and it will auto update.
 
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what happens if you try playing the dts mkv through it...will the movie simply be silent?

Also does it perform well with 1080p material?

This unit is for my brother in law who has an older theatre system.

His amp doesnt have any hdmi inputs , but he will need sound to play through it as his Kuro doesnt have any speakers on it.

Can he hook the WDTV to the TV via HDMI with the sound coming out of the WDTV another way? Optical or any other way?
 
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what happens if you try playing the dts mkv through it...will the movie simply be silent?

Also does it perform well with 1080p material?

This unit is for my brother in law who has an older theatre system.

His amp doesnt have any hdmi inputs , but he will need sound to play through it as his Kuro doesnt have any speakers on it.

Can he hook the WDTV to the TV via HDMI with the sound coming out of the WDTV another way? Optical or any other way?


You can only ouput dts via an optical cable so yes its hdmi to the tv and optical to the amp

Also avi,mp4,mkv plays fine but the ff & rev functions arnt great(too jerky)

With custom firmware you can add tivixi movie sheets and change the gui display and network the wdtv using a usb/lan adapter or wireless adapter, it works fine for me and brings the wdtv closer to xtreamer spec for less dosh

the wdtv doesnt completely power off but it does spin down any connected drives etc
 
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You can only ouput dts via an optical cable so yes its hdmi to the tv and optical to the amp

Ah ok..thaks for the info.

Just need to check his amp accepts optical and can decode dts then...which im pretty sure it can as although its pre HDMI, its a decent spec'd amp.
 
found out the amp is a Denon AVR-3802

It lists the following:

Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II & DTS ES Discrete 6.1 A/V Receiver
DTS Extended Surround Discrete 6.1 decoding
DTS Extended Surround Matrix 6.1 decoding
DTS Neo:6 Cinema & Music Surround decoding

so i presume this amp will be ok for playing DTS sound from MKVs through it via the WDTV?

thanks for your help
 
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Just a couple of extra points which may or may not help you...

1080p seemed fine to min the short period I used one (the DTS issue screwed me up)

You need to use NTFS for movie length HD because FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit
 
Can someome tell me the limitations of this unit?

I will be looking to throw all sorts of media at it, from avi, mp4, wmv and mkvs.

I have heard about issues regarding dts sound... is there a problem with this, how is it solved?

Im looking to get this for the family so want a unit that is easy to use, and give minimum problems so id like to know what to avoid with it thats likely to cause a potential headache for myself.

Thanks

Problems I have found are the lack of basic MPEG video support. It won't play many standard MPEG2 files. It won't play dvd.iso files (with or without menus). It doesn't like HD.ts files - may play them/may not, won't fast forward through them - even though it says it is! Sometimes plays HD avi's sometimes doesn't - depends what mood its in! Picture support is appalling, audio support isn't much better. I don't have surround sound so don't have the ability to use outboard audio decoding and the WDTV won't downmix on its own.

As you can gather, I'm not really a fan of the WDTV.
 
I got the WDTV and I am going to sell it for the Xtreamer.
You should check it out:thumbsup:
 

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