[diamonddnice]

does anyone have any information on newer more advanced models that could add more features?



is there a forum other then this one with discussions by users? I couldn't find one on the WD site.

[vnic]

Yes. There is another forum talking about this.

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

Best Regards,

Nic

[diamonddnice]

thanks, i can keep abreast of any new developments or rumors.

[vnic]

Bug: WD TV HDMI Panasonic 42PY85 + WD Passport 500GB
Cannot selecting anymore folder view.
When selecting folder view... it says... Folder is empty.
I have 500 titles on HDD... impossible to browse by media library.

Before I tested folder option... no problem found. Now I do not know how to make it work.

Nic

[Bran81]

Found this information that is causing problems for many users.

Original thread is located at this link videohelp thread

Squash posted 2008 Nov 04 18:04

I picked up one of these yesterday. This post concerns playback of HD x264 MKV files on the WD player.
I tracked down the problematic 1080p MKV Terminator sample file referred to earlier in poisondeathray's quote from engadget, and also referred to by Inspex (the file was posted to Usenet on July 25th if you want to find it). It was not DXVA compliant (not that it was claimed to be); at least not with MPCHC (checked using CTRL-J). Summary video specs from MediaInfo: 10.2 Mbps, 1920*1040(16/9), at 23.976 fps, AVC (High@L5.1) (CABAC/8 Ref Frames).

It played fine in MPCHC using ffdshow decoding, but broke up into severe blocks and smears when played back on the WD TV, only clearing up when there was virtually no movement in the scene.

The only other 1080p clip I had handy was an Apple trailer (.mov) and it played fine on the WD. Tried a couple of lower resolution x264 MKV files, 1280x720p and 1280x544p (made from BD source) on the WD player, no problems. Both
were larger than 4GB and played back fine from an NTFS-formatted 8GB thumb drive. On the computer, I got DXVA playback with these in MPCHC. One was L3.1, the other was L5.1.

I downloaded 19 more 1080p/x264 MKV sample files to see if I could find what separates the good files from the bad. Of the 20 files, 13 played fine on the WD TV player, the other 7 were like the Terminator clip. When played on my computer using MPCHC, the 13 good files were able to use DXVA, the bad 7 were not. They all played fine in MPCHC, it's just that those 7 used software playback rather than DXVA.

All the good files respected ExDeus's formula: Height Width numrefframes <= 8294400. All the bad ones exceeded it. http://www.avsforum....1#post12691751]

So at 1980x1080 you could use up to 4 ref frames. Most of the samples were cropped, so that the height was less than
1080, which allowed for more ref frames. Several of the cropped files used 5 ref frames with no problems, and two of these used L5.1, which also caused no problems.

All the troublesome files were uncropped (black bars above and below) and used more than 4 ref frames.
Two of the files I downloaded were from the same release group (hV) that did the Terminator clip. They were uncropped, but only used 3 ref frames compared to the 8 used in the Terminator, so they played back fine.

In summary, it looks like the WD player's criteria for playing back HD AVC are very similar to those for DXVA playback on a PC, for whatever reason.

So, if you're encoding files to playback on this device, follow ExDeus's formula and you should be alright. He's got more guidelines in his main article here, along with tips on how to possibly fix, without re-encoding, some 720p files that you may have problems with:[http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12728994#post1272899

[vnic]

Found why folder option do not work anymore.
Somehow, there was a problem with the HDD due to removal from MAC OS without eject.
Fixed on Windows with check disk tools.
Now everything is back to normal.

Nic

[Rootstonian]

I love the unit as well.
Movies seem to be ok, but when I have a folder of *.vob files from a backup of Torchwood, I'll play one. Well, it stops when that vob is done and you have to select the next. Not good. Movies seem to run all the way though without problems.
Note that this is NOT at the end of an episode; it could stop 20 minutes into an episode... very painful to have to select another vob to continue one episode.
And another nuisance is that when you power-off the WD TV, the USB port still has power, i.e. the external drive is still on. I'll use the unit a couple times a week, but I see no need for the drive to be powered 24x7. I have to unplug the wall wart to kill power to the external drive.

I'm still glad I "lucked" into finding this; don't remember how just now. I was ready to build an el cheapo computer to stream movies to my TV, but this, for the $100 I paid for it, does the job. Yes, the interface isn't the best and the 2 items I've listed here need fixed, but it does what it does for the cost.

+1,000,000 points to Western Digitial! :)
Message was edited by: Rootstonian

[misterbill]

" I have a folder of *.vob files from a backup of Torchwood, I'll play one. Well, it stops when that vob is done and you have to select the next."

When playing from a folder of *.vob files try startingthe playback by pressing the PAUSE/PLAY button instead of ENTER. Works for me.

[diamonddnice]

i don't know much about vobs as i rip all my stuff to single files but i do know when i use vlc if i drag and drop an individual vob into it it only plays that vob. but if i drop the first one, like 0vob or something it plays the whole movie. i'm not positive which vob it is or it could be even the ifo file but one of them seems to always play the whole movie while picking, say vob 4 doesn't.

[aibo99]

Hi Scott,



How to adjust the vertical position of the subtitle ?

Thank you

[Wassermann]

Dear ScottWD,

I m writing from Europe, here the AV (analog video) output should be 576i (PAL standard instead of NTSC's 480).

Is it possible to set that or preconfigured for the european shipments already. I hope your answer will be positive, because I already ordered my WDHDTV for my old CRT. It will hopefully arrive next week.

Thanks for your answer in advance!

[kaidomac]

To Scott of Western Digital:

First I would like to make a big, big, big firmware update request - please add support for skipping! Most media players let you use the D-Pad (up/down/left/right) to do small and big jumps. Also, please add a function to customize the amount of time to jump forward or back. For example:

Right Button: Jump ahead 10 seconds
Up Button: Jump ahead 10 minutes
Left Button: Jump back 10 seconds
Bottom Button: Jump back 10 minutes

It's super annoying to have a 2-hour movie and have to spend 5 minutes waiting for the 16x Fast Forward button to get to the part you want to watch. So that would be a really great feature to have while playing a movie. Also if you could customize the amount of time in settings, that would be great - so for example you could change the small skip from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.

Myself and several friends have purchased this unit and really love it. Aside from the Skip feature, they've also requested better subtitle support (such as soft subs).

For Version 2.0, I would like to see:

1. Ethernet Jack (Gigabit) - for Streaming & Copying
2. Internal 2.5" SATA hard drive support - a 500gb laptop drive is currently only $110, and would be so much more convenient than having to carry a USB hard drive with the associated wiring
3. Custom themes - perhaps the ability to add wallpaper, or customize the buttons and layout
4. Component Output & Coaxial Audio output

This would make it about 1" bigger all around, but it would really make it shine.

Thanks for making a great little player!

[PCKid]

Just bought one of these to replace my Mediagate MG-25 I've had for 4 years. This is way better. HDMI is brilliant. Seems to play almost everything. (wouldn't play Vuze 4 mkv movie trailers). Played Video but didn't understand Audio.
Only thing I miss from the MG-25 is the number keypad so you could jump to an exact time in a video file. Very useful for jumping through recorded tv programs like F1, MotoGP and NFL. My suggestion for next firmware would be in Pause mode when you can see the time line, if the FF and RW could be used to move to a specific time and then un pause it and you have jumped to that time. Give me that and I reckon the product is perfect.

One final thing. How do you get the Video thumbnails to show a picture instead of the default icon? Screenshots on the web site show it but since you can't tag a video file like you can an audio file how the heck do you do it?

Oh by the way it's way cheaper than an Apple TV so it's unfair guys to compare it to that.

[HWTest]

Another bad thing on the WD TV is no Czech/Slovak special characters (like ě č ř ? ů ď ň) support in srt subtitles :-(

I wish WD fix this in the next firmware ...