USB DVD Drive with WD TV Live

[nshankar]

Anyone successful in hooking up USB DVD Drive with WD TV Live to watch DVD movies? Please share your experience... Thanks.

 

[icclearlee]

Nope... WDTV does not recognize external DVD drive on original firmware. You will need custom firmware. Take a look at B-RAD DVDMOD – DVD-Rom enabled WDTV firmware for details. I haven't given the 'custom' option a go though I am sorely tempted... with its added featureset.

 

[WHATSINANAME]

Anyone successful in hooking up USB DVD Drive with WD TV Live to watch DVD movies? Please share your experience... Thanks.

Do you already have a USB DVD drive or are you planning to buy one? I would rather think you just network the WDTV with your computer via LAN cable and watch movies off the computer's dvd drive.

 

[tanmoydc]

WD Live does not support DVD playback, live plus does. Please check WD site again.

 

[nshankar]

Do you already have a USB DVD drive or are you planning to buy one? I would rather think you just network the WDTV with your computer via LAN cable and watch movies off the computer's dvd drive.

I already have an Iomega DVDRW8X-U drive.

I want to avoid hooking up my PC to my HT, plans to go for a HTPC in Dec.

Therefore, this will be more of a temp setup, hope to play DVDs without region hassles.

P.S. WD HDMI connected direct to TV and Optical to AVR.

 

[nshankar]

WD Live does not support DVD playback, live plus does. Please check WD site again.

I am aware of that, thanks. But there are apparently ways to do that with custom firmware and therefore this thread.

 

[nshankar]

Nope... WDTV does not recognize external DVD drive on original firmware. You will need custom firmware. Take a look at B-RAD DVDMOD DVD-Rom enabled WDTV firmware for details. I haven't given the 'custom' option a go though I am sorely tempted... with its added featureset.

I intend doing exactly the same and hope to get feedback from someone who has done this already. Thanks.

 

[nshankar]

Upgraded to WDLXTV Live (custom firmware) but still can't access my DVD drive!

 

[icclearlee]

Here are some troubleshooting tips for DVD support for the custom fw that I can remember:

1. You will need atleast one USB HDD connected to the WDTVLive apart from the UDB DVD drive.
2. Perform a complete power-off (from power mains) and not the power-off via remote.

Hit the link for more details: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1126753

 

[nshankar]

Hope your WDLXTV-Live fw version is the latest (v 0.4.2.2). Here are some troubleshooting tips for DVD support for the custom fw that I can remember:

Yes, it is.

1. You will need atleast one USB HDD connected to the WDTVLive apart from the UDB DVD drive.

Yes, DVD on USB1 and HDD on USB2.

2. Perform a complete power-off (from power mains) and not the power-off via remote.

Will try this one and post. Thanks.

 

[icclearlee]

Will try this one and post. Thanks.

In case the full power cycle does not work, go through the link I added in my prev post for more tips/troubleshooting guidance.

 

[nshankar]

Complete power-off / on with the media in the drive works, wow!

MP3 CDs no issue, plays fine.

DVDs show up as VOB files, but the same do not play!

 

[icclearlee]

Good to hear that the core problem has gone away. As per b-rad ( WDLXTV Live developer), it won't play retail DVDs. The current WDTV pre-release (BETA) has DVD navigation support, so maybe when b-rad releases the WDLXTV Live fw built on top of that, (I'm guessing but might be wrong) you might be able to get even retail DVDs working. Till that happens, if I were you I would use it to play rips that I backed up on DVD.