Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player - a HTPC replacement??

Audiolab 7000CDT CD Transport
I don't agree. have lots of movies ( downloaded from net :)) in .avi format in my portable of HDD,I don't wanna burn them on DVD's and then watch them using a DVD player.I thought of WD TV as a replacement for my DVD player.

The specifications says "AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC)" ?
 
smedhavi said:
I did not face any problems with mp4 and AC3. MP4 seems to work but not DivX/XVid. I prefer H.264 as the picture is significantly better for any given file size.

Handbrake takes a huge amount of time for H.264:
  • Single Pass 1500kbps, Decomb: 2 hours per DVD movie
  • Two pass 2500kbps, Decomb, Dinterlace: 6 hours per DVD movie

Tried on two machines with P Core Duo, 2GB RAM.

Regards,
Sharad
Click to expand...

Most of the play but there have been file format in which the audio codec is not recognized. I have a Matrix ripped to MP4 with AAC SBR and WD wont play it. Its highly irritating at time but it plays 90% of the files.
 
hauntedhunter said:
I don't agree. have lots of movies ( downloaded from net :)) in .avi format in my portable of HDD,I don't wanna burn them on DVD's and then watch them using a DVD player.I thought of WD TV as a replacement for my DVD player.

The specifications says "AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC)" ?
Click to expand...

AVI plays well not a problem. Last night played Alphabet Killer avi without any problem
 
hauntedhunter said:
I don't agree. have lots of movies ( downloaded from net :)) in .avi format in my portable of HDD,I don't wanna burn them on DVD's and then watch them using a DVD player.I thought of WD TV as a replacement for my DVD player.

The specifications says "AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC)" ?
Click to expand...

Even for WDTV you would need an external HDD or a USB and both of them can be used via a budget DVDP too saving you the trouble of burning DVDs. Unless you're looking to play HD rips WDTV does not make sense at 8K plus an external HDD cost too. A budget DVDP around 3K will do as well. Of course move to WDTV and move to HD rips like MKV, that's great. Once you start viewing in HD, you'll not want to go back to SD.
 
Well I think I should clarify my need :)

1.I want to play my collection of .avi movies ( mostly aXXo torrent downloads :)) through WD TV through my portable HDD ( I already have a portable HDD ).
2.I have a collection of .flac music ( again downloaded ) which I would like to play through the WD TV.

Can WD TV solve these needs ?

(Thats why I cannot use a DVDP as it won't be able to play .flac through USB ( am i right ?))

Please help.

Cheers.........
 
Well now it's clear and makes sense. WDTV at 8K to play Divx/Xvid content does not however make sense hence my line of reasoning. For FLAC of course WDTV, but I will still say chuck it all and go for a PC or if you already have a PC upgrade it for the same cost or even lesser than a WDTV.

hauntedhunter said:
Well I think I should clarify my need :)

1.I want to play my collection of .avi movies ( mostly aXXo torrent downloads :)) through WD TV through my portable HDD ( I already have a portable HDD ).
2.I have a collection of .flac music ( again downloaded ) which I would like to play through the WD TV.

Can WD TV solve these needs ?

(Thats why I cannot use a DVDP as it won't be able to play .flac through USB ( am i right ?))

Please help.

Cheers.........
Click to expand...
 
hauntedhunter said:
Thanks.

Is it true that WD TV can't play the torrent .avi movies ?

Cheers....
Click to expand...

No reason why it should not play since MPEG4 and Xvid are listed in its specs. Xvid and Divx are the same, just that Divx is proprietary while Xvid is open source so I don't see a problem. However, if for some reason it does not play then you should better double check. Rips come in both Divx and Xvid and that would render half the d/l useless. However, if you go the WDTV route then go for HD rips. No sense in hanging about with Divx/Xvid rips unless its Divx 7 with HD content.
 
Here are the two screenshots of the file info :

1_avi_info.JPG


2_avi_info.JPGv


Please suggest if WD TV will play these...(Actually read in couple of websites that it has problem playing such files :()

If anyone is ready to help,I can courier him a DVD of containing couple of such DVD movies which I have and then he can check if WD TV plays them....Please help me someone who owns a WD TV :)

Cheers...
 
haunted: WD TV should play Xvid MpEG4 without any glitch. If you want to be double sure, send me the DVD and I will check that for you. U have my address in PM.

Alternatively, you can may be just cut 5 mins video and email it or upload to Rapidshare and I can check that for you which will be faster
 
Last edited:
moserw said:
Even for WDTV you would need an external HDD or a USB and both of them can be used via a budget DVDP too saving you the trouble of burning DVDs. Unless you're looking to play HD rips WDTV does not make sense at 8K plus an external HDD cost too. A budget DVDP around 3K will do as well. Of course move to WDTV and move to HD rips like MKV, that's great. Once you start viewing in HD, you'll not want to go back to SD.
Click to expand...

I do have a Philips DVD player with USB. It plays Divx, MP3, WMA and JPEG. At it's best, the feature is just a gimmick. The movie takes a long time to load and looks much worse than the original DVD. Fast Forward and Rewind are unpredictable. Even the JPEG pictures look awful. WD TV HD is surely a much better experience. It feels confident and professional while handling big files and various codecs. I don't think there is any real competition. The two devices have different strengths. A DVD player is DVD player, which WD TV HD isn't. While the WD device is a real multi-media player which no DVD player can ever be.

Thanks,
Sharad
 
Quite right. I have a Philips too with USB and movies are watchable on it. It behaves though like an overworked CPU and cannot process multiple commands. Rewind/forward work but take a while. The thing is to not keep hitting rewind/forward on the remote because it's not responding, it just takes a while to respond. But once it starts rewinding/forwarding it goes on fine. This is workable to me especially when I consider the USB on a couple of LG LCD TVs I've seen. Pathetic and totally unusable and what's even more hurting was the guys bought the LG for it's USB functionality.

smedhavi said:
I do have a Philips DVD player with USB. It plays Divx, MP3, WMA and JPEG. At it's best, the feature is just a gimmick. The movie takes a long time to load and looks much worse than the original DVD. Fast Forward and Rewind are unpredictable. Even the JPEG pictures look awful. WD TV HD is surely a much better experience. It feels confident and professional while handling big files and various codecs. I don't think there is any real competition. The two devices have different strengths. A DVD player is DVD player, which WD TV HD isn't. While the WD device is a real multi-media player which no DVD player can ever be.

Thanks,
Sharad
Click to expand...
 
Yesterday I have bought WD TV for 7.2K (incl bill) from Venktron, for a friend.

Very soon I will have a movie to movie/ scene to scene comparison with Elektron and post my observations.

This will basically compare PQ/ SQ between NMT & WD TV.
 
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