42 replies to this topic

[Ararat]

Hi all, I went out and bought a WD TV Live as a christmas present for my parents and sisters so they could watch all my HD content on the plasma downstairs and thought I'd share my experiences of it so far in case others were looking at buying a Media Streamer for christmas (leaving a little late aren't we?).

First off, I wanted to get the XTreamer instead, as it is supposed to support bitstreaming of HD audio content, but, as I can only find it at PCCG, and I have no credit card, it wasn't to be.

Upon first plugging it in, I was pleased to see that it picked up my network shares immediately and played back the first few mkv's i found flawlessly, in fact, I could not find a single file that it could not play, including h.264/mkv's with 8 or more reference frames with very good quality.

So I put on this year's Star Trek movie in 1080p for my father to watch thinking it would keep him out of my hair for 2 hours. Half an hour later, he came up to tell me that it wasn't working anymore. I went down to investigate, and discovered that all the network shares were now missing. I could connect to the same computers as media servers, but not access the network shares, which was a real pity, as you cannot play back mkv's through a media server. A firmware update did not help, however the following day, the network shares miraculously reappeared. This pattern continued over the next few days, until I discovered the solution (will post below).

Onto the biggest surprise I found with this device... I wanted to see how well it coped with high-bitrate movies, so I tried playing back Transporter 3 (~32Mbps from memory), and was pleased to see it play back smooth and flawless (the device only has a 10/100 interface btw, no Gigabit here, thankfully it seems it isn't necessary for playback). I then innocuously looked down and noticed that my Receiver displayed "Dolby TrueHD". This came as a shock, because I was under the distinct impression that the WD couldn't bitstream HD Audio, and in fact I had previously tried a DTS-HDMA track from Saw 4 that I had remuxed into an mkv, and it played back the core DTS track.

So this leads me to one of 2 conclusions, either it will only bitstream lossless audio if it's directly from a BD folder structure, or it has a Dolby TrueHD license, but not a DTS-HDMA license. I'll remux one of them into the other container and see which it is.

All in all, very pleased with my purchase, and I can get my dad off my back about having nothing to watch .

[Ararat]

With the network share issue I refer to above, I had the device allowed through all firewalls, and all my shares shared with 'everyone', and they were all accessible to all other computers while not so on the wdtv.

I then stumbled upon this thread:
http://www.avsforum....d.php?t=1187382
with user guardianali claiming that on Windows 7, everyone doesn't actually mean EVERYONE (he explains in more detail), and after applying the 2 registry changes he suggested, the network shares appeared on the wdtv, and so far are still there (fingers crossed). Great, now we can watch movies when WE want, not when the wdtv wants. Apart from this, VERY pleased with my purchase.

EDIT: This fix did not fix the issue for me. The device still seems to pick and choose when it's going to find my network shares. While not as bad for me as it is for some others (there are people who can't watch anything for more than 5 minutes before it loses the connection).

Edited by Ararat, 20 December 2009 - 08:04 AM.
Fix doesn't work.

[Ararat]

I thought I'd round off this mini-review by posting what I think is wrong with the device or could use improving. For someone like me, this is a pretty short list, so I think it's a pretty solid device.

1) Support both Dolby TrueHD (which it does) and DTS-HDMA bitstreaming.

2) Support auto-framerate changing. I'm sick of having to go through the settings menu to change the refresh rate to suit either BD content or stuff I've recorded off Foxtel of DVB-T. There is an 'auto' setting, but all this seems to do is check what refresh rate your tv supports and choose a setting, then ignore what content you play.

3) FFW and REV are limited to 16x (painfully slow for a movie or a soccer game... I'm not even gonna mention cricket..), and there is NO skip forward (ala media center) or GoTo feature AT ALL. This is an appallingly obvious thing to neglect on a device that is otherwise so polished. It DOES support resuming from where you left off in a movie.

4) It should have intelligent zoom/aspect settings like Media Center, rather than the 1.1x, 1.2x, 2x and so on options it offers (matters for me, for stupid channels like those from the discovery networks).

5) The network issue mentioned above. A lot of people are experiencing it. A quick change to the registry fixes it, but WD should implement a fix to the way it tries to connect, so it becomes a non issue.

All in all, a good device. So far only one file I couldn't play, and ancient file with WMV2/WMA2. Not a big deal. It even plays dvr-ms! Don't recall if I tried wtv yet.

[drturner]

I bought a WD live last week for the kids room. I stream everything from a linkstation DLNA device (No network computer share streaming). Don't know what your problem is with mkv. I'm able to play all my mkv(all have AC3 audio) from the media server. Maybe the audio is the problem.

I love the device so far and have ordered another for the bedroom. Now I can get rid of the loud media centre. As you said - plays dvr-ms well.

My only problems with it are the exact points you mentioned (except 5., as I don't use that feature. I use DVRMSToolbox to convert my wtv file to dvr-ms, then send to server before putting the media centre to sleep).

[AdrianW]

2) Support auto-framerate changing. I'm sick of having to go through the settings menu to change the refresh rate to suit either BD content or stuff I've recorded off Foxtel of DVB-T. There is an 'auto' setting, but all this seems to do is check what refresh rate your tv supports and choose a setting, then ignore what content you play.

My VMC is set to 50Hz (for FTA TV) - therefore I get a fair amount of annoying jitter when watching 23.976 fps US TV shows.

Do you think it would it be worth getting a WDTV just for watching US TV? and have it permanently set to 60Hz. (My plasma can't do 24Hz - just 50 & 60).

[Ararat]

My VMC is set to 50Hz (for FTA TV) - therefore I get a fair amount of annoying jitter when watching 23.976 fps US TV shows.

Do you think it would it be worth getting a WDTV just for watching US TV? and have it permanently set to 60Hz. (My plasma can't do 24Hz - just 50 & 60).

That really depends whether you consider $180 worth it to not have to bother changing refresh rate on your HTPC. I personally watch in my bedroom on an LCD that also doesn't support 24Hz playback. I have it set to 50Hz for FTA content, and I don't bother changing it for 23.976 fps content. While when you think about it logically, 60Hz is definitely better for 23.976/24 fps content, due to 2:3 pulldown/inverse telecine, it's not bad enough to bother me on my tv (and i'm easy to bother!), so I wouldn't get the device just for that. But if it is for you, by all means... keep this in mind however, is changing inputs and switching on the WDTV, and navigating to the file really any less work than changing the refresh rate? I seem to recall on these forums a while back a plugin for VMC that could do this for you (change between 50 and 60Hz). I don't remember what it was called, and I may just be confabulating, but I think there was something like that.

It's a good device, and it seems to play everything, if you want to have a portable device that can do this on any tv, it's worth your time.

I checked to see if it plays back wtv files, and it does, but from the PQ, it seems as though it is doing so through Media Foundation transcode rather than native playback like it does with dvr-ms. Not a big deal though.

[Ararat]

I bought a WD live last week for the kids room. I stream everything from a linkstation DLNA device (No network computer share streaming). Don't know what your problem is with mkv. I'm able to play all my mkv(all have AC3 audio) from the media server. Maybe the audio is the problem.

Thanks mate, but you're talking about a completely different thing than I am. I'm not streaming from some DLNA device, as I explicitly stated, I bought this to play back files I have shared on my computer. I have a fair idea of what's causing it, and that's not an issue I brought up to complain about this device. It isn't a problem with the mkv's, or with their audio (most have dts, though some are ac3, dts-hdma, dolby true-hd, or some form of mpeg... but ALL of them are supported by the wdtv), nor is it a problem with the wdtv, it plays them all fine off the network share (when it's working), or from a local drive. It simply says that the file type isn't supported, but it only says that when I try to play it off the media server (no doubt due to the fact that mkv is not natively supported by windows 7, which IS the media server... all other file types play fine). I may be forced to install the software provided by WD.

On another note, it would seem that issue number 3 is (kinda) solved. Pressing skip WHILE fast forwarding will skip forward 10 minutes, and pressing previous WHILE rewinding skips back 10 minutes. While not obvious, at least you can get deep into a file MUCH more quickly.

[logifuse]

My VMC is set to 50Hz (for FTA TV) - therefore I get a fair amount of annoying jitter when watching 23.976 fps US TV shows.

Do you think it would it be worth getting a WDTV just for watching US TV? and have it permanently set to 60Hz. (My plasma can't do 24Hz - just 50 & 60).

Why don't you try/use dgaust's Refresh Rate Changer (V1 is for Vista)?

http://www.xpmediace...te-changer.html

I used it in Vista & it was spot on. I'm now using V2 in W7. I switch between 50 & 59 (59.94)Hz.

Justin

[logifuse]

I was an early adopter of the original WDTV & eventually went down the hacked firmware route adding a USB>LAN adapter. You might find that the Live will perform better using NFS based shares instead of CIFS (standard) shares - not sure how to install NFS on W7, but it is doable. Hanewin maybe?

Justin

[Ararat]

Why don't you try/use dgaust's Refresh Rate Changer (V1 is for Vista)?

http://www.xpmediace...te-changer.html

I used it in Vista & it was spot on. I'm now using V2 in W7. I switch between 50 & 59 (59.94)Hz.

Justin

I knew I wasn't making it up!

[Ararat]

I was an early adopter of the original WDTV & eventually went down the hacked firmware route adding a USB>LAN adapter. You might find that the Live will perform better using NFS based shares instead of CIFS (standard) shares - not sure how to install NFS on W7, but it is doable. Hanewin maybe?

Justin

Thanks mate, will give it a go if it starts messing with me again. The following morning, it started connecting to the network share again, and has been connecting since. Fingers crossed it stays that way (been about a day and a half now).

Two more updates:

a) The skip forward ten minutes feature DOES work during rewinding.

It's dvr-ms support is only working for files containing mpeg audio. Files containing ac3 play back, but with no sound (or clicking instead of the actual sound track). I don't know if this is an issue confined to Australia (IIRC, MS had to do something different here in regards to audio a few years back because of the way our broadcasting works), or if it just doesn't support ac3 in dvr-ms in general. When you start playing a video on the wdtv, it displays which audio track it's playing, and what format it is. In the case of these files, it displays mpeg audio, so maybe it just doesn't support ac3 in dvr-ms.

That being said, when I bought this, I didn't EXPECT it to play dvr-ms anyway, so it's not a big deal, the folks have an extender (360) down there anyway.

[logifuse]

The DVR-MS one is strange - the regular WDTV handles DVR-MS with AC3 files. There are a stack of wikis/forums about the WDTVs, someone will know.

Justin

[Ararat]

The DVR-MS one is strange - the regular WDTV handles DVR-MS with AC3 files. There are a stack of wikis/forums about the WDTVs, someone will know.

Justin

Yeah, I was trawling them for a solution to the network thing. When I get a chance I'll look through them for something about this later on (prob after christmas). It's just not a big enough issue for me to worry about... I'd much rather get an auto frame-rate switcher.

But yeah, if I come across something, I'll be sure to post it here. At least we have 1 (and maybe 2) of the issues I mentioned crossed off my list.

[Ararat]

With the network share issue I refer to above, I had the device allowed through all firewalls, and all my shares shared with 'everyone', and they were all accessible to all other computers while not so on the wdtv.

I then stumbled upon this thread:
http://www.avsforum....d.php?t=1187382
with user guardianali claiming that on Windows 7, everyone doesn't actually mean EVERYONE (he explains in more detail), and after applying the 2 registry changes he suggested, the network shares appeared on the wdtv, and so far are still there (fingers crossed). Great, now we can watch movies when WE want, not when the wdtv wants. Apart from this, VERY pleased with my purchase.

EDIT: This fix did not fix the issue for me. The device still seems to pick and choose when it's going to find my network shares. While not as bad for me as it is for some others (there are people who can't watch anything for more than 5 minutes before it loses the connection).

Just as an update on this, about an hour after I implemented the fix from avs, the issue was still being exhibited on the wdtv, but beginning from the following morning, all was well, and it has been fine for 5 days since, I think we can declare THAT issue solved.

[meumerke]

How is this unit going? I had a look at the WD forum and this network problem still seems to exist.