Yeah, it seems as of now the only MOV formats supported are MPEG4 and H.264.

oh ok, I'll try MPEG4.

thanks

Hallo, just a quick question:
How can you update this device with your pc?You should have a USB-USB cable right?
I bought mine wd a few days ago....
What's the best hdv format to render from original footage shot from a Z1?

Copy the new firmware onto a flash drive and go to firmware update in menu, will detect the new firmware on the flash drive.

Sorry Nick, will an usb pen useful for that?

thx and sorry 4 the silly question!

Yes a USB pen will be fine for firmware updates, actually I am now using a 16gb usb stick for all my video files and it works great with apple tv H264 mpeg4 at 5mbs.

ok well I have a sony 1080i TV and when playing HD clips from the WD player it comes up as either a stretched image or theres a black border around the whole entire clip. I have an HDMI cable running from the player to the TV and the settings are on 1080i on the unit.

Any idea how to get the clip to fill up the entire screen?

scratch that, I figured it out.

Yes, I've found that the Apple TV H.264 setting is the only one that gives a good result with the WD Media player.

Although I've used Compressor to add chapter markers to the file (.m4v), the WD won't recognize them and you also can't fast forward or rewind. So basically you have to play the movie all the way through to get to the part you want to watch.

I've also tested using the preset H.264 setting in Compressor - "QuickTime H.264 video with PCM audio at 48 kHz. Settings based off the source resolution and frame-rate".

The WD player didn't recognize the PCM audio at all, but it did play the visual track.

I re-compressed with the same settings, except I changed the PCM audio to AAC, and the sound then worked. However, the player would occasionally stagger and even briefly freeze on certain pan and tilt shots. Most disappointing, but at least the WD player could fast forward and rewind with this .mov file.

The movie was 89 1/2 minutes long and the Apple TV file (.m4v) was 3.16 GB which yields an average bitrate (per my calculations) of 4.7 Mbits/sec.

The same movie with the preset H.264 setting (.mov) was 16.11 GB which yields an average bitrate of 24 Mbits/sec.

Hopefully I'll find the time to further experiment with the H.264 bitrate settings and determine the maximum bitrate limit which doesn't freeze the WD player.

I tested the Apple TV file on a large widescreen plasma using an HDMI cable and it looked very nice. I also tested the same file on the plasma using the composite RCA connectors, just to compare. And it stood up reasonably well (surprisingly so). I'm not sure if going out the composite connectors (analog) causes the WD player to automatically downconvert the signal to SD (PAL), but it still looked pretty good to my eye.

BTW, for any locals reading this post, I used a 32 GB USB stick with the WD player. They're only $89 at the local MSY store (here in Melbourne). While there, I also bought a 10 metre HDMI cable for the test. Only $20. Worked really well.

Since this player is having issues playing certain audio / video formats, what are the chances WD will be releasing another update soon?

I have no issues with 1080i and 720p .mp4 files other than my encoder (Sony Vegas 8) doesn't allow me to output 720p60. Consider avoiding the Quicktime format for this player.

Excuse me guys:using Vegas 8 wich is the best render format to set to have smooth Z! images on a LCD screen using the WD?

Does anyone know a good dvd ripper for mac? I have "mac the ripper" but I couldnt figure out how to make the movie 1 file so i can drag over to my external drive to play on my tv.

Greg, try Handbrake

I use MPEG Streamclip for pulling clips off of my own archival DVDs (mostly of multicamera live switched sessions).

I am really excited that Pavtube have released the Blu-Ray Ripper for Apple. It has been really annoying and frustrating going in to Windows to rip Blu-Rays

The Pavtube Bluray ripper performs exactly as I expected and with a full disc backup of our precious Blu-rays - means we won’t have our discs scratched when they are borrowed.

Back up blu-ray movie- How to make full copy of blu-ray disc on Mac?

Nice, is there a free blueray ripper for mac? If not, I'll have to buy this I suppose. is the quality better or the same when playing a ripped blueray through the WD player?