WD HD Media Player (with HDMI out etc.)
 

This looks interesting and very cost effective way of getting your HD files from a USB Drive and on that big screen. I'm sure I read on this forum that someone had reviewed it also but could not easily find that post in a search so posting here for now.

MaddHat.com Blog Archive New WD Media Player Reviewed, Stripped Naked

Edit: OK, found a thread now. Continue the discussion here!

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/dvd-web-v...ay-format.html

Thanks for the news. I ordered it from BestBuy.com for $99 on sale, but it's on backorder.

Here is an alternative, though I have no idea where to get this in the USA.

Welcome to A.L. Tech! - Multimedia Player, GPS System, Network

Andy,
I just used this unit at a bridal show to demonstrate my samples. I drew a crowd for much of the day. It was amazing. So easy to use, and great quality.
Bill

It would be handy to go on the road with.

I would pay $499 if it did the following:

1.) As is $99
1.) Add internal hard drive - $125
2.) Add 1080p24 - $100
3.) Add Lithium Ion rechargeable battery $175

But a lot of the appeal for me is lost by having to plug in, I would guess a wall pack ac transformer, and USB hard drive.

Sigma processors I remember from my I-O Data AVeL LinkplayerII, they work yes, but kind of like a good French Restaurant, tasty but the portions always leave you wishing for just a little bit more. I'll stick with the PS3.

got one from Best Buy... also got the WD My Passport Studio HD (500gb)

for a test I ripped a blu ray movie to the Studio HD and then plugged it all into a
DLP projector...

Worked great... not bad for the price...

my only complaint... wish they would have made the AC plug in like the fold away ones
Apple uses for the Ipod... (just easier to put into a travel case without having the prongs
scratching up equipment) not a show stopper

its a very cool product

Too bad it doesn't record!

That's close to a laptop with the benefit of a built-in screen and Wireless access. Add a DVI->HDMI cable and some audio cables, and you have a fully functional HD player.

Though, from the WD and BestBuy site, you have to pay $129 for the device.

Right, it would be nearly as expensive as you say but with an important distinction, it has sigma media processor which is a better solution than using a software codec to stream via WMP, VLC etc.

Iomega option
 

Check out this option from Iomega the Screen Play Multimedia Hard Drive: Multimedia USB PC to TV Video Hard Drive and the Screen Play Pro Multimedia Hard Drive: Multimedia Ethernet and USB PC to TV Video Hard Drive
This seems similar to the WD option with the hard drive enclosed. They also have the Screen Play link which requires a seperate hard drive. Their prices look pretty good as well.

These devices are pretty cool.

Though the first Iomega drive is not HD "PAL/NTSC - 480i/480p; scalable to 720p/1080i".

The second one is 720p.

The quality of the decoder is unknown in software. I compared the same file and same scene on my Comcast DVR and this Western Digital. The file was captured via the Firewire output on the Comcast. I'm viewing on a Sony Bravia 52" 1080p with both devices delivering via HDMI. There are definitely fewer MPEG2 decoder artifacts on the WD TV, although the image is softer and the contrast is lower due to the difference between "Studio" and RGB levels. This is the disappointing part, and WD could address this by either playing all movie files with the same black/white levels as commerical video players, or at least offering the option. Of course, you want the full range for your digital photos. I tried a few 720p and 1080i .mpg files, and they played marvelously with good audio/video sync. WMV files played, but the A/V sync was way off. My only other complaints are that WD decided to make their device sexy with all sorts of fade-in/out effects that just slow everything down.

This is a great little device in need of a couple of software revisions.

Any idea if this will play native DVCPRO HD files (720p or 1080i)?
Thanks,
-C

If you can provide me with one to download, I'll try it.

On Sale at newegg.com for $99 with free shipping.

Newegg.com - WD TV® HD Media Player

Any owners know if additional codecs (Cineform) can be installed?

Other than the obvious future firmware update, I don't see a way to do this. In any case, it would have to be from WD as they use a Sigma processor in this device. There is some companion software to manage the WD TV for Windows computers.

Ok, it seems like this is kind of like Apple TV minus the wi fi correct? Say i get a blue ray disk, how do i go about ripping it onto my computer and converting it to full 1080p? I guess that's the same question I have for reguar DVD's. I have a DVD ripper but it only rips to a certain file type and I have to convert it to ipod format which would be very small for my TV.

While I haven't "backed up" BluRay disks, DVDDecrypter does the job for most DVDs. You would then make a folder with the name of your movie and copy the VIDEO_TS folder there. Navigate to the VOB file after the menu (usually ending in the number 1) and push play. The WD TV will play the video files in succession, though that may be due to the "Play all" files setting. I haven't been able to turn off the DVD subtitles, and the WD TV doesn't have a setting for that. WD : send us a firmware upgrade.

BluRay ripped/reencoded movies are "out there", but you'll find that most include DTS for audio. So, either you have to reencode the audio or output to a DTS receiver as the WD TV doesn't decode DTS streams. The 1080p ripped files I've tried don't work well either with VLC Media Player on my WinXP machine or on the WD TV in that there are weird decompression blocky problems. The 720p versions I've found play well.

So you can play VOB files on this unit? In that case I will go out and buy this thing right away!!

I'm using the slysoft solution for ripping DVD/Blu ray movies.... its easy, all you have
to do is put the disk into the computer, hit the right mouse key and tell the software
where you want the files to go... then the movie is ripped to the hard drive...

SlySoft AnyDVD HD

I have done this already and have a movie residing om Hard Drive for play with Power DVD. Are you confirming that the WD HD Media player will play the blu-ray files directly to you TV? That would be great but sounds highly unlikely at this point.

Yes. Just navigate to the first VOB in the VIDEO_TS folder.

And buy a BluRay drive ...

The folks at Cineform replied on one of their threads that quite apart from codec issues, these kinds of players (I have a TiVX, with built-in harddrive) are not capable of handling the high bitrate of CFHD avi. I'm sure that will be the case for DVCProHD also.

Yes, they play fine.... I used the WD HD Media player to play the Blu ray movie " Into the Blue " on my projector...., for the hard drive I used the portable WD passport (500gb)

and yes, you do need a blu ray player on your computer to rip the video... :-)

Wooo Hooo my lovely wife has bought me one of these for chrimbo!

so I've been ripping DVDs onto my computer as VOB files but can't watch them? when I click on the file to watch it, it says "This is a file that quicktime doesn't understand". I then tried to watch them using quick time and my DVD programs on my computer overrules it somehow but still doesn't play. Does anyone know what i'm doing wrong?

It's not the same "critter". The WD TV is a very simple small "box", you supply the USB storage media. I'm running HD content on mine from USB thumb drives. A 26 minute project shot in 1920x1080 17Mbps edited in Pinnacle Studio 12 and rendered to a 1920x1080 HD WMV file played beautifully on my 42" LCD TV.

From a thumb drive (file size not quite 2GB).

I really like this thing!

Try VLC Media Player on your computer.

Has anyone fed this thing footage from a Canon 5D Mark II?
That would seem to be a great way of testing its ability to handle high bit rate footage.

So far the only limits I see listed on the Western Digital website are resolution+framerate, not bitrate.

I ordered mine last night and started ripping all my dvd's onto my external HD. Has anyone played a movie they purchased in Itunes on this thing? I'm wondering if it would work.

Also, for some reason when I'm ripping some DVD's it's ripping to about 85% and it says "there is not enough disk space" but I have 200gig free. I tried putting it on my C drive and copying it over to my external HD and it still is saying this. this has happened with a few DVDs.

I'm just guessing but check to be certain that your external drive is not format FAT32 as it has a 4gb file size limit. This may be required for the WD HD player but I read somewhere that it will read NTFS, it is just slower? That doesn't make sense but at least check.

Can someone explain in detail how to get a blu-ray disk to play. Yes, I have a blu-ray burner/reader, yes I have AnyDVD-HD and yes I have all the files from the disk on my hard drive. I can play them using PowerDVD. But once I copy these large set of files how do I start the blu-ray movie from the WD-Media Player?

Thanks!

That does make sense, I think it's been stopping just at or around 4gig. How do I change this so I can get the entire disk on my harddrive?

Thanks

Hopfully this is a new disk with very little on it. You are going to need to format it, which will destroy all data on it. If it is new, and you have little on it just yet, you can copy it to another drive. Of course if you have a ton of data on it you can still copy it, it will just take a while. In windows, right click on the drive in my computer and click format. Then choose NTFS and accept default cluster sizes. Then let us know if this works with the WD media player for sure.

Good Luck.

It is set on NTFS and under "allocation unit size" is says "Default allocation size". Under "format Options" is has check boxes that says "quick format" and "emable compression". Do i click any of those?

Are you saying it is already NTFS? Or did you change it and you are just asking which settings to use now? If so, use default allocation unit size and quick format can be checked. I would not check the enable compression option. You shouldn't need it and it will likely confuse the WD device.

If it is already NTFS, I would not bother formatting it obviously.

Does anyone know if any music,movies orTV shows purchased in itunes can be played though this unit?

I think it says specifically on the box that it can't play any of those.