I just bought a WD TV Play today and connected it through WiFi to the internet and waited for a good while for the firmware to upgrade to 1.05.47. So it works.
But when i add a usb drive with a movie (IN a VIDEO_TS folder) made up of 5 VOB files, 2 .IFO files and 2 .BUP files I get the “unable to play see…”. The movie plays fine in PowerDVD and I have read all the posts about the VIDEO_TS folder. but I don’t have a “blip” , I have an unrecognizable file
I go to My Storage, go to the VIDEO_TS folder and try both the OK button and the Play button. In both cases the screen changes and at the bottom you can see the 5 VOB files names cycle. But then the error message.
Thank you, not the answer I was hoping for obviously, but all data is good. Do you have any idea if WD intends to add support for mpeg2 ? the reason I ask is because I have a old WD TV (1st gen) and it does play my VOB files. It seems like such a simple improvment .
I very much doubt that support will be added, if it was easy I would have assumed they would have supported mpeg2 from the start. Its likely that the main chip does not support it, but that’s just a guess.
After some more research I agree they probably won’t support it, but not because of technical reasons, but because they want to differentiate between the “Play” and “Live” levels. One of only two differences is the ability to play Mpeg2. that and $100.
Could you recommend a “format” (if that is the right word) to convert my mpeg2 into so they will be recognized by the Play? I have a lot of movies so speed of conversion would be more important then file size increase.
Thanks again for all your help and I will mark this “solved” next message.
Out of interest, where in your research did you find any information that makes you believe that there is no technical reason and thats its all down to marketing? Did you find out what chip is inside the play and what it is capable of?
i just looked at the sales stuff at wdc.com where they compared (in a table form) the Play, Live and Live hub. the only two boxes checked for the Live and not the Play were the mpeg2 ability and multi-room streaming to DLNA devices. Otherwise the capabilities of both were the same. I have no idea what is inside each, but as long as they want to sell the Live it will have to have some better capabilities than the play or they will cannibalize the Live’s sales. I got the Play with a hdmi cable from newegg for $49 (free shipping plus $5 tax). I am thinking about returning it and getting the Live streaming. So WD’s marketing might work. The Play is really a nice streamer and the app to let you use an ipad as a remote is very good. I think this is called up-selling and I don’t have any problem paying extra for extra capabilities. I just wish they had advertised the lack of mpeg2 a little more.
No, there are other differences. The Live can access files via the Network shares method; the Play can not.
If you had checked in this forum before you bought the Play, you would have learned that the Play is not a full-fledged media player as the Live and Hub are. The Play was built to fill a price point to compete with Roku; plain and simple.
You got a good price on the Play with the Shell Shocker sale, so why not just keep it and and buy a Live, too. Some of us here think a new successor to the Live is coming soon, so you could wait for that model to appear.
Are you asking why I said a successor to the SMP is “coming soon”? If so, I’ll respond to that.
Reasons for saying this, “based on” my over 30 years in the business of marketing consumer products.
1. All successful tech products (most any products) are “soon” followed by a “new and improved” sucessor so it can be sold all over again to people who want one; e.g. iPhone, iPad, WD media player, etc. etc. How many times in your lifetime has Tide appeared with “new and improved” on the box, bottle, bag, etc. Definitely more than once or twice.
2. Apparently, stock on the current SMP model is very scarce/non-existent most everywhere it used to be sold.
3. The SMP is now WD’s oldest media player in the stable, not the newest. It’s time for a new one. YOU want one, I want one!
4. “Coming soon” has no definite time constraints, so it is safe to make this sort of statement.
5. Most importantly, “because a little birdie told me.”
They have just released the play. It may not be your new and improved but it may be to WD.
It appears that WD has stock. It may be that there was manufacturing problems or even too much demand!
WD would say that there is a new one, the Play.
I would say that ‘coming soon’ had a definite meaning to most people.
Your last statement makes it seem like you have ‘inside’ information. What little birdie told you this then.
Also the hub is quite old and yet they have revamped that so you can select a hard disc size.
It may be that WD are working on firmware which makes the WD Live Streaming ‘new and improved’, after all to use your Tide example its not a ‘new’ product just improved.
Rich, I don’t know why you felt it necessary to write a “rebuttal” to my innocuous comments above. I was simply responding to a question I was asked. I have no idea what the story is on the SMP, but I can make a guess.
FYI, the SMP is still NOT in stock at some of the major US retailers. J&R still says “in stock soon”, Newegg still says “out of stock” and Amazon is not selling any from Amazon, only from other sellers, and the seller selling them says “only 11 left in stock”. This has been the situation for a month or longer.
As for my comment about the little birdie with the added wink, it was a throw away comment that was a joke nobody seemed to “get”. Techflaws: Beta testers are supposed to remain silent about “inside info”, tsk, tsk.
I don’t care either however the whole point of a forum is to interact and that’s what I do. A number of people believe comments that are posted here even if they are innocuous.
You guys are something else. Nobody “spread any rumors”. It is OK, to make PREDICTIONS in this world; be they substantiated or unsubstantiated. Jeeze. I stand by my comment that sometime in the future there will be a successor to the SMP, and I have no idea what it will be like or when it will come or how much it will cost. It might not even come from WD.
So, it is my belief that it better not take WD too long, because the competition is continually wanting to chip away at WD’s media player market share, and they must love it that WD does not yet have a new top-of-line player, because THEY will have one they think can eat WD’s lunch. The new player from the competition to challenge WD will likely be a gigabit speed system, with USB 3.0 support and dual-band wi-fi. The processor chips in the WD players are not proprietary – any other company can use the same chips to build a media player. Some have tried and either failed or done OK. For WD fans, and the sake of WD, let’s hope the competition doesn’t get the lead on WD in the next go 'round.
I stand by my comment that sometime in the future there will be a successor to the SMP
Highly likely given this unspecific time frame. However, apart from the annyoing bugs the SMP is still pretty solid when it comes to features (especially at this price point). What good would USB3 do? USB2 is more than capable of handling max BD bitrates, as is 100 Mbit LAN. And what about complete BD support? If you offer that you got to support Cinavia too which will lose me as a customer for sure. So I don’t worry about the competition too much ATM. I really do hope, WD will switch to the next Sigma chip that supports XBMC though.
What good would USB3 do? USB2 is more than capable of handling max BD bitrates, as is 100 Mbit LAN
If for nothing else, transferring files from say, PC to player’s attached drive in a lot less time. Anyway, it is 2013, and USB3 and gigabit home networks have become common place.
