Ok… none of my DVDShrink-created VIDEO_TS folders have the problem when I try playing them. I haven’t tried DVDFab – I was going by JimKnopf’s tests.
And yes, I get the menu navigation and choose the main movie… I’m not just playing the movie with no menuing. I’ve just never been able to get any of my movies to stutter, once people started reporting this under 1.03.49 and 1.04.10 (and now 1.04.17).
But I also tried sharing the DVD drive on my PC, and played an original disc that way, and it also stutters. (I have a couple of store-bought DVDs that do not have CSS encryption – they play without needing to be decrypted first.) So, the bottom line is that the WDTV will not play back an actual DVD without stuttering. I’m still puzzled why my DVDShrink folder trees play ok.
Buffering makes no sense to me, since I can play 20+ MBit files locally and over the network – there’s no reason it shouldn’t be able to keep up with a 9 MBit DVD .vob file – especially when it used to.
It is really strange to me why the exact same files that were stuttering do not stutter when they are in an ISO (see my previous post). Isn’t the ISO just all of the VOBs put together in a single file?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that to play the ISO, the WD box only needs to deal with one file, while it has to deal with multiple files in the VIDEO_TS directory?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that to play the ISO, the WD box only needs to deal with one file, while it has to deal with multiple files in the VIDEO_TS directory?
Scandy, I can’t answer that with any technical proof…but assuming that .VOBs are stored on a DVD in 1GB chunks then there can’t be any more than 5 .VOBs in any given DVD ISO. I’d like to think that having 5 files in a folder shouldn’t be an issue!
Scandy, I can’t answer that with any technical proof…but assuming that .VOBs are stored on a DVD in 1GB chunks then there can’t be any more than 5 .VOBs in any given DVD ISO. I’d like to think that having 5 files in a folder shouldn’t be an issue!
Lee
While it is true that there may only be a few VOBs that contain the actual movie, there are usually a lot of files in the VIDEO_TS directory. For example, Iron Man 2 has 47 files in the VIDEO_TS directory.
All this discussion is nice and all, but I have no doubt where the problem is.
It is simple:
If the same box (WDTV live) in the same environment (wired network) CAN play VIDEO_TS folder structure with no problem with PRE 1.04.10 firmware and than CAN NOT with 1.04.10 and later (the same files in the same environment) – there is no doubt in my mind where the problem is, no matter what excuses you try to come up with.
All this discussion is nice and all, but I have no doubt where the problem is.
It is simple:
If the same box (WDTV live) in the same environment (wired network) CAN play VIDEO_TS folder structure with no problem with PRE 1.04.10 firmware and than CAN NOT with 1.04.10 and later (the same files in the same environment) – there is no doubt in my mind where the problem is, no matter what excuses you try to come up with.
Well I will have to disagree with you based upon my testing with the latest firmware.
If you select the VIDEO_TS folder and press Play/Enter, then the video plays correctly.
If you go into the VIDEO_TS folder and select a VOB file then press Play/Enter, then you get the jerky playback.
Don’t disagree that there is a problem. But, the workaround (play the VIDEO_TS folder) is a lot easier than trying to select an individual VOB to play.
After spending 3 days fiddling around with all kinds of settings and cabling, I downgraded the FW and it worked immediately.
I recently upgraded to 1.04.17V and all of my VOB files shared over the network were stuttered. After rolling back to 1.03.49, they played fine as before the upgrade. I had made no changes to any other settings.
Hopefully this confirmation can help some other folks.
All this discussion is nice and all, but I have no doubt where the problem is.
It is simple:
If the same box (WDTV live) in the same environment (wired network) CAN play VIDEO_TS folder structure with no problem with PRE 1.04.10 firmware and than CAN NOT with 1.04.10 and later (the same files in the same environment) – there is no doubt in my mind where the problem is, no matter what excuses you try to come up with.
Well I will have to disagree with you based upon my testing with the latest firmware.
If you select the VIDEO_TS folder and press Play/Enter, then the video plays correctly.
If you go into the VIDEO_TS folder and select a VOB file then press Play/Enter, then you get the jerky playback.
Don’t disagree that there is a problem. But, the workaround (play the VIDEO_TS folder) is a lot easier than trying to select an individual VOB to play.
If you press enter on the VIDEO_TS folder you will end up playing a VOB.
… there is no doubt in my mind where the problem is, no matter what excuses you try to come up with.
“Excuses”?
The issue is, that when something works for some people and doesn’t work for others, then the WD engineers need to know why it isn’t working for some, before they can even begin to fix it – that’s how you locate the problem.
Trust me. They know there’s a problem. It’s been around for a few revisions. And the fact that a “real” DVD won’t play seems to remove any issues with certain encoders rippers from the equation – it had been a possibility that some rips were missing some detail that the WDTV needs but other standalone players ignore.
But what’s different about a .vob file and a .vob file embedded in an .iso container? The only apparent difference is what container the MPEG stream is ultimately in. And the same MPEG stream in the same .vob file will play fine locally. So, something’s going wrong when some MPEG streams are sent over CIFS. That narrows it down somewhat – but we’ve kind of know that much for over a month. I don’t know if anyone’s closer to identifying the problem.
I am certain that the firmwares 1.0.4.xx DOES HAVE issues with NETWORK playback. Myself and a lot of other users experienced issues, and rolling back to 1.0.3.xx solves the problem.
I also confirmed that 1.0.4.xx did IMPROVE playback of ISO files over network. I have a Bluray ISO file that did not play back on 1.0.3xx, but it does play fine (over the network from a share on Windows XP) on 1.0.4.xx.
So while 1.0.4.xx is a step forward regarding ISO playback, it is a major step backward regarding playback of regular video files over network from a samba share.
Right now I have demoted my WDTV Live to a TV in my home office that I don’t use very often. On my other two TVs I am using a TViX N1 and an Xtreamer, that are far better devices than WDTV, IMHO.
Anyway, this is only my opinion based on my experience with the media players I have (WDTV Live, TViX N1 and Xtreamer) and had in the past (TViX 6500A).
I really hope that WDTV Live improves the firmware (solving the problems, adding support to changing subtitle color, improve photo rendering quality, improving support to gapless playback of MTS files from HD camcorders, adding some sort of “Favorites” where I can quickly access the shares on my network without drilling down so many menus…). At this moment I would not buy nor recommend any media player from WD.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that to play the ISO, the WD box only needs to deal with one file, while it has to deal with multiple files in the VIDEO_TS directory?
Could be … The box stutters too, if you play MKVs with external subs with bitrate greater than approx. 2.5Gb/h.
This time I used the original DVD “Shrek 1” (PAL, German version) and created a 1:1 VOB files copy (for this test only) with all menus, audio tracks and subpictures using DVDFAB and a second time using DVDShrink; while both encodings there was NO (!!!) compression/shrinking activated, so the video material is having the original GOP structures and bandwidth.
Results (you only have to care about the first 2 minutes of the main movie until the narrator ends):
1. DVDShrink: Both methods (with and without DVD menu means starting with play at the VIDEO_TS folder or enter the folder and start any of the visible files) show these stuttering/surging effects. The problem starting the movie from the menu is even harder and the WD TV live seems to stop completely.
DVDFab: Exact same effect. The menu features couldn’t be tested since the WD TV live hangs when you should choose the language English or German and does not accept any remote control key except STOP.
Looking at my bandwidth monitor within my DVD player, the surging starts in video sequences where there is only low badnwidth used for the video stream … but the audio has high dynamic peaks while this.
Will do a last test here and shrink the DVD to 4.7 GB. In case this should run better, at least we know the problem depends anyhow upon the overall bandwidth of video and audio. If it surges the same way, the problem looks to be independend from the video bandwidth used.
Addendum:
The shrinked material (now 4.7 GB) behaves nearly the same
Starting without DVD menu (press START at VIDEO_TS folder) surges the same way.
Starting using the menu shows some tiny improvement since instead of heavy surging sometimes only an audio dropout is noticable. But when it comes to the book scene with the narrator, again, the WD TV live seems ot stop completely.
Well, with this informationen this issue should be reproducable; hope there is a Dreamworks SHREK DVD within WDC’s lab and hopefully, the NTSC version shows the same problem like the PAL one I used.
Addendum2:
Needless to say that an 1:1 ISO Image copy of the original Shrek DVD (which is around 6.48 GB in size) plays perfectly with the WD box.
Well, with this informationen this issue should be reproducable; hope there is a Dreamworks SHREK DVD within WDC’s lab and hopefully, the NTSC version shows the same problem like the PAL one I used.
WD should not have any problem finding a disk to use to reproduce this problem because every DVD that I have ever tried with 1.04.10, or 1.04.17, firmware has the VOB stuttering issue. From what I have been reading on this board, the VOB stuttering problem is there on both NTSC and PAL systems, and it seems to affect the Live and Live Plus equally.
Well I will have to disagree with you based upon my testing with the latest firmware.
If you select the VIDEO_TS folder and press Play/Enter, then the video plays correctly.
If you go into the VIDEO_TS folder and select a VOB file then press Play/Enter, then you get the jerky playback.
Don’t disagree that there is a problem. But, the workaround (play the VIDEO_TS folder) is a lot easier than trying to select an individual VOB to play.
I have to disagree with you. Pressing play on VIDEO_TS folder DOS NOT give you full DVD support (it’s not menus only – try playing multiple title DVD this way and it will play only one – largest – title).
To play DVD properly you have to enter VIDEO_TS folder and play VOB. And that doesn’t work.
So DVD playback starting with 1.04.xx firmware (over the network) is BROKEN!
I’m new to this system and thank God for the people on this forum. This whole thing reads like a mediocre Beta test. Couldn’t agree more that WD needs to get the basic network capability fixed before all of the other junk. I just rolled back to the previous firmware to solve my VOB stuttering problem that started with the 1.04 upgrade. Pathetic.
