DVDs and Blurays

I have 1 primary application for this thing and that is to play DVDs and Blurays from Network Shares.  I have the login/password to the share working, I just get odd results when I navigate to my backed up disc directories.  I have them in their native file directory format (VIDEO_TS, etc., as on the disc) - not MKV or ISO, etc.  In both the DVD and Bluray cases, I can get the files to play just fine, but I can’t figure out how to play it like a DVD or Bluray with menus, etc.  I have to go dig into the directories and highlight a VOB or M2TS file to play them.  What am I missing?  I also have a Popcorn Hour and it just figures it out as soon as you enter the directory and plays it like a DVD - that’s what I’d like it to do.

I have exactly the same problem.  I have copied a few of my DVDs to the USB drive and try to play them as I would do with the original DVDs.  Unfortunately, the menu and chapters navigation doesn’t work.

Any ideas/suggestions?  Does WD TV Live even support menu navigation?

No menu navigation yet for DVDs or BD.

Vote for the idea here: http://community.wdc.com/t5/ideas/ideaexchangepage/blog-id/idea

I would be willing to PAY for a firmware upgrade that includes DVD menu & chapters support.  Not asking for the FULL DVD Specs, but only menu navigation and chapters.

I wasn’t aware that other devices support DVD menu, that’s great.  As to the popcorn, it uses the SMP 8650 family of chipsets right ? much like the regular WD does - they probably have licensed the DVD specs support who knows.

Adding full DVD navigation support would probably require major changes to the media player inside the firmware.  Also the remote does not have the buttons required, but you could add extra options under “options” button to go to title menu, etc…  FULL DVD specs support would be unrealistic, but DVD menu + chapters would be great.

Popcorn Hour plays DVDs and Blu-rays exactly like the disc itself.  I honestly don’t understand why you’d build one of these products without that support.  I bought this thing for someone else because I heard it was easy to use, but its usefulness is questionable now for me.  It plays the movies fine…it just doesn’t seem to understand menus or chapters.

Not sure if anyone from WD reads the comments on this site, but I would like to know (from WD) if there are any plans in the near future, to upgrade the firmware on WD TV Live to allow menu and chapters navigation.  I hope it is just a matter of upgrading the firmware, otherwise, I am not interested in a brand new product (I just got mine).

Are the chapters and menus an issue regardless of container type (i.e., do they work with MKV or ISO)?

I would be willing to BUY new WD hardware or Firmware to have FULL Blu-ray and DVD menu support!

For what it’s worth, I did have one DVD converted to MKV and for that particular file, I could go into the option menu and change chapters via the last option in the list.  I couldn’t use the “next” key to move chapters, so it was somewhat cumbersome, but at least I could get far into the movie if I wanted to relatively easily.  Allowing that to happen from the “prev” and “next” keys would be great.  It would be better for it to work on VIDEO_TS style DVDs and Blu-rays as well.  Menus would be great too, but recognizing the container and playing it properly combined with chapter skipping is probably most mportant.  Menus get you to the extras, but for just playing the movie, jumping right in is fine for me if menus can’t be supported for some reason. 

I’m hoping the fact that there isn’t a menu button isn’t a factor.  If they could add a future virtual menu button that could be addressed by a Harmony, that would be all I’d need.