False Claims

Community Archives WD TV Play Discussions
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Why is everyone have so many problems playing videos. You claim to support certain formats and do not. I’ve tried many differeient conversion settings and you just refuse to play AVI, MP3 MKV FLV and on and on totally hap hazordly and at random.

Yes it have the latest firmware.

What are the reccommended settings to convert video so your palyer will finally play them?

Why so may limitations. All my conversion work fine on my PC with Zoom Player but refuse to work on your player which you claim will work.

Sorry but that is just plain BS. I have properly formatted videos in the format you claim to support but does not work!!! 

What is your problem playing everything?. Zoom PLayer uses mostly public domain codecs. Why can you people get this right?

This is frustrating the **bleep** out of me and I’m sure many others

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Frustration wrote:

Why is everyone have so many problems playing videos.

Certainly not everyone…  The Play plays every file I have.

Frustration wrote:

…you just refuse to play AVI, MP3 MKV FLV and on and on totally hap hazordly and at random.

AVI and MKV are only “containers,” they are not codecs or formats.   The contents of the container must be supported according to the published specs:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=920#tab3

For example, FLV only works with AVC video.  Are your FLV files all AVC video?

Frustration wrote:

I have properly formatted videos in the format you claim to support but does not work!!!

Please post the full TEXT output of MEDIAINFO for such a file.

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net

Frustration wrote:

Zoom PLayer uses mostly public domain codecs.

There is no such thing as “public domain codecs” when it comes to commercial products.  All major video formats require licensing.

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When I say everyone I’ve seen many in these forums having these same issues.

I’m no video expert so if AVI and MKV are containers so be it. What is a container in layman’s terms? To me it’s just a file format.

I use AVS Video Converter and it has never failed me yet other than one format (mkv). I can convert between most any format to all the formats Play is supposed to support but it does not work in Play yet Zoom Players plays all conversions… If there is a better converter to make files work in WD TV Play then I’m all ears.

Thanks for the link to Media Info. Nice utility.  I looked at one of the files that refuses to play and it appears to me to match the required specs spelled out in the manual as to what files are supported.

Regarding Public Domain… I meant open source, sorry but zoom player still plays them all and is not so fussy and WD TV Play.

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4

A container is just a “box.” The stuff in the box must also be supported.

The file type you posted is AVC High@L5.1.

As the specs say, the highest AVC profile supported is High@L4.1.

So it’s not compatible.

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TonyPh12345 wrote:
A container is just a “box.” The stuff in the box must also be supported.

The file type you posted is AVC High@L5.1.

As the specs say, the highest AVC profile supported is High@L4.1.

So it’s not compatible.> End Quote from above… > OK… then this begs the question why is this spec not supported?. This is not my fault I’m unable to play this or any other current file format.> It;s not goog enough to just walk away and say “So it’s not compatible.”  Am I suppose to dumb down my files to work in your outdated player? So how do I do that?> It appears 5.1 is a more recent spec then why doesn’t WD support it and how much longer before it does? In fact why wouldn’t WD TV Play support all the current specs. given the fact now that it does not?> Also I repeat, your user manual and website is making false and inaccurate claims about what the player supports when clearly you are way out of date in supporting the current specs.> To me, this is not acceptable. For anyone to buy the current playing device, confirm they have the latest firmware and then come to find out you guys (WD) are way behind in upgrades for your device?. I just bought this new, not used. I would at least expect to support the current industry standards.> When will there be current firmware available? This is a disservice to all you customers when not providing support for all the latest standards in place.

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This is a user to user community forum. We are not WD.

Each player has a limit and you will no doubt find more as you go along especially as you have the Play.

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richUK wrote:

This is a user to user community forum. We are not WD.

Each player has a limit and you will no doubt find more as you go along especially as you have the Play.

I knew it would come to this. I appreciate you trying but if you can’t bring this message forward to those who can do something about this the direct me to the person who can make this happen. I’ll speak directly with them. 

8

I don’t know exactly what you expect to happen but you can always speak to WD support. The only thing that I can suggest is that you return the player if you don’t think its up to the job because there is no direct line to anybody who can make this happen.

http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en

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Frustration wrote:
This is not my fault I’m unable to play this or any other current file format.

Actually, yes, it is.  The specifications are published on the box for a reason.  You’re expecting the box to do something it wasn’t designed to do, and you’re saying it’s the box’s fault.   No, it’s not the box’s fault that it can’t play things it wasn’t designed to play.  It’s your responsibility for not doing proper research and study before buying technology you don’t understand.

And I assume your behavior and manners are a result of buyers remorse and the onset of the realization that you didn’t do your homework, and now it’s cost you.

Frustration wrote:
OK… then this begs the question why is this spec not supported?. This is not my fault I’m unable to play this or any other current file format.

You have a LOT to learn about hardware-based media players – I guess this is the first one you’ve ever used?

Unlike PCs which have HUGE processors and vast amounts of memory, set-top-box media players have tiny CPUs and very little memory.  The software only controls the user interface, network functions, navigation and other basic functions.

All of the media decoding is hardware based.   The CPU itself has video decoders built into the silicon.   It’s not software doing the decode.   As such, support for additional codecs via firmware updates happens next-to-never.

I would be interested in finding out if you ever find a media player that does support “all the current specs.”   I’d be interested if you even find one that supports High@L5.1

You spent less than $70 for this box.   If you want a player that supports more advanced specifications, why did you buy the cheapest box out there?   You will need to spend somewhere on the order of $300-$400 to get a player that supports the more advanced stuff you’re demanding.

But please, do yourself a favor and make sure you read (_ and understand _) the specifications before you buy another player.  

Frustration wrote: It appears 5.1 is a more recent spec then why doesn’t WD support it and how much longer before it does?

No, that’s not correct.   5.1 is a different PROFILE.   It’s not a “more recent spec.”

Frustration wrote: Am I suppose to dumb down my files to work in your outdated player?

Oh, my gosh.   You really have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?  

Dumb down?   Given the specifications in the mediainfo you posted, you (as the encoder of the video) should never have used L5.1, as the video has NONE of attributes that would have required L5.1 in the first place.  

Your video is only 1280x544 resolution.   That’s not even Full HD.  The bit rate is only 1.5 Mbit/second.  Given that, your video should have been encoded at L3.1, not L5.1.    It’s only using 1 Reference Frame for crying out loud!  :laughing:

High@L5.1 is intended for videos with resolutions up to 4Kx2K, with bitrates up to 240 MEGAbits per second, and 5 reference frames at max resolution!

So, I would submit that the way you’re encoding your videos, it’s already “dumbed down” about as far as it goes.   And changing the profile to match won’t do anything except make the decoder more efficient.

1 Like
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richUK wrote:

I don’t know exactly what you expect to happen but you can always speak to WD support. The only thing that I can suggest is that you return the player if you don’t think its up to the job because there is no direct line to anybody who can make this happen.

 

http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en

I think it’s very clear as to what my expectations are here if you took the time to read all of the above text. I previously had a media player out of china that played all these formats correctly but ut didn’t have wifi. I may still return this box and get thier latest model.

Maybe some day WD can do this right and stop with all the lies and false advertising…

Thanks for the link, I’ll contact them myself.

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Frustration wrote:

Maybe some day WD can do this right and stop with all the lies and false advertising… 

 

The guys who helped you did a great job of explaining things to you, but you still don’t “get it”.  Too bad.

Meanwhile, I have a WD Live Plus and every video file, music file, and photo file I throw at the player works fine. because the programs I use to make the files are standard, well known and respected programs that do the job to make compatible files…

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Please at least post the make & model of this player to which you refer – other people may very well be interested as well.

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mike27oct wrote:

Frustration wrote:

Maybe some day WD can do this right and stop with all the lies and false advertising… 

 

The guys who helped you did a great job of explaining things to you, but you still don’t “get it”.  Too bad.

 

Meanwhile, I have a WD Live Plus and every video file, music file, and photo file I throw at the player works fine. because the programs I use to make the files are standard, well known and respected programs that do the job to make compatible files…

Give me a break. Don’t be such a [Deleted] You don’t get it. Where is the answer to the converter question?

Where is the answer to the being out of date?

Where is the answer on how to dumb down files to play in this outdated firmware player?

Where is the answer to false advertising. THEY DON’T PLAY ALL FILES!

The truth is out, WD clearly is overstating what this box can do.  

When the questions got difficult they say sorrry were not from WD. So for addressing the problem at hand nothing was done. I’ll have to contact WD mysleft to get this resolved

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TonyPh12345 wrote:

Please at least post the make & model of this player to which you refer – other people may very well be interested as well.

 

Why would anyone here be interested in that?

As far as everyonhe here is concerned the WD TV Play does it all and has no faults what so ever. It’s just me complaining acording to your own posts. Pleople here have no idea what they are talking about when they say it works with these CLAIMED file formats. IT DOES NOT WORK WITH ALL THE FORMATS POSTED IN THE MANUAL and there are many resons for that, most of which are being hidden from the majority of the low tech users that trust WD.  Sure they say if works because they don’t know any better as to what the real problem is

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Frustration wrote:

mike27oct wrote:

Frustration wrote:

Maybe some day WD can do this right and stop with all the lies and false advertising… 

 

The guys who helped you did a great job of explaining things to you, but you still don’t “get it”.  Too bad.

 

Meanwhile, I have a WD Live Plus and every video file, music file, and photo file I throw at the player works fine. because the programs I use to make the files are standard, well known and respected programs that do the job to make compatible files…

Give me a break. I thanked everone who help but no they did not provide all the answers. Don’t be such a [Deleted] Go back and read the posts again. You didn’t get it.!

 

Where is the answer to the converter question? You say you have such magical “standard, well known respected progams to do the job to make compatible files” So what are they? Don’t be shy. Your here to help the community arn’t you? Or are you just bluffing about their existence or afraid to mention them in case I use them and proove you wrong? 

Where is the answer to the firmware being out of date?

Where is the answer on how to dumb down files to play in this outdated firmware player?

Where is the answers to the false advertising. THESE PLAYERS DON’T PLAY ALL FILES!

 

The truth is out, WD clearly is overstating what this box can do.  

 

So for addressing the problem at hand nothing was done. I’ll have to contact WD mysleft to get this resolved.

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Frustration wrote:> Where is the answers to the false advertising. THESE PLAYERS DON’T PLAY ALL FILES!

The truth is out, WD clearly is overstating what this box can do.  

*NO* media player plays all files.   *ALL* media players have limitations, as I already explained above.  

Further, WD *never* made such a claim.  *EVER*.   If you can post a link to such information, I will happily eat my words.

Frustration wrote:

Why would anyone here be interested in that?

Because maybe someone else requires a media player that supports High@L5.1 profile, as yourself.

Frustration wrote: IT DOES NOT WORK WITH ALL THE FORMATS POSTED IN THE MANUAL

You need to calm down and grow up a bit.  Let’s start over, shall we?

Please post the mediainfo report for a file that doesn’t work, that is listed as supported in the manual.  Using your example from above, page 147 of the manual clearly indicates that your file will *NOT* work.

17

Every file I converted to (AVI, MP4, FLV, MKV) with a variety of different setting ALL played fine on my PC and ALL complied with pages 146 and 147. That amounted to over a dozen attempts. NONE of them play on the media player. I didin’t keep these test files for obvious reasons. Nuff said!

Maybe if I go and get an old outdated converter to make old and obsolete video files, my converted files would play but this is not the appropriate solution.

The player clearly is out of date out of the box and WD clearly are making false claims on supported files!  What they should be stating is “plays some MP4, MKV, AVI… fill in the missing files here…  files correctly.” 

18

When I said what do you expect to happen, I meant do you really believe that you talking directly to WD will make them support these files! Good luck and prepare yourself for much more frustration. However I guess that a person with your sort of attitude is permanently frustrated.

If you look a little bit more at the Play you will see that it certainly does not play all files such as mpeg2 which is the basis of the DVD format. WD have a list which shows that is not supported so they certainly did not make any claim to ‘support all files’.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeentertainment/mediaplayers/

Note the ticked list.

Where is the firmware out of date, again WD has not made any claim that it will support any or all types of media which come along.

If you stopped abusing other users they may help you out on suggesting ways to encode your files so they do play.

19

Here is something you may want to read regarding handbrake. I don’t use it so I can’t vouch it will work for the Play. Note the reference to the profile / level.

Higher profiles & levels tend to get you better compression (so better quality in a given filesize). However, you’re going to be limited by the profile support of the hardware devices you’re planning to play your videos on. Here’s the order of things:

Baseline   →   Main   →   High
1.0   →   1b   →   1.1   →   1.2   → ……. →   5.1   →   5.2  (this one’s easy enough to figure out)

Currently,  High Profile, Level 4.1  is the most popular profile on recent / cutting edge devices.

Almost every current-generation device supports High Profile, Level 4.1.

Thus, you probably don’t want to exceed Level 4.1. If you go any higher, your video probably won’t play, or will play-with-glitches on any current smartphones, tablets, etc

http://mattgadient.com/2013/06/12/a-best-settings-guide-for-handbrake-0-9-9/

Note that it was written in June 2013 only 5 months ago and level 4.1 is quoted as the most popular profile on recent / cutting edge devices, not level 5.1.

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Frustration wrote:

Every file I converted … complied with pages 146 and 147.

You are contradicting yourself.  The file you posted above does not comply with the specifications listed.