I have a WDTV Live (not Plus). I have a bunch of recorded Windows Media Center files (.dvd-ms) recorded using Windows XP. The main reason I watch recorded shows vs live shows is to skip through the commercials. Playback of the files using WDTV works fine. Fast forward works fine. But when I try to return to normal playback, it goes back to the beginning of the file! Also, in Media Center using its remote, the skip forward button skips forward 30 seconds and the skip backward button skips backward 10 seconds. When I use the skip forward or skip backward buttons on the WDTV remote, it skips to the next or prev file in the folder. How stupid is that? Anybody have a solution for these issues?
Correction: the file format type is .dvr-ms. Now a new problem. Today I added additional videos to the hard drive. Now it won’t play any of them, even the previous ones that used to play fine! It gives message “cannot play this video format. See the user manual for how to convert to a supported format” or something like that. So I go to the user manual and it says .DVR-MS is supported. Go figure. I guess my next attempt will be to try to convert them to something else, maybe WMV9 or MPEG4? Any suggestions? There was software called ArcSoft MediaConverter 2.5 included on the CD. I guess I’ll try that first. Hopefully that will fix the fast forward issue I described too.
Guess what? ArcSoft MediaConverter 2.5 doesn’t support .dvr-ms as an input. Any ideas?
I watch mainly DVR-MS as well and also wish there was a 30 sec skip feature with the remote.
What firmware are you using? I am still on 1.2.21 but will bump up to 1.3.49 soon.
Have you tried doing the 3 point reset?
- RESET the unit by pressing the small button next to the power socket.
- Unplug the unit and let it sit for 5-10 minutes before plugging back in.
- Go to Settings and select Restore Factory Settings. After this, you’ll have to re-establish your desired configuration items.
I usually only unplug for a few minutes and it seems to do the trick (I’ve had some of the MKV header compression issues).
To get around commericals, I manually remove them with sometimes with DVREDIT. If you want to have them removed automatically then I believe DVRMStoolbox will do so within Windows Media Center.
The only skip issue I’ve experienced is when the video stops when I am doing 6X FF and try to go back to play. This issue has been resolved in 1.3.49 apparently.
Thanks for the tip. I noticed there is a reset under System settings and that seemed to do the trick. I could play the shows again after selecting that. Some more testing revealed that when I play certain shows, it locks up on that show. Then when I back out and try to play one that previously worked, I get the bad format error message again, and have to reset. I also read somewhere that some shows have some kind of code that prevents them from being played on anything but the MediaCenter computer that recorded it. I’m guessing that these shows that are causing the lockup are one of those. Interestingly, after the reset, the return to normal play after fast forward works now too.
I’ll have to get back to you on the firmware version. Thanks also for the DVRMStoolbox tip. That looks promising.
