H.264 possible?

Okay, is H.264 support possible, by hack or future firmware upgrade, or does the hardware on the Mini a limitation?  I bought the Mini, but am disappointed by the lack of support - the manual suggest mkv. container support, but because almost all MKV containers include the H.264 codec, it really isn’t supported.  Most 720p video files, which are supposed supported by this model, are in H.264.

I couldn’t get it to display anything using H.264, even if I dropped the resolution well under the stated maximums. I think it’s misleading to say it plays MPEG4 without stating that it won’t play H.264 encoded content. That’s becoming standard pretty quickly these days.

I also can’t get it to read an HFS+ (Mac) formatted hard drive, despite stating it does so here:  http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=681

External Drive Formats Supported
FAT32, NTFS, HFS+

I’m going to send this back. It doesn’t so what I want at all. Disappointing.

  James

hey there…

from what i’ve tried…nope no mkv/h.264 support/luv…

had to transcode…so my 350-400mb files grew to 500-700mb…and i lost 30 minutes of processor time…no big deal here…but ymmv

technically xvid/divx is mpeg4…so stating that it is mpeg 4 capable is not streching the truth…

i dont really like viewing video on xbox/psp/ps3, so very few of my files are ever encoded as such…

not to big of a hdtv snob but i CAN tell a big difference between a H.264 vid and a 700mb xvid full screen on my laptop…h.264 ■■■■■ EVERY time…

good luck

-Peon

I think it’s misleading for WD to say that the Mini supports .mkv when in actuality it doesn’t. Well it may if the file has been encoded with mp4 instead of h.264, but the problem WD has overlooked is that 99% of the mkv files that are downloaded are encoded with the h.264 codec.

If there is no firmware update to support the h.264 codec very soon, I am going to take this thing back.

This is a copy of the email I sent WD yesterday to ask about a firmware update to support the h.264 codec:

“I bought the TV Mini on the information that it supports the mkv file format, but it actual fact it will only support it if it has been encoded with the mp4 codec. The problem here is that 99% of the mkv files downloaded from the internet are encoded with the h.264 codec, which leaves users of this device stranded not being able to play their mkv files.
I would like to know if there is going to be a firmware update for this product to support the h.264 codec? If not, myself and a lot of other buyers will have to return this product when they think it will support full matroska files.”

And here is there resposnse:

"Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is Pablo R.

I apologize for the inconvenience, we are working in a firmware update for the WD TV Mini, this firmware will add new codecs, unfortunately, there is not any ETA for this firmware release.

I hope that we have met your expectations today and that you are satisfied with our service. If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further."

So as you can see, no definitive answer.

So with the next Firmware we can Play the .mkv format with the TV mini?
When will the new firmware will be released?

that’s great , but I am not waiting