Hello everyone, I am seriously thinking about buying this product (Plus).
The main use is to actually watch home videos not just have them piled up and never touch them.
I have a couple of questions:
I bought an HD cam and it creates files in MTS format. I did a little digging and noticed that there are some problems with this format, such as the “gap” between files and also the occasional black screen or garbled sound. Do these problems still exist or have them been exaggerated?
Also I recorded a bunch of videos using the max resolution (blue ray comparable) will this be able to play them?
Lastly, I want to stream the content wirelessly (if possible). Could I use any wireless adapter (N adapter) or is it proprietary - How is the wireless streaming?
It should play MTS files okay, but if you are going to wireless stream HD content you’d be far better off re-encoding them with Hanbrake, for example (using the High Profile preset you won’t lose any quality and they will be far smaller to store). This is true of almost any media player – streaming very HD content takes a lot of power. I have a ton of blu-rays encoded this way and they are disinguisble from the disc (and play wirelessly).
The Live only works with certain wireless adapters – there is a list on this site if you search. Not only that, but only certain firmware versions of those adapters are supported, so choose carefully (there are alternatives, such as a wireless bridge, that can use ANY adapter but you will be paying more).
With the bridge you mention - do you mean a wireless-ethernet adapter that connects to the ethernet cable port on the WD unit? If so, are there any adapters that support N protocol? OR is it just an ethernet cable to USB adapter then one can use any wireless USB card? Can you give examples of such adapters? I am looking for one, to save a USB port on the unit, that can handle the N protocol.
m2ts files are not a problem. But it has to be a “clear” format. I’m using a lot m2ts files from my home camera in 1080p format without any problems. None!
But only on an optimised 802.11N network.
On 802.11g it doesn’t work all the time. It counts the encryption, it counts radio interference.
I would not recommend wireless lan for streaming high resolution movies. It may require optimised network without any radio interference.
On ethernet cable WDTV Live (I supose Plus also) is able to stream any resolution without problems.
