Maximum bit rate

What is the maximum bitrate, WDTV Live will handle ? I have some Blu ray movies which stutter and totally unplayable. I am on wired network, using windows 7 64bit.

40 to 50 megabits per second no problem…

Thanks tony, but the movies “killers” and  “She is out of my league” are stuttering and I have to stop and replay every minute to play the movie. Both are less than 50megabits. Do you have any experience with these movies ?

No, I don’t, sorry…

These are BD Iso Rips, or M2TS files, or what?

I have them as BR ISO rips and converted them to MKV as well. Both files stutter

photocrazy,

I think I’ve seen reference in the forums that ISO BD rips have problems on the WDTV Live  like you’re seeing.  Now MKV is another story, as that generally is the preferred format.  May I ask what program you used to conver the ISOs to MKV?  Also, how fast is your network and what are you using to serve the media?

I have my BR rips in MKV or M2TS file format and they seem to play just fine.  Going forward, I’m going to put all of them in MKV format.  They are also “uncluttered” in that they only have one audio track and subs only if they are needed; forced, as in Avatar.

I will, however, say that they play smoothly via media server access rather than network shares.  I’ve notice that my BD rips stutter (MKV or M2TS) using network shares - not sure why that would be unless there’s an issue with the latest FW - which I believe I’ve seen posts indicating such.

If you can, try a MKV or M2TS file and see if you notice improvement.  If not, I would check your network switches and cabling.  I finally moved my synology NAS to another location because I had it hooked up to my DIR-655 router (setup as an access point) and it was causing all sorts of problems; media players couldn’t see the NAS or slow to find it, etc. 

I use makemkv to convert isos to mkv. I have 10/100 network and I have my files in samsung 2 tb internal drive. I am able to play other movies as BR ISOs and mkvs. These two movies which are stuttering, i converted them to mkvs, but still same result. Does using media server make a difference ? coz I never used media servers as they dont support iso.

I want to try any media server to see if it makes any difference in high bitrate BR files. can you suggest any media server?

photocrazy wrote:

I want to try any media server to see if it makes any difference in high bitrate BR files. can you suggest any media server?

There’s a thread listing a number of popular media servers over in the Hub forum, you can view it here:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/List-of-Media-Servers/m-p/123768#M5334

It’s not a complete list but a decent starting point.

Of those listed, I’ve tried TVersity and it’s pretty easy to set up (remember to disable transcoding), works well and is free.

Then there’s Twonky , which is used by my NAS.  That’s the one I use most frequently and I can stream 1080p over a pretty weak Powerline network.  I don’t have any experience installing and conguring on a PC though, it came pre-installed on the NAS (and on the Live Hub).

Missing from the list is Serviio, which is supposed to be easy to set up and a number of WD users reported success getting stuttering files to smooth out.  I’ve never tried it but it gets good feedback.

Also missing is PS3 Media Server , which despite the name works for pretty much any DLNA device.  I dabbled with it a number of years ago but preferred TVersity.  Worth checking out as some people swear by it.

Apologies if that’s too much choice!

If I had to list ones to try, I’d say Serviio or  TVersity.  Serviio because a bunch of people report it being very easy to set up.  TVersity because I’ve tried it and know that it’s not very difficult to set up.

Thank you very much. I actually installed tversity but it does not play mkv.

gotto to try the others

photocrazy wrote:

Thank you very much. I actually installed tversity but it does not play mkv.

 

gotto to try the others

Did you install the TVersity codec pack?  If your PC can play MKVs, it should stream them.  

Most of my files are MKV, so I know it CAN work.  ;)

But if it’s too much hassle, move onto the next media server, plenty to choose from!

I use TVersity as well on a wired MoCA network with sustained file transfer speeds between 8MB/sec and 9.5MB/sec.  I can stream MKV/M2TS files up to a certain file size.  While streaming directly from PC, I can view files up to about 40GB with no issues at all.  But…when streaming between my three Live boxes, I can only view files up to half that size about 22GB.  

I’ve never heard of Servillo but I will check it out today.  I have also used the PS3 media server with success to stream larger MKV/M2TS files as well.