Media player models - DVD menu support mystery

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Hello,

Recently I borrowed a WD TV Mini media player from a friend and I was especially enthousiastic about its DVD menu support. However it did not have HD support, so I purchased a WD TV Live HD media player, and to my surprise it did NOT have DVD menu support. I was able to return it and after searching the internet I assured myself a third type, the WD TV HD media player DID have menu support just like its mini version. I bought a gen2 but no, that one also does not show DVD menus.

All types had the latest firmware installed and the only device I have not tried is a gen1 HD player.

The DVD menu option is important to me because I’d perhaps like to jump to some chapter. Also I noticed when selecting a VOB file (which appears to be the only way to start a DVD movie) and when using the ‘next’ button on the remote, both HD players restart that VOB file, instead of advancing to the next chapter in the movie.

Why did both HD versions lack DVD menu support?

Cheers,

Kjeld

2

Your post sounds more like an Idea or a Feature Request. The best place for this is in our Ideas Lab. This way someone from WD will be sure to see it. However, I would search first and make sure that there isn’t another idea similar to yours that you could add your post to and vote on.

Ideas Lab
http://community.wdc.com/t5/community/categorypage/category-id/idea

3

Kjeld wrote:

 

Why did both HD versions lack DVD menu support?

 

Cheers,

Kjeld

Hello and welcome to the forum. :slight_smile:

The WD TV Mini uses a completely different chipset to the WD TV HD models.  

I’m guessing there was pre-existing support for menus with that chipset whilst WD is having to create the menu system itself for the newer chipset.

DVD Menu / Navigation is definitely something they are looking into implementing on the newer models, although whether it’s full menu support or just chapter navigation remains to be seen.

As a heads-up, are you aware that you can skip ahead in 10 minute jumps using the remote?  Whilst FF-ing, press the Next button.  To step back 10 minutes, whilst RW-ing press Prev.

To get VOB files to play sequentially, I believe you need to place them in a VIDEO_TS folder.  Select the folder and press play rather than navigating into the folder.

From the Western Digital Knowledge Base:

When trying to play a group of VOB files, there is a lag between the files and difficulties rewinding to locations in different VOB files. The WD TV Live HD Media Player may also show the length of the individual VOB file instead of the length of the movie.

Cause:  
Many encoding programs will put VOB’s in a VIDEO_TS folder.  The WDTV Live requires these VOB files to be in a VIDEO_TS folder to play correctly. If the files are located in a folder with a different name this behavior will occur.

Solution:  
This issue is solved by simply placing the files into a properly named folder. Follow the instructions below if you need assistance doing this.

  1. Connect your storage device to a computer
  2. Navigate to the folder (using  My Computer  /  Computer  on a PC or  Finder  on MacOSX) that contains the video VOB files
  3. Create a folder in this directory called VIDEO_TS
  4. Copy the VOB files to the VIDEO_TS folder

From the ‘Did You Know? Quick WD TV Tips’

Play multiple files in a row
Instead of pressing the Enter button while a file is selected, you can press the Play button to play all of the files in the current folder sequentially, beginning with the currently selected file.

Hope that helps!

5

Thank you for replying.

The VOB files are in the appropriate folder (VIDEO_TS) so that’s not the issue in my case. Although I have not tried to press ‘play’ instead of opening the folder.

From my perspective it is not an ‘idea’ in the sense of being revolutionair, I think DVD menu support and chapter selection (IFO file support, as I understand now) should be common features supported by media players. My guess is that a lot of potential users are interested in this functionality.

Meanwhile I went ahead and found a different brand/model which does support these features. 

Cheers!

Kjeld

6

I too waS A little bit upset at the DVd menu feature however if you did not know this as I did not as you press the Fast fwd button then hit skip it will skip the movie 10 mins. I have treid another unit that had the DVd menu support but the player had significant video degradation so I took it back and stayed with the WD live hope this helps

T