I have had this unit about 2 weeks so far ok I have a few complaints but that is to be expected I took back the Seagate Home Theatre HD the DVD files that I made were way to choppy on that compared to the WD live I did like the chapter skip the seagate offered Hope WD gets this one eventually. Right now I am doing all my DVds and I am using the VOB file just making an exact copy of DVd less menus and extras Video quality is the same as bluray player for DVds and as I said previuosly I even got a DTS ex sountrack to come through AV reciever as such. As far as doing Bluray movies which way should I go the same way I am doing DVds I am very pickey on sound and video and natural formats. Can I PCM the sound to play the Dolby true HD and master losseless as I do not think the WD live will encode these formats however my AV receiver will. So if I can PCM it versus bitstream I should be fine I see all this stuff about MKV don’t even know what that is space to me is not an issure I would rather be able to watch a bluray title in a 1080P/24 format. So any sugestions on which way to go and problems I may encounter?
You can’t pass through the DTS-HD track, as Live won’t do it – you will be able to passthrough the True-HD sound (say in an MKV container) and the Live will play it.
I use Handbrake to encode all my blu-rays, at the High Preset. Doing A/B tests I cannot tell the difference (and I am picky, as I have a 9’ HD screen). But if you are the type who always feel they are losing something if they compress a video then just use the raw m2ts file from the blu and be done with it (no encoding, just tons and tons of disc space required, as most are 20-30GB and up).
yes I am a bit picky and to know that it is compressed probably would bug me having said that I am a huge fan of mp3 audio for music maybe I will try it the MKV way and check it out what do I have to loose right? I know it would take about 1 day to copy a bluray at least with the stuff I have. Do you know much about NAS I am looking at this and this looks tempting also I have an Xbox360 Elite
Your point about MP3s is well taken – I used to be an audio purist as well, and high quality MP3s convinced me otherwise.
If you do convert a blu-ray just use Handbrake with the High Preset (but change the output to MKV and passthrough the DTS or AC3 audio) and I think you’ll be very happy with the results. Try it, at least – no harm, no foul, no money spent.
If you mean by NAS attaching drives directly to your router there have been many here with issues with the Live and that. To be fair, there is at least one person who says it works fine. Given the problems that people have with network shares in general I’d say to avoid it and just attach your drives (or use internal ones) on your PC and you’ll be MUCH happier (that’s what I do – I have 4.5TB of drives in my PC that I share with the two Lives in my house and it’s pretty fantastic).
