I have just bought this device and I must say my experience so far is terrible.
I have tried to play 4 movies :
Avatar is few frames per second, terribly slow and thus cannot be watched.
I have tried the 3 Jason Bourne.
In the 3 movies:
I have a perfect image and perfect sound for about 5 minutes, then, no sound at all!!! When I tried to restart the movies, the sound shut at exactly the same frame. when I try to look at these movies from my the same HD on my computer, it works without any problem.
Everytime I use the forward or backward button, the speed of forward/backward is such that I am going up to the end/beginning of the movie! And I have to push play several times to get the movie to play again.
It is a mess! So I tried to upgrade the firmware: but whatever gen 1 or gen 2 files I put at the root level of my HD, the firmware icon would not show up and there is nothing in the Settings System menu to upgrade it. Since I didn’t find the icon I found this forum and here I am.
Do you have any idea what is going on ? How to upgrade the firmware? Why I encounter those erratic behaviors?
You are my last hope… before I return the player to Amazon…
Do you have any idea what is going on ? … Why I encounter those erratic behaviors?
Because the movies you downloaded are improperly encoded.
If you’d bought the movies yourself, and encoded them yourself with a decent encoder, you wouldn’t run into these playback issues.
And before you say “but they play fine on my PC – it’s not the file,” you need to keep in mind that VLC advertises that it will play broken files – in fact there’s almost nothing it won’t play… but just because VLC will play it doesn’t mean the file is a proper encode.
Do yourself a favor and return it if you can. It doesn’t do what advertising leads you to beleive it is supposed to do. I rip my own DVDs and and have sync issues. ISO, AVI, MP4, you name it. FF/RW is a bugger too. Lots of other little bugs that you’ll run into if you use it long enough. They’ve also dropped support (not that they ever did support it really, but they did promise;) to) so it’s not worth having anymore (or ever was). Sure there are plenty of workarounds, but I’m pretty sure it was advertised as a ‘just works’ device…and it doesn’t really. So…unless you want to spend time working around every issue that you encounter, just return the device.
If you do decide to keep it and have the time, this forum has a plethora of detailed workarounds as do other forums. You’ll find everything including how to cut your HDMI cables because WD didn’t get the HDMI mechanical spec right, or how to get files on your USB device to show up correctly because there’s some really weird USB things going on?? All kinds of things you never thought you should ever have to do. Either way…good luck.
i have gen 1 and it doesnt show any movies. i just chose the film from menu (usb stick or external Harddisk that i used many times before ) and a black screen appear. if i press return button (seems like enter button ) comes the list of files. i ve tried old files, that i ve seen before with my player.So same storage devices, same movies but it shows nothing.
I don’t think you bought a WDTV HD Gen1 or Gen2 from Amazon… They don’t sell them anymore (and haven’t for quite a while.)
No, but he could have purchased at amazon.com (or through them, if you prefer) from another vendor. Most people don’t notice the difference, something Amazon encourages so they get the back-end commission. To grab a few that shows up in a search:
While they aren’t fulfilled by the big A, it still isn’t out-of-line to say it was “bought from Amazon” when you purchase on the Amazon website and they’re the ones that show up on your CC statement. (He’ll likely have trouble returning it to Amazon, though.)
i have gen 1 and it doesnt show any movies. i just chose the film from menu (usb stick or external Harddisk that i used many times before ) and a black screen appear. if i press return button (seems like enter button ) comes the list of files. i ve tried old files, that i ve seen before with my player.So same storage devices, same movies but it shows nothing.
any idea ?
thanks
I have the same problem, black screen an no video , music works, photos work but no video.
Movies play perfectly on my sony tv set but on my recently LG 42LE4500 led there is NO VIDEO just BLACK SCREEN.
I have the same problem. Yesterday, all movies works and today nothing happens. I can choose a movie and then a black screen. I have tried another harddisk with the same problem. Cables are good.
I have the same problem. Yesterday, all movies works and today nothing happens. I can choose a movie and then a black screen. I have tried another harddisk with the same problem. Cables are good.
