Some questions before I buy

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Hub Discussions
1

Hi there,

I am looking for a good all-round mediaplayer and I got a few questions about the Boxee Box.

  1. Mainly, I will be using the WD TV Live Hub to play MKV (H262,MPEG,…) container files with .srt subtitles (Dutch language). This is my number one reason for buying a mediaplayer. Does the media player handle these kind of files well?

  2. Are the subtitles working flawlessly? Cause I had a mediaplayer before and those subtitles looked horrible. Jaggy, grey instead of white and a very big black edge. This made looking at a 720p or 1080p MKV file really not worth it. So again, do the .srt subtitles look like I described or do they actually look white, without a big black border and not jaggy but smooth edges?

  3. Is streaming 720p and 1080p MKV files over a network smooth? And secondly, when connecting my brand new WD My Book Essential 3TB via USB, does that provide for a smooth experience with 720p and 1080p files? Even when playing very large MKV files (1080p with very high bitrate)? I know this media player comes with a built in HDD, which I will use, but I don’t want to transfer like this 8 or 16GB large Blu-Ray Iso or MKV before I can start watching. It would be easier to just simply connect my WD My Book Essential 3TB HDD and hit play.

Just to be 100% complete, I have a Linksys E3000 router that is capable of streaming wireless but I also have built in one or more LAN connections in every room (cat 5e). So mainly, I will be using the wired version of course cause this media player does not have built in WiFi if I am correct.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions. I’m basically chosing between either the Boxee Box or this media player.

2

I guess I should buy a Boxee then cause I don’t get any answers. lol

3

Well if you know that the Boxee does all the things you asked then that may be the best way to go.

4

Ha you only asked yesterday, and to be honest you can find all the answers to all your questions from reading the threads, but heres my take on the Hub in accordance with your questions.

  1. Mainly, I will be using the WD TV Live Hub to play MKV (H262,MPEG,…) container files with .srt subtitles (Dutch language). This is my number one reason for buying a mediaplayer. Does the media player handle these kind of files well?

Yes very well, subtitles look even better on this generation of WDTV box.

  1. Is streaming 720p and 1080p MKV files over a network smooth? And secondly, when connecting my brand new WD My Book Essential 3TB via USB, does that provide for a smooth experience with 720p and 1080p files? Even when playing very large MKV files (1080p with very high bitrate)? I know this media player comes with a built in HDD, which I will use, but I don’t want to transfer like this 8 or 16GB large Blu-Ray Iso or MKV before I can start watching. It would be easier to just simply connect my WD My Book Essential 3TB HDD and hit play.

Very good at streaming, I would say hard wired all the way myself, if you are streaming large 1080p bitrate files. But heres the killer, your 3TB HDD is not supported at the moment.

No it does not have wireless built in, but hard wired is no problems at all, nice easy setup, I have some glitches just now, but I am sure if you read the Boxee forum so have others, in fact after reading the forum, I did not want to touch it.

So there you go, only real stumbling block is your hard drive at the moment.