Thinking of buying one but

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Hub Discussions
1

I have 4TB of movies and music stored on a Drobo (Capacity 8TB). From what I’ve read, this wont be compatible as it’s over the 2TB threshold.

ANy advice greatly appreciated as the products seems to be exactly what I need.

I have a DroboShare (which essentially makes it a NAS device) but I am unsure what servers i would need to run. The only server available for the Drobo is Fuppes,…

2

Since you said that your device is a NAS, it will work on the hub since the 2TB limit is just applicable if you connect it through USB. Just connect your device through your network and it wil work.

3

Excellent - so my NAS doesn’t need to be running a server (Twonky etc…)?

Also, what are the preferred Video formats for Fast Forward/Rewind etc…

Most of my stuff is DVR-MS at the moment, but I’m willing to start again because I’m getting fed up with Bill Gates’s empire… ;o)

4

…Bump…Anyone???

5

I found a post on another forum where a WD TV Live user could only connect to their DroboShare via network shares.

http://wdtvhd.com/index.php?s=1d64e7411a1fc4c8cb9852cede8f366c&showtopic=24455&pid=39131&st=0&#entry39131

As long as you’re happy only connecting via network shares, it should work ok.

The best container to use for your media seems to be MKV.  It’s the only one where DD5.1 or DTS will be successfully passed-thru to your AVR.  

6

Thanks Grant - really appreciate trhe input.

What would be the difference between access as a network share vs media server?

(I’m guessing artwork, metadata etc - speed?)

7

I would like to second PixelPower’s recommendation of MKV.  None of the formats or containers are perfect.  When I realized that, I changed my criteria to what’s the best and most robust solution for me.  Best for me translated to very good to excellent video quality and excellent to flawless audio reproduction.

One day in the future when we don’t even think about storage as a constraint I hope either the producers of content give us bits that we can copy/paste or someone writes a prog/script that takes the content and converts it into ALL and EVERY format or container we’d like AUTOMAGICALLY.  I offer this as a vent to re-ripstripping and transcoding my modest video collection oh about 11 times now :slight_smile:  No one to blame but me and what is/was a steep learning curve.  It’s actually kinda fun and an escape.

Cheers!!!

Jim

8

Petey -

One more bit of wisdom or suggestion before buying is set your expectations appropriately.

The WDTVLH is a good product, not a great one, yet.  The bug reporting + forum + firmware release cycle ecosystem makes it possible that the product will ultimately make the leap from good to great.  The very fact that you are in this forum pre-purchase tells me that perhaps my advice is unnecessary, but I constantly read complaints and gripes from n00bs equating nominal annoyances with the complete invalidation of the product.  This makes me want to convert those people to two-color bitmaps.

I hope this helps.

Cheers!!!

Jim

9

Hi Jim - thanks for the comments.

I’m going into this with my eyes open - having been tinkering with streaming solutions for a few years.

I understand that the perfect, multi paltform soulution is yet to be discovered :slight_smile:

How is the ffw/rewind with mkv?

10

I’ve heard tale that you can lose picture with ffwd/rwd on mkvs, but it hasn’t happened to me yet.

I’ll stress test it tomorrow and let you know.  (**bleep**.  Just when I thought I had the perfect format!!! :wink: )

Cheers!!!

Jim 

11

How is the ffw/rewind with mkv?

Looses the picture for me on 2 out of about 30 mkv’s that I’ve tried so far.  Almost enough to determine a pattern but not quite yet.  Still, at least the majority do work well.

12

That doesn’t seem too bad.

I’m off to a mates house tonight to have a play with a Live HUB that he’s just bought. (Thought I’d let him be the guinea pig!)

I think he’s using VOBs - cant comment on performance…watch this space.

13

I’m getting bummed.  The first mkv I stress tested (stress = click on fast forward) puked.  The first defect was an error message that was akin to, “my device doesn’t support trick mode”. ( Winking at the box didn’t help.)  After starting over I simply could not ffwd or rwd.  Can’t jump to a time in the movie either.  Must be another trick :wink:

The reality is that there is not a simple formula to follow to go from DVD to some file/format I can dump onto the WDTVLH.

—> ISOs and AVI:  Too big and some of them just don’t play.

—> MP4/M4V:  I kid you not, I can’t remember the cons of MP4/M4V other than the overhead of transcoding via Handbrake.  Let’s see smaller file size, I don’t think it produces an unacceptable video product, can’t recall any issues with audio.  Wonder if I ran into something that wasn’t playable???  The best way to figure it out is to start transcodeing to MP4/M4V again - that’ll help me remember!

—> MKV:  Can’t ffwd/rwd and insurance company won’t pay for kidney toggle switch to facilitate uninterrupted movie watching.

I know that there’s not a happy path for everrything in life.  I am an uncomplex man.  I just want all my stuff on my hub to play with great video and awesome audio.

I will not give up.  “I’m good enough.  I’m smart enough.  And dog-gone-it, people like me.”

Cheers!!!

Jim

14

Hmm, I got all my movies on the internal storage as MKV and haven’t had any issues with ffwd/rwd or any other playback issue yet…

15

Wife and kids just got back, so I have to get past dinner and bedtime before trying a file other than IceAge.  Will report back.

Jim

16

Stealth use of home theatre allowred me to look at a couple of other rmkv’s.

Some of the mkv’s will let me ffwd/rwd and some won’t.  In addition to being unable to ffwd/rwd, one cannot see how long the movie is from the info displayed by the WDTVLH (for example when you hit pause and you get the timeline banner of info across the bottom).

I believe that Handbrake writes something called a catalog at the end of a transcode and I’m wondering if the catalog is either not being written or getting corrupted.  I’m not getting any error messages from HB during the x-coding.  And per their instructions I never “help” Handbrake at the end.  I always let it finish 100%.

Life rings welcome.  Toss away.

Cheers!!!

Jim

17

hey guys - big thanks for all the “testing”

Okay, so I was round my mates last night having a play. He has his movies all backed up as VOBs.

All play perfectly, but the obvious disadvantage of space and a messy file system (hundreds of ts and ifo all over the place - although looked fine on the GUI)

Had a go with a couple of ISO’s - looked and performed perfect. FFW and Rewind up to 16x no problems.

Added advantage of ISO’s is a nice neat library (only an iso and JPG with the movie title needed - so looks great from other devices around the house - oh and the metadata of course)

NOTE- Not interested in menus - just the movie with good audio.

I should state that storage is not an issue for me.

I need two more things answered…(nudge nudge wink wink)

  1. Will BluRay ISO’s work (I have read that they will - but without menus)

  2. Need clarification of how stuff looks using NAS - do I still get all the metadata etc? I have a DROBO with 16TB capacity that I plan to stream from. What does he hub see when looking at folder shares (someone will say “shared folder!”)

Tahnks for you r help peeps.

Pete

(because some mistakes are too much fun to only make just once!)