I haven’t had my WD TV Live for long but the results are not very good when it comes to playing DVD files. From this forum, as well as some of my own experience, it appears as though the WD TV Live is only able to play DVD files when the source is a writable medium. In that, it works on local drives and Windows Shares (probably also MAC Shares but that is not my situation) and doesn’t work with a media server. It seems to me that these restrictions ought to be highlighted in the product documentation.
However, even when it works the results are sometimes unsatisfactory. I have an example where the same set of files seem to play properly (i.e., when testing I haven’t played the entire DVD) from a USB jump drive but when using a network share they play but silently (i.e., no audio). In this case it is a commercial DVD where the files were ripped using DVDdecrypter.
A couple of DVDs that I created from my own recordings seem to work fine on the network share. In this case I’m even able to play the ISO image files which is quite nice. A big difference between my home made DVDs and the commercial/failing one is that mine have a very simple menu structure. However, it is hard to imagine how menu issues would end up producing silent (muted) playback.
I’d be grateful for insight from more experienced users regarding such problems.
it appears as though the WD TV Live is only able to play DVD files when the source is a writable medium.
Never heard that one before…
aajax wrote:
[DVD]… doesn’t work with a media server. It seems to me that these restrictions ought to be highlighted in the product documentation.
Well, yeah, because DLNA protoocol doesn’t support the completely random access nature of DVD navigation, nor does it support the IFO file structure of DVDs. That’s not a limitation of the WD. That’s a limitation of the entire DLNA standard…
I’m not sure what’s causing the issue with silent playback, if you’re running on current firmware. WD found a bug in 2.01.86 where, unless Menus were enabled, some DVDs played back muted. But since you’re talking about menus, I’m guessing that was not your issue.
I’ve never had a problem with DVDs playing back silently… and I use Network Shares for everything.
A little more experimenting produced a few more finding.
I’ve now taken a DVD which plays correctly when stored on the network share in ISO format (i.e., single file) and tried playing the extracted files (i.e., folder named VIDEO_TS which contains extracted files) and the result is muted playback. In that, my limited usage so far results in DVDs converted to ISO format playing perfectly (in all cases) and files stored in normal DVD folder form never play correctly.
Some clarification may be order, the silent play back phenomenon that I’m experiencing is not completely silent. The playback starts with proper audio but then after a short while becomes mute. The amount of time varies from one DVD to another but I’d say it is always less than 2 minutes.
Regarding my comment about writable medium, the WD TV Live is creating files with a file type of .bmk on both local (USB) storage as well as network shares that are writable. It does this irrespective of format (ISO or normal folders). The date modified on these files does correspond to the time of playback on the WD TV Live player.
I’ve now also determined that if I try to playback the normal DVD files (i.e., press play on VIDEO_TS folder) when accessing them via a media server rather than network share the WD TV Live stumbles through the menu and ends up playing the video correctly (i.e., no longer silent). In that, it looks like it finds and plays the VOB files. Note: those with a menu play but don’t pause meaning they flash by. If I try to play the ISO files with the media server the WD TV Live returns an error saying the format is invalid.
Bottom line is that this is very strange behavior and not very conducive to what I’d call user friendliness. This is very perplexing (i.e., unfriendly).
It may just be me, but I’m not quite clear exactly what you are trying to do…
You have a copy of all the DVD files in a sub-directory for each DVD, which is on a shared netwrok drive that you have pointed the WDTV device to…(?)
As someone else said, you won’t bea ble to play these files via a Media Server (DLNA) as DLNA does not support these file types.
From my experience, I have got 70+ commercial DVDs that I have ripped as ISO files, and saved on a NAS drive. With 1 or 2 exceptions, the WDTV plays these perfectly, menus and all. I haven’t tried saving the DVDs as menu structures, rather than ISO files, so maybe that is the difference.
One other thing you could try. When the audio cuts out, have you tried pressing the ‘Audio’ button on the remote, to try and select a different audio track if there is one. I have found that on some disks, not all of the audio tracks work (I think it might be ones with 5.1 soundtracks or other ‘fancy’ surround output that I don’t think my equipment supports…
Regarding my comment about writable medium, the WD TV Live is creating files with a file type of .bmk on both local (USB) storage as well as network shares that are writable. It does this irrespective of format (ISO or normal folders). The date modified on these files does correspond to the time of playback on the WD TV Live player.
That’s the Resume Point, which for DVDs requires a separate file, since the media library database doesn’t have the capability of storing DVD resume points.
aajax wrote:
,when accessing them via a media server rather than network share the WD TV Live stumbles through the menu and ends up playing the video correctly (i.e., no longer silent). In that, it looks like it finds and plays the VOB files. Note: those with a menu play but don’t pause meaning they flash by.
That’s not unusual. DVD menus are just video segments stored inside the VOB files.
It may just be me, but I’m not quite clear exactly what you are trying to do…
Actually, I’m only trying to figure out how WD TV Live works. So far it looks like there are more gotchas than I’d hoped for.
I have a combination of commercial DVD, often decrypted, and those of my own making. The only ISO files were from ones I’d made. The purpose being to easily burn more DVDs. The DVDs I make typically start off as MPEG2 files often in transport stream containers (i.e., .tp or .ts). It looks like now I need to reverse the process. Rather than converting single files into multiple little ones capable of satisfying the DVD standard, I now need to convert the multiple .VOB files back into a single mpeg one.
I’ll be happy if I can just figure out how to get the WD TV Live to work reliably.
