Video and audio simultaneously - but not in the same files

Hi All

I am thinking of buying one (or two…depending on the outcome) WDTV’s for our upcoming permanent video/audio art installment. Here is what we want to do:

Play a number of HD videos completely ramdom and continuosly (ie, all videos played randomly as long as the device is on)

Play a number of 4 channel surround audio files completely ramdom and continuosly (ie, all videos played randomly as long as the device is on)

NOTE, there is a reason why the audio is not embedded in the videos as normal, as we want the outcome to be completely random in regards to video and audio… so whenever a person passes the installation, it will never be the same outcome, regardless of time of day.

We also want this to start automatic as soon as the device is turned on.

I am guess that this is not possible with only one mediaplayer, but could this be done with two WDTV’s? One connected via HDMI to a TV, and one via HDMI to a surround receiver?

Is this something we can do, **bleep** all the media files are on the corresponding WDTVs root in the hard drive?

Dont think so.

The random does not go on for ever, so it will eventually stop.

How are you going to access the audio when one Hub is connected to an Amp only, it needs a TV so you can select what to play ?

Well, according to the manual it says:

Repeat All and Shuffle – All the audio files in the current music
folder/playlist are played repeatedly in sequence and shuffled until you press
STOP or Back.

And regarding the second;

Auto Play
Select the type of media (music or video) that plays automatically when a USB
device is connected to USB port 1 on the front of the media center. The media files
must be located in the USB device’s root directory for Auto Play to function.

So how I read the manual, this should be possible? Or, regarding the auto play, I should instead buy a cheaper WDTV without the harddrive, and add the music files on root in an external USB harddrive and plug it into the front USB port.

Or is the manual misguiding in this case?

Edit: also, is there not a smart phone app that can control the playing of the audio files wihout the need of a TV?

The smart phone app is a remote control app for moving about the Menus on the TV.So you will still need a TV to access the audio files.

I am not too sure about the auto play side, but I think USB plugin or Internal hard drive will be the same, would it not be easier to have a PC plugged into a TV.

This Box is designed to be a home media player, I think it would be cheaper and probably more efficient for you to use a PC and have a music app playing music, whilst a Video app sends Video to the TV.

Well, originally we thought about a pc, however, we want to keep the prices down. So it is much cheaper with two of WDTV’s than a pc that will run HD video and GOOD sound, and keep running for a long time

actually, when i searched a bit, i did find this:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.osdmod.remote&hl=no

“**COMING SOON**
File browser”

So maybe there is hope

Ofcourse we can allways shose to embedd the audio in the video files and all our problems are solved, but we really wanna go out of our ways finding a solution where we can have seperate audio and video, WITHOUT including a PC

I see.

Well you will still need two TVs, so that may turn you towards the PC again ?

A file browser could mean just that, as for getting it to play and play the way the WD wants is another thing, and one would have thought that WD would have integrated that into their app.

I suppose you could always have a sound system playing Music CDs through the Amp and the WD hooked up to the TV.

I think two WD units are out of the question if you only have 1 TV though. I suppose you could access the music via 1 HDMI connection and press play, and jump back to another HDMI and select the video to watch, then the audio would play through the amp…that could be an option.

Well…ofcourse I could always have the HDMI out from video WDTV directly to the  TV, and then plug the audio WDTV via WDTV into the sorrund receiver. And whenever i wanted to see the autio scree, unplug HDMI from behind the video plyer, and put it in the receivers out to the TV.  But that s a bit much to do each day

Yes it seams as if it is out of the question with two. I guess i will look for another media player with a small display that can bee operated without a TV for the audio and just buy one WDTV for video as originally planned

OR just bit the dust and embedd the audio in the video files…damnitt :smiley:

Thanks

I would recommend you to buy 2 older second hand WD TV HD players. Even first one

WD TV HD Media Player (Generation 1, model:WDAVN00)

will do the trick, only it does not have auto play feature.

If you are in need of auto play feature look for

WD TV Live plus Media player.

And if you don´t want bother

than go for 2 new WD TV Live Streamer

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeentertainment/mediaplayers/.

Also if you want to control audio play with android app

you can use https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dbapp.android.mediahouse&hl=en

but only with WD TV Live Streamer.

I am visual artist myself and I use WD TV HD Media Player (Gen 1) for endless FullHD quality continuous replay of video files.

Also if you want to control audio play with android app

you can use https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dbapp.android.mediahouse&hl=en

but only with WD TV Live Streamer.

 

It still does not help though. He does not want an app that can access the files and stream to a Phone etc, he want’s to be able to access the Audio via a WD Box, which is impossible really unless he messes about with HDMI cables. These apps are fine if you hav a TV infront of you, but if you had a box connected to nothing, they are not much use for what he wants ?

Thats where the issue is, trying to use 2 boxes for audio and video, as he want’s them to be random to each other.

With this kind of apps you can choose where do you want to play file. You can browse file on Hub on your mobile without use of TV and play it on Hub if you set Hub as renderer. It will show same window as when you use Play to feature on PC. Only setback is that you need to keep app running on your mobile.

If Buying a TV is in the budget get one with pip Hook video hub up to one side and audio hub video out to up to second then of course you still need to run audio through a reciever

Pretty sure you’re not going to be able to achieve everything what you want with WD TV unit(s).  Most of the things you are after, yes but the auto start to random HD Video and audio isn’t available. You’d need to set it up each time interactively.

Probably best using a Windows Media Player and some .Net coding to set that up or perhaps other media players support multiple random playlist streams on start-up but its more than likely you’d need multiple units.

Gertsy wrote:

Pretty sure you’re not going to be able to achieve everything what you want with WD TV unit(s).  Most of the things you are after, yes but the auto start to random HD Video and audio isn’t available. You’d need to set it up each time interactively.

Probably best using a Windows Media Player and some .Net coding to set that up or perhaps other media players support multiple random playlist streams on start-up but its more than likely you’d need multiple units.

Dear Gertsy, you would be aware of Auto Play feature in WD TV Live Hub or Streamer, if you actually had one. Even if you had read Manuals for these devices and fantasies about them, you would realize how easy is to set up Repeat all and shuffle for audio, video and photo.

foetus wrote:

I would recommend you to buy 2 older second hand WD TV HD players. Even first one

WD TV HD Media Player (Generation 1, model:WDAVN00)

will do the trick, only it does not have auto play feature.

 

If you are in need of auto play feature look for

WD TV Live plus Media player.

 

And if you don´t want bother

than go for 2 new WD TV Live Streamer

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeentertainment/mediaplayers/.

Hi, thansk for your reply

Is there any reason why you advice me to get these older players, over the new WD TV HUB that Im looking at?

I looked at this one because of the included harddrive. Are there any advantages with the others regarding my features? As far as I can see, they are pretty much the same, but more feature fillled in the newer ones?

Just to cut expenses. If you need just few Gbs of space, than WD Streamer with USB stick will work just fine.

Vegar wrote:


foetus wrote:

I would recommend you to buy 2 older second hand WD TV HD players. Even first one

WD TV HD Media Player (Generation 1, model:WDAVN00)

will do the trick, only it does not have auto play feature.

 

If you are in need of auto play feature look for

WD TV Live plus Media player.

 

And if you don´t want bother

than go for 2 new WD TV Live Streamer

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeentertainment/mediaplayers/.


Hi, thansk for your reply

 

Is there any reason why you advice me to get these older players, over the new WD TV HUB that Im looking at?

 

I looked at this one because of the included harddrive. Are there any advantages with the others regarding my features? As far as I can see, they are pretty much the same, but more feature fillled in the newer ones?

 

 

well I would suggest the older WD Live

because there’s stable homebrew for it

and while your goal is not syncronization

apps like HDsync do exist and run on the older WD Live

you can also customize a lot of other items to suit your project needs

one example I heard of was a 37 channel video wall

all syncronized using HDsync on the older Live