WDTV worth it?

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

I bought one of the older versions on ebay and sold it the next day because my xbox360 streamed and played almost as many file types.

The going thing is the MKV files for the hight quality movies now days.

It is the audio it will not play “DTS”.

Is there a version of the player that will play them?

If not any recomendations on a player that will?

2

All of the WDTV Live boxes support DTS.

3

Ok, Maybe I didn’t have a “Live” box.

It was a WD00AVN and it did not support the DTS audio in the MKV I tried to play.

Then also I tried a WDM file and got no sound on it also.

I see all theese people in here complaining about MKV problems also.

4

TonyPh12345 wrote:

All of the WDTV Live boxes support DTS.

Ya, now set me thinking on high definition audio formats. 

Christ, I just gotten a Logitech Z5500, thinking of switching to Onkyo TX-SR608

5

I just want something that will play the majority of media that is now used for Hight Def.

What I see mostly is MKV.

I was interested in WDTV untill I see all theese problems.

The one I got and just got rid of did not play the MKV that I tried on it… So I got rid of it.

If all the versions of this product are the same in terms of firmware with codec support then I don’t see a reason to get another when I have a xbox360 that will do WDM in 1080.

6

trecenters wrote:

I just want something that will play the majority of media that is now used for Hight Def.

 

What I see mostly is MKV.

 

I was interested in WDTV untill I see all theese problems.

 

The one I got and just got rid of did not play the MKV that I tried on it… So I got rid of it.

 

If all the versions of this product are the same in terms of firmware with codec support then I don’t see a reason to get another when I have a xbox360 that will do WDM in 1080.

The model you purchased was a WDTV HD Gen1, which uses an older chipset and is now unsupported by WD.

The WDTV Live range has no issues playing MKVs with DTS.  It can downmix to stereo or it can pass-through to a reciever.  Playback of 1080p MKVs encoded with h.264 is smooth, which is probably the most common codec for high def video.

I’m not familiar with WDM files, it’s not a common format as far as I can tell (or at least, Google returns no relevant first page results).

All of my files play fine.  Mostly 720p MKV, a few 1080p, and a bunch of SD AVIs.  The only issues I have are with poorly encoded files (such as XviD’s encoded with GMC or QPEL, which require a PC to play smoothly).

Your media library will dictate the media player you purchase.  If the inability to play WDM files is a deal-breaker, you could find your choice is very limited…

You could try posting the MediaInfo for one of your WDM files, so we have some idea what codecs are being used.

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

7

oh, so that is the problem… The one I bought from ebay was a gen1.

It even had no networking feature just USB. I will read what I am buyen next time I go to ebay.

Maybe it was WMV is the format I meant to say… The windows media format.

It is the only HD quality format that the xbox360 will stream. I can convert MKV but it takes to long if your wanting a movie done by dinner.

The prob with the gen1 was it had no audio support for the MKV and the WMV files.

It was really disapointing thinking I had a device that solved all problems.

So you are saying if I get a newer gen everything will be good right?

8

I have two WDTV Live Plus and a Roku box. I am constantly “babying” one WD box or the other. Roku is stable…  I had high hopes or the WDTVLive+ because of the Western Digital name. All I can say now is P-U. 

9

I bought the first gen WD HDTV box and was amazed. Disappointed it didn’t play back digital audio as standard without an optical connection but along came the WD HDTV Live box which I currently worship. It plays everything, it plays DTS sound, you don’t need optical etc it’s unbelievable.

One of the best purchases ever. Plays 1080p MKVs effortlessly, with full subtitle, multi-audio track support and more.

It also plays DVD Image files, such as .ISOs which means I can convert my DVDs into a fully digital collection and play them on the WD HDTV Live box with full menu support. A completely digital DVD.