Does anyone use Western Digital TV HD Media Player?

RickMen · Post by **RickMen** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:54 pm

Has anyone tried to use the WD TV HD Media Player to play their High Def movies created by VS? If so, do it work & what's the quality like? Also, what were the movie's properties settings?

This seems to be an attractive alternative cost-wise to buying a Blu ray burner, disc(s) & player.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:37 am

I don't have the WD, but it sounds like a sensible idea, depending on its price in Australia. I note that when it was introduced late last year, the asking prices in the US was US$130. So if it is around the A$200 mark, that would probably be a good price.

I use my PS3 for high def video streaming (networked to my computer and connected via HDMI to my HDTV). But the PS3 also has a function like the WD i.e. the ability to store your HD video on a USB drive or external hard drive and simply plug that into the PS3 which detects the media and plays it back beautifully.

The major limitation from my own point of view is that the PS3 can only 'see' drives which are formatted with the older FAT32 system, and not NTFS. And this in turn means the files which the PS3 can play this way must be under 4 GB. I would try, if you can, to make sure the WD does not have a similar limitation -- though I would note that most (all?) USB drives come formatted with FAT32 anyway. (The PS3 will also only play video if it is in a folder on the drive labelled, in upper case, 'VIDEO'. But that is easy enough...)

The main thing that the WD can't do is, of course, to play discs of any kind, whether they are standard def DVDs, Blu-Ray, or AVCHD hybrid discs, which the PS3 can of course do, and do so beautifully. But of course the PS3 is pretty expensive here in Australia (over $600...) So if the WD is roughly a third this price, it would seem an effective alternative...

Oh, and just to tie all this back to this Forum,

all my home made high def video is edited and authored using, earlier VS 11.5+, and now X2. I tend to restrict myself to HDV format, though occasionally branch out into AVCHD and make excellent AVCHD hybrid discs with it -- all of which, as I say, plays back beautifully, regardless of the medium I use, over the PS3. I imagine that would remain true for the WD.

RickMen · Post by **RickMen** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:54 am

Just purchased the unit (and a WD portable HD passport) & have loaded my photos plus some mpeg2 sd 4:3 movies, it plays them and the picture quality seems okay to my eyes. I can see myself loading all my home movies onto this unit hence bypassing the need to burn and load DVDs into my PVR (which I might still do anyway for backup).

Next step is to try to see if it handle HD movies (I haven't yet done one of those). Hopefully this will negate the need to purchase a blu-ray player

One handy feature is that it recognise 4:3 movie clips and plays them automatically in pillor box style while I have my TV aspect set to 16:9 ie I don't have the manually change my TV's aspect, which I have to do with my DVDs (as I haven't burnt them as 16:9).

One let down is while it does ramdonly play the photos there doesn't appear to be a shuffle option with the movies (but I'm still exploring the unit).

dalemccl · Post by **dalemccl** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:00 pm

I have been using the WD TV for a couple months with high-def 1920 x 1080 AVCHD video. I use VS X2 Pro to edit AVCHD clips from my camcorder, then create a hybrid AVCHD disc. I then copy the .m2ts video file from the disc to a WD Passport drive and connect the drive to the WD TV. The video looks identical when played by the WD TV as compared to playing the hybrid disc on a Blu-ray player.

I'm not sure what you mean when asking about the movie's property settings.

There is much discussion about the WD TV on the AVScience forum. The link below is to the AVS Digitial Media Servers topic. There are usually several WD TV discussion threads in the first dozen or so topics listed. There are thousands of message posts about the WD TV, so if you don't want to spend a lot of time reading them, I can try to answer any other questions you have.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=39

RickMen · Post by **RickMen** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:05 pm

Thanks dalemccl. I had a quick look at that forum, very interesting and very technical( for me anyway for the posts that I did quickly scan).

1 question I do have is how do I update the firmware? Can you provide step by step instructions?

dalemccl · Post by **dalemccl** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:58 am

RickMen wrote:Thanks dalemccl. I had a quick look at that forum, very interesting and very technical( for me anyway for the posts that I did quickly scan).

1 question I do have is how do I update the firmware? Can you provide step by step instructions?

You download the firmware file from WD's website. It will be a .zip file, which, when extracted, yields two files. You put those two files on a USB device at the root level of the device. I use a USB flash ("thumb") drive with no other files on it. I think it would probably also work from a USB hard drive as long as the two files are at the root level.

Connect the drive to the WD TV and turn the WD TV on. After booting, it will see the two firmware files and the screen (TV) will say "New Firmware Found" or something to that effect. Push the enter button on the remote, confirm when it asks if you really want to update, and it will update the firmware.

RickMen · Post by **RickMen** » Mon May 04, 2009 12:45 am

Just created and played my 1st full HD movie via the media streamer on my HDTV, wow! Amazing picture quality.

No need for a blu-ray burner, disc or player.