Question about WDTV Live media device

[agent154]

I'm thinking of buying one of these as a gift for my parents, and I'd like to know of any limitations people have run into with regard to support for H264 video with varying audio formats supported by MKV. My big question is if there is a stated profile and level supported for H264 video; Some of the videos I have are upwards of High@L5.0.

I'm aware that the device doesn't (or at least at one point didn't) support 10-bit video, but that's not of concern, since the likelihood of that being used outside of Anime is next to nil, and my parents aren't interested in Anime.

[jagabo]

Playing videos via wired or wireless networks will have problems at high bitrates. My WDTV Live (100 Mbit port) starts having trouble around 40 Mb/s on a wired connection to a Windows server (Gbit network). It does a little better with Linux servers. From what I hear the situation hasn't improved with newer models. It's not part of the claimed spec, but it can play 1080p60 files (encoded with x264) if the bitrate isn't too high. It has problems with most 1080p60 camcorder files though. Not sure why.