VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 15 of 15
Thread
  1. I have a PS3 and my tv is Panasonic-VIERA HDTV-TC-P50C2
    Audio/Video is not my area of expertise so I apologize ifthis is a basic question but my search results confused me further.
    Basically, I’m trying to find out how I can make it to whereI can copy my dvd collection to an external hard drive and watch it on my tvusing either my PS3 or if I need to buy some type of hardware. It looks like Ineed to format the HD to FAT32 but after that, I’m lost. Could someone pleasehelp or point me in the right direction.

    Thanks!
    Quote Quote  
  2. First you need to rip the DVD's to a hard drive, then you need to convert them to a format that's compatible with your PS3. This whole process is very time consuming, you're looking at about 15 minutes to rip the main movie off each disc, then whatever time it takes to convert the video (depends on the CODEC you're converting to and the speed of your PC). You will end up with only movies and maybe some extras if you rip those too, but there won't be any menus apart from the PS3 file browser.

    I know the PS3 can play Xvid AVI's and you can easily batch convert DVD's with Autogk, but that will be more time consuming than if you just convert the DVD files to MPG with VOB2MPG. I don't know if a PS3 can play MPG files, you would have to try to find out. Another benefit of using AVI is the size of the files compared to MPG (good quality AVI is at least 1/4 the size of the original DVD file).

    To give you an idea on AVI conversion time, with a 3 GHz P4 a conversion runs at around 33 fps so a 2 hour movie would take a little less than 2 hours to convert; a 3.4 GHz Phenom II runs at about 85 fps.
    Quote Quote  
  3. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    I like the WD TV Live boxes. They sell for under $100.

    DVDs can be ripped to a ISO file, no need to compress or encode them. Full DVD menus, subtitles, and chapters are supported which is why I recommend the WD TV Live.

    You can also have the WD TV download movie poster / TV show artwork, along with full descriptions and other meta data info.

    NTFS formatted hard drives are supported.
    Quote Quote  
  4. Thank you both for the help. The first option seems very time consuming. How exactly does the WD Live TV work?
    Quote Quote  
  5. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    West Texas
    Search PM
    The WD TV Live can have an external hard drive plugged into it directly via usb2, and the WD box will connect to your tv with an HDMI cable. Once you start the WD TV Live and select it as input on your TV, it will show a list of possible sources, including the hard drive, so it is simple to navigate to your list of movies.

    The WD TV Live can also connect to your internet service and stream from Hulu Plus, Youtube, Netflix, etc. And you can connect to your computers also, though I haven't been able to stream Blu-ray wirelessly through this device without issues. I'll have to try it with a wired connection sometime.
    Quote Quote  
  6. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    If you look on YouTube for the "WD TV Live" you can find many reviews of it and how it works.
    Quote Quote  
  7. Thank you all. This looks like a perfect item for what I need. Although, quick reviews have me leaning to the older version vs. the new one. No Netflix and quite a few other issues.
    Quote Quote  
  8. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    USA
    Search Comp PM
    You can usually find the older versions of the WD Live boxes on Ebay. I bought two a while back for friends, both well under $60 used.

    When they first came out, the company made a huge mistake and accidentally sent out corrupted updates and they were forced to exchange them, hence, a lot of the refurbs available.

    Do a internet search for ' ebay, wd live ' You should find company refurbs and used ones and maybe a few new ones unopened. The newer versions have WiFi and a nicer looking interface, but they all operate about the same. I convert my DVDs to MKV format, and with a fast PC, that takes about 20 minutes. The size is about 2GB each.

    And welcome to our forums.
    Quote Quote  
  9. Originally Posted by redwudz View Post
    You can usually find the older versions of the WD Live boxes on Ebay. I bought two a while back for friends, both well under $60 used.

    When they first came out, the company made a huge mistake and accidentally sent out corrupted updates and they were forced to exchange them, hence, a lot of the refurbs available.

    Do a internet search for ' ebay, wd live ' You should find company refurbs and used ones and maybe a few new ones unopened. The newer versions have WiFi and a nicer looking interface, but they all operate about the same. I convert my DVDs to MKV format, and with a fast PC, that takes about 20 minutes. The size is about 2GB each.

    And welcome to our forums.
    They only run $80 new from amazon which might be worth the warranty...So, the older ones doesn't have wifi? This is the one I'm looking at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KOZNBW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER


    Also, I have many of my dvds backed up. Will that format be find to just transfer over? Just a standard dvd clone
    Quote Quote  
  10. it looks like that one , you posted, is the one year old model still offering Netflix and having wi-fi, because that latest one does not have Netflix

    it is quite a mess, not having it marked with year of release or at least using different numbers ...

    you have to choose what you are going to store on that hardisk, WDTV Live would play all of them, you can get ISO (using AnyDVD) , VIDEO_TS directory (using AnyDVD), mpg (AnyDVD+VOB2mpeg) mp4 (AnyDVD+Handbrake)
    some of them are easy to get and you keep menus, but those mpg or better mp4 are much more usable
    Quote Quote  
  11. Lone soldier Cauptain's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Brazil
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by simple times View Post
    I have a PS3 and my tv is Panasonic-VIERA HDTV-TC-P50C2
    Audio/Video is not my area of expertise so I apologize ifthis is a basic question but my search results confused me further.
    Basically, I’m trying to find out how I can make it to whereI can copy my dvd collection to an external hard drive and watch it on my tvusing either my PS3 or if I need to buy some type of hardware. It looks like Ineed to format the HD to FAT32 but after that, I’m lost. Could someone pleasehelp or point me in the right direction.

    Thanks!
    The easy way using no buy new hardware and no rip to avi/mp4/mkv is copy all DVD to PC in mode ISO and stream with Universal Media Server for TV or PS3 using wireless network.
    Quote Quote  
  12. Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by _Al_ View Post
    it looks like that one , you posted, is the one year old model still offering Netflix and having wi-fi, because that latest one does not have Netflix

    it is quite a mess, not having it marked with year of release or at least using different numbers ...

    you have to choose what you are going to store on that hardisk, WDTV Live would play all of them, you can get ISO (using AnyDVD) , VIDEO_TS directory (using AnyDVD), mpg (AnyDVD+VOB2mpeg) mp4 (AnyDVD+Handbrake)
    some of them are easy to get and you keep menus, but those mpg or better mp4 are much more usable
    @simple times

    As AI posted, WD is terrible about reusing their model names. Unfortunately, what you gain in one model (i.e. Netflix) is lost in another (DVD Menus). The older WDTV Live you linked to does not support full DVD Menus, the newer WDTV Live (Streaming / Gen 3) (the $100 one) does. The older model will only play the main movie on your .iso (DVD rip).

    Note that no WDTV or to my knowledge any current media player works with Blu-Ray .iso. You'll have to convert to .mkv and lose any menus as well as have multiple separate files.

    Personally, I have a WDTV Live (Streaming / Gen 3), Roku 1 and Plex to give me the best of everything. I use the WDTV for local content (you'll need to format your HD to NTFS or exFat to support >4GB files) and use the Roku 1 for streaming accounts (Netflix, Amazon) and Plex (for those videos I want to watch only once and don't want to copy directly to my external HDs). Cost: $100 for the WDTV, $50 for the Roku and Free for Plex (I use RarPlex since Plex started to charge $4.99 one time fee).

    @Cauptain

    Does Universal Media Server support DVD menus? I see on their site that they support .iso, but a quick search of reports seems that it's finicky.

    Also, as a veteran of this forum, please don't confuse newbies with the statement that there is "no [need to] rip to avi/mp4/mkv. There are several current threads in which posters are being corrected that a "rip" is an exact copy of a disc to individual files or iso without any conversion. You can't rip to AVI, MP4 or MKV, these all require conversion (and often re-encoding) of the original and is not a rip.
    Quote Quote  
  13. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by lingyi View Post
    As AI posted, WD is terrible about reusing their model names. Unfortunately, what you gain in one model (i.e. Netflix) is lost in another (DVD Menus). The older WDTV Live you linked to does not support full DVD Menus, the newer WDTV Live (Streaming / Gen 3) (the $100 one) does. The older model will only play the main movie on your .iso (DVD rip).
    The Amazon link simple times posted is for the correct WD TV Live SMP Gen 3 that supports DVD menus and Netflix. They lowered the price to $80. (Model# WDBHG70000NBK)
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KOZNBW/


    The $100 one is the new model that does not have Netflix. (Model# WDBYMN0000NBK)
    http://www.amazon.com/WD-TV-Media-Player-WDBYMN0000NBK-HESN/dp/B00JXFM75Y/


    Originally Posted by lingyi View Post
    Note that no WDTV or to my knowledge any current media player works with Blu-Ray .iso. You'll have to convert to .mkv and lose any menus as well as have multiple separate files.
    The WD TV Live supports Blu-ray iso. However, there is no menu support. It will play movie only, but it does have chapter and subtitle support for ISOs. Also, because of the high bitrate Blu-ray iso does not work well over WiFi, but works great with USB or ethernet.
    Last edited by Vidd; 15th Jul 2014 at 00:04.
    Quote Quote  
  14. ½ way to Rigel 7 cornemuse's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Cyber Dystopia
    Search Comp PM
    I too have a WD live smp, it works ok, there are for me anyway, a LOT of minor issues with it.
    Support not that good. They should make them able to read 'pdf' files, as the manual is more than 200 pages.
    (A lot more things)
    Quote Quote  
  15. Originally Posted by lingyi View Post
    As AI posted, WD is terrible about reusing their model names. Unfortunately, what you gain in one model (i.e. Netflix) is lost in another (DVD Menus). The older WDTV Live you linked to does not support full DVD Menus, the newer WDTV Live (Streaming / Gen 3) (the $100 one) does. The older model will only play the main movie on your .iso (DVD rip).
    I have this one as well, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KOZNBW/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 it is not latest but that model that was released before, and it supports menu for DVD as well. I have VIDEO_TS directories not ISO, but I do not see that there would be a difference. And it has Netflix.
    So it is cheaper (for now) with more functionality as it seems. I'm sure if they still have it on stock, prices will go up when they reliaze that that one is selling, not the latest one that is expensiver and without Netflix. So buy it if you can.
    It does not have that WDTV Live plus feature that you could decide if you want to play DVD menu or directly main movie, so go figure.
    Last edited by _Al_; 15th Jul 2014 at 17:49.
    Quote Quote  
Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!