Western Digital HDMI USB Media Player?? (WDAVN00BN)

[MJA]

Failed to play a 1080p .mkv x264 sample of Kill Bill that was encoded to dxva specs. It also failed to play a 1080p .mkv x264 sample of Terminator.

While the price is good, if it can't even play DVXA-compliant h.264 files as reported, that is a serious problem for claimed "h.264 support"

I hope one of the guys here will test it to confirm that

[decoy5657]

I will test any format for you guys, just drop a file (sample size) to a sharing site and I'll check it out.

[FulciLives]

I have some 1080p and 720p MP4 and M2TS file that I know are DXVA encoded properly.

I'm at work now ... will try to get them on-line and post links later tonight.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Inspex]

I just picked up the player but haven't tested it yet. If anyone wants to see videos of the GUI or anything, let me know and ill hook the player up through the pc and capture some video clips.

[Inspex]

It does have variable speed fast forward and rewind, but it doesn't display the speed that its seeking at. You just hit FF or RW button multiple times to speed it up like any other player.

You can list files in Thumbnail or List mode. List mode is basically how a standard player lists them. However, if a title is too long to be displayed, if you leave it selected for about half a second, it scrolls slowly to display the complete file name. Nice feature there. Thumbnail mode is pretty much for pictures, as it doesnt display any kind of video thumbnail preview.

You can plug 2 USB devices in and select which one to browse.

The remote has an eject button that I assume works like a PC and stops the device for safe unplugging. I tested the player with a Transcend 16gb SDHC card in a Transcend compact card reader. Everything loaded up very fast with no problems. I tried various XviDs with no problems what so ever.

You can resume playback of XviDs, which is super sexy. You stop a video, look around on the menu, ect, then when you play the file again, it asks if you want to resume or start from the beggining. Haven't checked if you can resume XviD playback after powering the player down yet.

The player is really small. I thought it was the size of a Western Digital My Book external drive from the pictures, but it's much smaller. The remote is also very small, but nothing awkward. I'm pretty pleased with the player so far. The Philips DVP-5990 DVD player with USB 2.0 playback has slightly better picture for XviDs in my opinion, but the WD player is nice. The GUI is pretty clean. I dig it.

You can also select which display mode to use, normal or widescreen, depending on your television. I haven't tried it on a HD tv, as I don't have one at the moment, but video playback is good through the standard RCA cables.

If anyone would like any other information, let me know. I don't have anything better to do right now.

[Inspex]

I just looked on my SDHC card, and the WD player created 3 small files on it. Based on the type of files and whats in them, Im assuming this is for indexing and the resume feature.

[Inspex]

I just tested and can verify that it plays the following files with no problems:

The.Bourne.Supremacy.2004.HDDVD.1080p.x264.Rus-Sample.mkv

oceans.thirteen.2007.720p.hddvd.x264.sample-sinners.mkv

Both files played fine for me from an SDHC card.

[Inspex]

The following file played with good audio, but the video was kind of blocky. Not sure why:

the.terminator.1984.1080p.bluray.x264.sample-hv.mkv


Will try and test other 1080p clips as I find samples.

[Inspex]

Tried another few samples, the following played fine:

spiderman.3.2007.720p.bluray.x264.sample-sinners.mkv
star.wars.episode.i.the.phantom.menace.1999.1080p. hdtv.x264.sample-hv.mkv
Iron.Man_2008_720p.BluRay.x264-NhaNc3.sample.mkv

This one had a few minor glitches in the video:
Pirates.of.the.Caribbean.The.Curse.of.the.Black.Pe arl.2003.BD-Rip.1080p.x264.Rus-Sample.mkv


I don't know what the difference is between HDDVD, HDTV and Bluray encodes are, but, so far every HDDVD encode sample plays flawlessly and there are 2 Bluray encodes I tried that have minor glitches in the video. Both videos with glitches were 1080p. 720p Bluray Spiderman 3 and Iron Man sample played fine.

[decoy5657]

I'm so peeved that there is no chapter support. I guess I'll have to get the Popcorn Hour for the living space and stick this little guy in the bedroom! I pray for a firmware update!

[Inspex]

Yeah, hopefully a firmware update will come after theyve sold a few more. This little player really has potential. I'm returning my Philips DVP-5990 and sticking with this.

[TBoneit]

I want both. I need a regionfree DVD player.

[Inspex]

One thing I don't care for. When I turn the unit off, my card reader stays lit up, so I have to unplug the unit or take my card reader out before walking away from it or going to sleep. I may end up keeping the Philips, as I go to bed and watch movies or television alot and I like to just turn the player off, roll over and go to sleep. Not sure how this works with USB-powered Passport drives, but I don't like the idea of a drive being powered on 24/7 while I'm not using it, and I don't want to have to unplug the unit or pull my card reader out every time I'm done watching something. I'll have to see how it works with my WD My Book.

[lordhutt]

One thing I don't care for. When I turn the unit off, my card reader stays lit up, so I have to unplug the unit or take my card reader out before walking away from it or going to sleep. I may end up keeping the Philips, as I go to bed and watch movies or television alot and I like to just turn the player off, roll over and go to sleep. Not sure how this works with USB-powered Passport drives, but I don't like the idea of a drive being powered on 24/7 while I'm not using it, and I don't want to have to unplug the unit or pull my card reader out every time I'm done watching something. I'll have to see how it works with my WD My Book.

I have a similar problem with my HTPC...I have a passport plugged into it and it stays lit even when the PC is powered down...I have been wondering why it does this...

[TBoneit]

Actually the External laptop type hard drive stays powered up on My Philips 5990 too. If I turn the 5990 off while I was playing something from the external drive it starts making noises so I pull the USB plug on it when I'm done to avoid damaging it.Staying powered up is a normal thing on USB devices. a IBM workstation here at work the USB mouse stays lit when it is off. A Clone I built for my brother = likewse, and so on.

[pakawufs]

I have a few questions on this unit. I intend to primarily use the unit for home videos. I use a MAC and quicktime. I import my movies into quicktime as uncompressed .dv files. I store these files on an external Lacie firewire hard drive. Will this unit play .dv files and is there a way I could use my "firewire" hard drive with the USB port on this unit? I'm trying to get around hours of compressing time. If I do have to compress, what quicktime codec is the best to use .mov H.264? Thanks

[Squash]

I picked up one of these yesterday. This post concerns playback of HD x264 MKV files on the WD player.

I tracked down the problematic 1080p MKV Terminator sample file referred to earlier in poisondeathray's quote from engadget, and also referred to by Inspex (the file was posted to Usenet on July 25th if you want to find it). It was not DXVA compliant (not that it was claimed to be); at least not with MPCHC (checked using CTRL-J). Summary video specs from MediaInfo: 10.2 Mbps, 1920*1040(16/9), at 23.976 fps, AVC (High@L5.1) (CABAC/8 Ref Frames).

It played fine in MPCHC using ffdshow decoding, but broke up into severe blocks and smears when played back on the WD TV, only clearing up when there was virtually no movement in the scene.

The only other 1080p clip I had handy was an Apple trailer (.mov) and it played fine on the WD.

Tried a couple of lower resolution x264 MKV files, 1280x720p and 1280x544p (made from BD source) on the WD player, no problems. Both were larger than 4GB and played back fine from an NTFS-formatted 8GB thumb drive. On the computer, I got DXVA playback with these in MPCHC. One was L3.1, the other was L5.1.

I downloaded 19 more 1080p/x264 MKV sample files to see if I could find what separates the good files from the bad. Of the 20 files, 13 played fine on the WD TV player, the other 7 were like the Terminator clip. When played on my computer using MPCHC, the 13 good files were able to use DXVA, the bad 7 were not. They all played fine in MPCHC, it's just that those 7 used software playback rather than DXVA.

All the good files respected ExDeus's formula: Height * Width * num_ref_frames <= 8294400. All the bad ones exceeded it.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12691751#post12691751

So at 1980x1080 you could use up to 4 ref frames.

Most of the samples were cropped, so that the height was less than 1080, which allowed for more ref frames. Several of the cropped files used 5 ref frames with no problems, and two of these used L5.1, which also caused no problems.

All the troublesome files were uncropped (black bars above and below) and used more than 4 ref frames.

Two of the files I downloaded were from the same release group (hV) that did the Terminator clip. They were uncropped, but only used 3 ref frames compared to the 8 used in the Terminator, so they played back fine.

In summary, it looks like the WD player's criteria for playing back HD AVC are very similar to those for DXVA playback on a PC, for whatever reason.

So, if you're encoding files to playback on this device, follow ExDeus's formula and you should be alright. He's got more guidelines in his main article here, along with tips on how to possibly fix, without re-encoding, some 720p files that you may have problems with:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12728994#post12728994

And, Inspex, about the fast forward not showing the speed, look very closely at the left of the fast forward bar. The font is so tiny that I thought it wasn't there at first, too, but it does show your FF speed (2X, 4X, 8X and 16X, I think).

[Inspex]

Actually the External laptop type hard drive stays powered up on My Philips 5990 too. If I turn the 5990 off while I was playing something from the external drive it starts making noises so I pull the USB plug on it when I'm done to avoid damaging it.Staying powered up is a normal thing on USB devices. a IBM workstation here at work the USB mouse stays lit when it is off. A Clone I built for my brother = likewse, and so on.

My card reader doesn't stay lit up when my Philips 5990 is turned off.

I have a few questions on this unit. I intend to primarily use the unit for home videos. I use a MAC and quicktime. I import my movies into quicktime as uncompressed .dv files. I store these files on an external Lacie firewire hard drive. Will this unit play .dv files and is there a way I could use my "firewire" hard drive with the USB port on this unit? I'm trying to get around hours of compressing time. If I do have to compress, what quicktime codec is the best to use .mov H.264? Thanks

I know there are Firewire to USB adapters available, but I can't say whether or not they work with these types of players, as I've never tried them. As far as the best quicktime codec, sorry, maybe someone else can help you with that.

[jman98]

Thanks for the posts, guys. This is a very interesting thread.

I really don't mess with H.264 myself as my best PC is single core and too slow for this to be a realistic option at this time. I plan to upgrade my PC later this year or early next year. What settings are required to make something CxVA compliant? I did a search on Google and all I could find were things about what video cards were DxVA compliant, not anything about what makes video DxVA compliant.

[Inspex]

Someone has said that this player doesn't seem to support DivX, only XviD. I Haven't had a chance to confirm this. Doesn't make much sense if it doesn't play DivX, though. Maybe an issue with licensing or something?

[FulciLives]

I had a feeling that the problem files would either be H.264 above Level 4.1 and/or having "too many" reference frames.

My understanding is that DXVA calls for H.264 at Level 4.1 with 3 reference frames.

I do have a Sony PS3 and it will sometimes handle H.264 with more than 3 reference frames but that seems very "hit or miss" as in sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't so other factors must come into play. I do know that it appears that any of the H.264 encoders that have a PS3 mode (which might as well just say DXVA mode) do only 3 reference frames at Level 4.1

I have two clips I have uploaded. Both encoded with XVID4PSP. The first is a clip from THE HULK (2003) and it is 1920x1080 23.976fps H.264 Level 4.1 with 3 reference frames. It is an MP4 file with 2.0 256kbps AAC-LC audio. The bitrates are pretty high on the video end but it was encoded using a PS3 profile which means it is DXVA compatible and I can confirm it plays back great on my PS3.

Here is the link ---> http://rapidshare.com/files/160906892/hulk1080p.mp4

I have another file that was created more-or-less the same way except this time around it is a M2TS file using 5.1 640kbps AC-3 audio. This clip is from THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008) and again the video is 1920x1080 23.976fps H.264 Level 4.1 with 3 reference frames. Again it plays back smoothly on my PS3.

Here is the Link ---> http://www.mediafire.com/file/0x3k3qi3fin/Hulk2008sample.m2ts

The first file is very large (about 198MB) whereas the second file is much smaller (more like 43MB).

Would be great if these could be tested

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
The HULK MP4 has 2.0 audio but it was downmixed from the 6 channel DTS track using Dolby Pro Logic II so if you have a surround sound receiver that supports that you should get surround sound otherwise you get regular stereo sound.

[Squash]

@Inspex,
It plays Divx fine. I even made a 1920x1072 divx and it played that.

@jman98,
There's a good guide to encoding for DXVA compliance here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12728994#post12728994
and there are massive threads about it over on doom9.

That DXVA-HD-HQ profile ExDeus refers to in the above link comes with MeGUI, or from here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=101813

You should be able to use the command-line settings that ExDeus listed from that profile with any gui that allows you to input x264 command-line settings, but I don't know, I always used the profiles.

Baldrick just recommended some x264/MKV GUIs here: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic359058.html
MeGUIs the only one of those that I've used, but it has a bit of a learning curve.

DXVA compliance is not really necessary for playback on newer computers since they'll generally play non-compliant HD AVC files fine through software, but for some reason it seems to be needed with this new WD player.

@FulciLives,
I'm downloading your first file now. Should have both in about an hour (slow DSL). I'll let you know.

[Squash]

FulciLives,

They both played fine on the WD player.

According to the ExDeus post I linked to above, MPCHC's decoder will allow DXVA for files using a tag of a L5.1 as long as the other conditions are met, while the Cyberlink decoder will not allow higher than 4.1. The WD acts like MPCHC in this regard; I don't know about the PS3.

Audio was fine, but I'm just using stereo.

I did a quick check on DXVA in MPCHC and they both passed.(When it can't use DXVA, MPCHC says "DXVA: DXVA not used". If it can use DXVA, it looks like this shot from your m2ts):

[MJA]

very interesting .I guess I don't need a PS3

[FulciLives]

I'm gonna have to buy me one of these WD Media Players. Sure I have a PS3 but I can't use NFTS via an external HDD with the PS3 (an external HDD hooked up directly to the PS3 must be FAT32). Of course I do have the PS3 hooked up to my PC and can stream from there so it's not a huge deal breaker but I like the idea of the WD Media Player allowing the use of an external NFTS formatted HDD so no silly 4GB limit and no relying on a PC at all.

Sounds like WD has a real winner here based on 1080p H.264 DXVA capability and the rather low price.

Also a quick note about H.264 DXVA encoding:

I use XVID4PSP which has a "MP4 for P3 or XBOX 360" x264 encoding profile. Works wonders and that is how my first clip was encoded. There is also a "M2TS" option which again uses the same video settings (with the ability to do AC-3 audio instead of AAC-LC audio).

I really like XVID4PSP and recommend it highly. The only other alternative that I know of that also seems to work well is MeGui but I find it a bit overly complicated for my tastes. Not that it is unusable but XVID4PSP seems to work really well while also keeping options fairly simple and easy.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[MJA]

is it possible to connect an External CD / DVD Drive?

[Squash]

I believe the sale price ends this week at Best Buy and they go up $30 on Sunday.

I don't know about the external cd/dvd; I don't have one. I remember seeing someone ask that question about an external USB dvd drive on some other board the other day, probably AVSforum. I'll see if I can find it; maybe somebody answered him. Just off the top of my head I wouldn't think so, different file system.

Edit: By the way, the thread over there is at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1080840 .
There's about 7 pages of posts if you want more info.

[bts0004]

I read on the WD site's FAQ that external DVD/CD drives do not work.

[bts0004]

I have little experience with NAS devices, but does anyone know if something like this would work?:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136196
Western Digital My Book World Edition WDG1NC10000N 1TB Home Network Storage with Remote Access

I'm wondering if I would be able to hook it up to the WD media player via USB. I just want to be able to transfer files to the hard drive attached to it from any computer, without having to unhook it from the media player and drag it around to all of them, then hook it all back up again.

[MJA]

I have little experience with NAS devices, but does anyone know if something like this would work?:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136196
Western Digital My Book World Edition WDG1NC10000N 1TB Home Network Storage with Remote Access

I'm wondering if I would be able to hook it up to the WD media player via USB. I just want to be able to transfer files to the hard drive attached to it from any computer, without having to unhook it from the media player and drag it around to all of them, then hook it all back up again.

even better to an Asus WL-520GU Wireless Router w/ USB Port .straming from pc to the WD