Western Digital HDMI USB Media Player?? (WDAVN00BN)

[DarrellS]

I have a folder with 11 episodes that are 1024x576 divx/mp3 and they all play out of sync. I've spent two days trying to fix them with Goldwave, Virtualdub and Mpeg4modifier but still can't get them to play correctly.

I have copies that I had converted to 720x406 that played fine on the Philips 5990 but I had to do a lot of tweaking on them to get them to play in sync with the WD.

Most of my other files play fine. I don't know what the deal is with this folder. All of these files play fine on the PC.

I guess I'll have to try the MKV trick but if I have to start converting files to play with this player, it pretty much kills the reasoning why I bought this player. To play the files that I have on my PC without having to convert them to something else.

Hopefully WD will fix all the problems with firmware updates. Something tells me that the reason they packaged a converter in the deal was they have no intension of fixing any problems. We'll see.

[justFuR]

plugged it in and then powered it up and all is well.

took about 25 minutes to index everything though.

...

[DarrellS]

I put the troublesome HD AVI files in MKV container and all played perfect except for one which I had to fix with audio interleave in VDub.

May start putting all my HD AVI in MKV containers since they seek much better and I don't have to recode them. The HD AVI won't play in the Philips anyway.



Would like to see 5.1 Windows Professional audio support.

[xela19115]

I tried Avidemux to change the container on .DIVX movie into .MKV, with both Video and Audio in COPY mode. Did not do anything else to the file, no audio or video recoding and it worked flawlessly. Thanks to folks here for the advice.

[shadow_cruiser]

plugged it in and then powered it up and all is well.

took about 25 minutes to index everything though.

...

25 minutes to index?. I have two 1TB drives. One is filled to the rim and took 15 seconds to index the first time and the second was 5-10 seconds which has 600gb of data.

What kind of drives are you using?

[misterbill]

shadow_cruiser.

The question is, What kind of drives are YOU using?

[shadow_cruiser]

2 Samsung Spinpoint F1 with Vantec Enclosures

[jaxxboss]

I feel like Im back trying to figure out how to make a vcd... Anywayzz..

Since I cant hear my mkv dts movies, is there a simple proggy that will let me convert the audio to ac3, but keep the video as is, either 1080 or 720?
ID like to not have to re-encode the movie, but I will if I have to.

Or I suppose i could get a cheapo dts system, but for now I just wanna try to re encode the audio.

Remember, the simpler for my brain, the bettA !

[Squash]

jaxxboss,

This free Audio Converter works well. I've used it on a few MKVs and it does what you want; just re-encodes the audio, video is untouched. You can download if from the link at the top of this tutorial:
http://audioconverter.heartware.dk/Tutorial/

Its forum thread is here if you want more info:
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=10111

[jaxxboss]

Thanx Squash
Its funny that i had downloaded this already but figured it was gonna be too technical for me, but since you recommended it I went back and .....YES, I READ THE DIRECTIONS... lol.

Thanks for the kick in the 6.

[Supreme2k]

If you read the directions half as much as you farted, you'd be THE expert here

[Kenwvt]

Could someone download a smallish HD video file and tell me if it will play in the WD Media player ?

Here is the link:

http://www.darylmaxwell.com/video/PW.wmv

Thanks,

Ken

[Squash]

Kenwvt,

No, it doesn't play. The WD gives this error: "Unable to play the selected file. Please refer to the user manual on how to change the file to a supported format"

MediaInfo reports that your video is encoded in WMV2. According to the WD manual:

"The following video file formats are supported:
• MPEG 1
• MPEG 2
• MPEG 4 (ASP, AVC HD/H.264)
• WMV9
• AVI
• Xvid
• DVR-MS
• MKV
• DAT (VCD/SVCD)"

I'd imagine that the error message is pointing towards re-encoding the file using their supplied converter program.

[cameraz]

What is the best HD format?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this question, but many of you guys seem so knowledgeable.

If I am going to have to convert my HD videos to play on my WD Media Player, I would like to optimize them all to the best format.

I did convert some of my Divx videos to .mov format, but some people have said that's not the best way to go. (The Divx files, by the way, would not play as is on the WD, so I had to convert them anyway.)

I'm looking for the best quality here, and am not necessarily concerned about size of the files.

Thanks.

[pippas]

Could someone download a smallish HD video file and tell me if it will play in the WD Media player ?

Doesn't play here either - Procoder says it's wmv2, and encoded at 15fps -not sure if it's the wmv2 bit, or the 15fps that the WD doesn't like.

[jaxxboss]

If you read the directions half as much as you farted, you'd be THE expert here

Aweee, you remembered.

[DarrellS]

Could someone download a smallish HD video file and tell me if it will play in the WD Media player ?

Here is the link:

http://www.darylmaxwell.com/video/PW.wmv

Thanks,

Ken

Thanks for the link. Blue Oyster Cult was my favorite band in the 70s'. Saw them 3 times in Tulsa in 74' and 75' and in 1980 they were rained out at the Black and Blue tour in Phoenix after Blackfoot and Black Sabbath (Ronnie James Dio). Sabbath ended the concert with a lightning show and cannons.

[DarrellS]

I did convert some of my Divx videos to .mov format, but some people have said that's not the best way to go. (The Divx files, by the way, would not play as is on the WD, so I had to convert them anyway.)

Not sure why you're having problems with the divx files. Did you try using avidemux to put them in a MKV container? All of my divx files play (after changing extension to avi) but a handful played out of sync so I put them in MKV containers and they all play fine. If I had to recode them then I would find a different player since I have probably a thousand divx files.

I thought you said the Virtualdub trick of direct stream copying worked. I would try Mpeg4modifier on troublesome files also.

[Squash]

cameraz,

I made a sample .divx file using the Divx Converter, and it didn't even show up on the WD's menu. When I renamed the extension to .avi, it played back fine. I didn't use any of the "Ultra Divx" features like chapters and menus, however, so that might not work for you. .divx containers (DMF, or Divx Media Format) never really caught on, and the Divx folks are moving on to MKV as the container for their next generation encoder. The .divx files are basically AVIs with some new extensions.

Conversion should be avoided if possible due to quality loss; sometimes you can get around it by just renaming the extension, or by copying the audio and video into an different format (container). If you have to convert something in order to play it on the WD, AVC/x264 in MKV seems to be pretty trouble-free in the WD and offers a good picture-quality to filesize ratio. MP4 is another format (container) option, but until very recently did not support AC3 (Dolby) audio, which many video files contain, and playback devices haven't yet updated to reflect the new AC3 support in MP4. The WD doesn't play AC3 in mp4, I've tried it. But you might want to use MP4 if you have some other playback device that uses it. I don't, so I generally use either mkv or avi. Avi is old and dated, but widely supported on many devices.

There's lots of guides here on conversion programs and how to use them in the "Guides" section. Avidemux is good and doesn't install a bunch of other apps on your computer. Here's a good guide for it:
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic357763.html

By the way, I noticed in one of your earlier posts you said you couldn't play MKVs on your computer. KMPlayer, MPCHC, or VLC should play them fine. Or you can install Haali Media Splitter and play them back through WMP, but you'll probably also need to enable a directshow x264 decoder via ffdshow or somesuch.

[cameraz]

Not sure why you're having problems with the divx files. Did you try using avidemux to put them in a MKV container? All of my divx files play (after changing extension to avi) but a handful played out of sync so I put them in MKV containers and they all play fine. If I had to recode them then I would find a different player since I have probably a thousand divx files.

I thought you said the Virtualdub trick of direct stream copying worked. I would try Mpeg4modifier on troublesome files also.

DarrellS:

Yes, I did try avidemux and it worked fine. But that was not the focus of my question. I only wanted to know if I have to convert an HD video file, which format is best (quality-wise, that is)? I'm kind of a noob when it comes to formats, containers, etc.

[cameraz]

cameraz,

I made a sample .divx file using the Divx Converter, and it didn't even show up on the WD's menu. When I renamed the extension to .avi, it played back fine. I didn't use any of the "Ultra Divx" features like chapters and menus, however, so that might not work for you. .divx containers (DMF, or Divx Media Format) never really caught on, and the Divx folks are moving on to MKV as the container for their next generation encoder. The .divx files are basically AVIs with some new extensions.

Conversion should be avoided if possible due to quality loss; sometimes you can get around it by just renaming the extension, or by copying the audio and video into an different format (container). If you have to convert something in order to play it on the WD, AVC/x264 in MKV seems to be pretty trouble-free in the WD and offers a good picture-quality to filesize ratio. MP4 is another format (container) option, but until very recently did not support AC3 (Dolby) audio, which many video files contain, and playback devices haven't yet updated to reflect the new AC3 support in MP4. The WD doesn't play AC3 in mp4, I've tried it. But you might want to use MP4 if you have some other playback device that uses it. I don't, so I generally use either mkv or avi. Avi is old and dated, but widely supported on many devices.

There's lots of guides here on conversion programs and how to use them in the "Guides" section. Avidemux is good and doesn't install a bunch of other apps on your computer. Here's a good guide for it:
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic357763.html

By the way, I noticed in one of your earlier posts you said you couldn't play MKVs on your computer. KMPlayer, MPCHC, or VLC should play them fine. Or you can install Haali Media Splitter and play them back through WMP, but you'll probably also need to enable a directshow x264 decoder via ffdshow or somesuch.

Squash,

Thanks for your response. You answered my question. See my reply to DarrellS above.

[FulciLives]

Somewhere in this thread I posted a link to a 1080p M2TS file. The video is H.264 and the audio is 5.1 640kbps AC-3 audio. At least one person said it played on the WD (which I don't have) so I just wanted to add that M2TS is always an option. Note that such files work natively on the PS3 which is why I make them sometimes (I have a PS3).

In short I am suggesting that M2TS is a good format for H.264 video and AC-3 audio.

tsMuxeR ... a MS Windows program ... can create M2TS files. This program does no encoding or transcoding ... it simply muxes existing H.264 and AC-3 into M2TS.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[zoe1271]

I've tried this thing and it's great. The FLAC playback is fine. The GUI could be better, but it gets the job done. As for video, I've ripped DVDs in .iso format and a couple Blu-Ray discs in .m2ts. It played all files without a hitch until two days ago. I simply reset the system to factory defaults and it's all good. Hopefully it stays that way.

I have it connected to a Sony Bravia 46" LCD via HDMI. The audio is connected to the "optical in" in my receiver. I have the audio set to "digital" and the video output set to "1080p 60hz". The Blu-Ray rips look and sound absolutely phenomenal. But, each rip is anywhere from 15-20GB. The DVDs are good too, except the 4x3 full screen. All 16x9 aspect ratio DVDs are fine, but 4x3 shows up as a big square in the middle of the screen. Maybe if I change the settings on the WD from widescreen to normal when playing a 4x3 DVD it will resolve the problem. Duh...I just thought of that now.

I wish it would display artwork when in thumbnail view similar to windows. Since I can't tag .iso or .m2ts, I put the artwork in each folder as a "folder.jpg" file.

Anyway, I think it's a good buy but hope that firmware updates will provide noticeable improvements.

[DarrellS]

Not sure why you're having problems with the divx files. Did you try using avidemux to put them in a MKV container? All of my divx files play (after changing extension to avi) but a handful played out of sync so I put them in MKV containers and they all play fine. If I had to recode them then I would find a different player since I have probably a thousand divx files.

I thought you said the Virtualdub trick of direct stream copying worked. I would try Mpeg4modifier on troublesome files also.

DarrellS:

Yes, I did try avidemux and it worked fine. But that was not the focus of my question. I only wanted to know if I have to convert an HD video file, which format is best (quality-wise, that is)? I'm kind of a noob when it comes to formats, containers, etc.

If that wasn't the focus of your question then you should've left it out of your post. You've made numerous posts about divx files not playing for you and having to convert to a different format.

If all you wanted to know was the best format to convert to and not how to get your files to play on the WD then yes, you probably should've made a new thread or at least made it clear that your divx problems were solved and you only wanted to know what the best format was for video storage.

Just like any other "best", you'll get many different answers depending on the criteria.

[cameraz]

If all you wanted to know was the best format to convert to and not how to get your files to play on the WD then yes, you probably should've made a new thread or at least made it clear that your divx problems were solved and you only wanted to know what the best format was for video storage.

I included that extra bit of information (in parenthese) to let people know my experiences so they would not have to scroll back and read my previous posts. Thanks again for your reply, but you don't need to get hot under the collar about it. This is a forum, after all. Sorry if we don't all live by your rules.

[DarrellS]

If all you wanted to know was the best format to convert to and not how to get your files to play on the WD then yes, you probably should've made a new thread or at least made it clear that your divx problems were solved and you only wanted to know what the best format was for video storage.

I included that extra bit of information (in parenthese) to let people know my experiences so they would not have to scroll back and read my previous posts. Thanks again for your reply, but you don't need to get hot under the collar about it. This is a forum, after all. Sorry if we don't all live by your rules.

This is a video help forum. If you want people's help, you'll have to learn not to be a smarta$$ ahole. Don't worry, you'll get no more replies from me.

[FulciLives]

For the record I didn't care for his shit ass response either.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[cameraz]

For the record I didn't care for his shit ass response either.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

I presume you're referring to DarrellS. I merely asked a legitimate question and was given a lecture for including too much information in my post. Sorry if you or anybody else was offended, my response was not directed at you.

[zoe1271]

I'm having some trouble with TV DVDs. Because the WD Player does not support chapters, I thought I would just rip each episode as a separate .iso and put it on my USB HDD. But, the media player won't play them. Each episode was approx. 18-24 minutes. I ripped them from the DVD with DVDFab's "Custom" mode and saved them as .iso's. None of them played. However, a 30 minute bonus feature ripped to .iso played fine using the same method. All the DVD movies ripped to .iso play fine. I chose .iso because I do not want to lose quality.

Any suggestions?

[FulciLives]

For the record I didn't care for his shit ass response either.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

I presume you're referring to DarrellS. I merely asked a legitimate question and was given a lecture for including too much information in my post. Sorry if you or anybody else was offended, my response was not directed at you.

Actually I was referring to you and agreeing with DarrellS 8)

- John "FulciLives" Coleman