Western Digital HDMI USB Media Player?? (WDAVN00BN)

[JjMon]

It's all explained here sorry for the short response... it's I have been working all day and very tired.

EDIT: If you are planing to do a NFS server I prefer HaneWin NFS Server if you are using Windows as an OS. I have had bad luck with other servers.

[Trackerxx]

Where to start, first time post here. While I love my WD, I am having some bad luck. I just want to know if anyone else is having these kinds of issues.
1. The unit is not powering on/off using the remote with new batteries after it is on for so long. I have to unplugg it and plug it back in to get it to respond.
2. I can't get it to come back to the main menu after the screen saver has been on for so long. Once again, I have to unplug.plug it in to get it to respond.
3. Trying to play mkv or iso files made from Blueray discs cause the unit to studder in video and loose all audio. The only way to return it to normal is to ff or rw then hit play. This get extremely annoying doing it every 5 minutes.

I have a Samsung 52 LCD and 2 Lacie 1 tb drives that I use. All of which are not even 6 months old. I use the hdmi (Which plays at 1080i 60 hrz)to the tv and the optical ouput to a reciever for sound.

The WD plays everything else I throw at it wonderfully. Just the Blueray seems to kill it? Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Supreme2k]

Unfortunately, there's no real mkv standard for blu-ray, so the encodes may be a problem. I haven't had any problems with my BR rips or (mostly) conversions.

The problem may be more closely related to the other symptoms. You may have a faulty unit (no pun or joke intended).

Have you tried upgrading the firmware?

[Trackerxx]

I did upgrade to the newest firmware, I was hoping that was it but, nothing. I even tried playing the bluerays in 720 format but still no help. I used the program MakeMKV and AnyDVD HD, both fail to play, although Makemkv play 10 times better. Perhaps it is the software I am using to encode? Any good suggestions, I have been reading framerate is a key factor, yet niether of those two softwares allow for framerate adjustment. I am hoping its not a faulty unit, I don't have the patientance to deal with that /sigh. Thanks for your replies.

[Squash]

Tracerxx,

As to your remote problems, it's pretty well known that the WDTV's remote is subject to IR interference from certain models of TVs, especially Samsung (which is what I have) and some Philips models. There are various workarounds listed on this page:
http://wdtv.wetpaint.com/page/Remote+Control+Issues

What I did was to cut a couple of small strips from a metallized Mylar bag such as hard drives and video cards come in, and tape them over the IR sensor on the front of the WD (one strip was not enough, but using two completely cleared up the problem. It probably depends on the IR reflectivity of your room as to how many you'll need.) There's a guide here:
http://philips.samipupu.com/philips/wdtvhack/
that will show you how to put the strips inside the unit, if you so desire (I was afraid I might break it, so just taped them to the outside).

That should hopefully take care of problems #1 & #2. As to #3, you could try remuxing the MKVs into m2ts, see:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15270395#post15270395

The WD has some problems with 1080p files that exceed Blu-ray specs for Length X Height X number of reference frames. As I remember, just keep the reference frames to no more than 4 or 5 (I forget) and you'll be OK. That's been the subject of many posts here and at avsforum and should be easy to look up if you need to.

As far as encoding programs for MKV, the only one I've used recently is ripbot264, but only for 720p. It's worked well for me. Others, such as Handbrake and Xvid4PSP seem to be highly regarded around here as well, though I've never used them.

Edit: If the videos you're having trouble with are VC-1 rather than H264, make sure you upgraded the firmware from the pre-release page. The official WD page has version 1.02.07; the pre-release page goes up to 1.02.10. In version 1.02.08, one of the fixes was for "VC-1 MKVs playback poorly". You can check the video type with Mediainfo. The pre-release page is at: http://www.wdc.com/wdtvprerelease/

Oh, and disregard what I said about reference frames and such. I've since looked up MakeMKV and saw that it just repackages the video into MKV without conversion, so there should be no problem with exceeding Blu-ray specs.

[LifeIsGd]

I heard quite a few complains that WD does not power down USB HDD; but mine seems to be doing just fine.
The trick is to connect USB HDD power first, then connect WD power supply.
When you finish playing, press "Home" button first before press "Power" button. USB HDD will stop spinning.

Don't switch power off for USB HDD. Otherwise, you might have to repeat the steps above.

[Trackerxx]

Squash,

Thanks you so much for all the help. I manage to resolve the remote problem by turning my power saving mode off for the samsung TV.

I also replaced my HDMI cable with a 1080p 350 hz rated cable, a step up from my older cable, while this did seem to help some, it did not solve the problem completely.

I did try handbrake, Makemkv, Ripbot and a few others, heeh. I used Transformers Blueray disc as a test subject. No program seem to fix the choppy play and loosing audio, although it was less frequent with makemkv then the other programs. The only way to get it to play normal was to ff for a sec or two and return to play.

My last ditch effort was to resort to downgrading my firmware to 1.01.02. The scary part is now my blueray dvd's play without any hiccups although I do loose Digital sound oputput, but it still plays thru the hdmi cable just fine. I also loose the nice new kewl feature of having jpg art for my 1.5 terabytes worth of movies. Makes it hard for my son to navigate and pic his movies seeing how he can't read yet.

I tried firmware version 1.02.07 and beta 1.02.10. I have yet to try 1.02.08. I plan on doing that soon to see if it will get me digital sound, cover art AND play my bluerays ok.

I upgraded to 1.01.08 and everything is working smoothly, I set the audio setting to digital and the optical output is now working and movies are playing great!

While I applaud WD for constantly upgrading firmware and adding great new features, it is a shame that something that worked so well before is so screwed up now. It took me days of converting and experimenting to get answers i needed.

Sigh Now I just need subtitles and life would be good
Hmmm using Tsmuxer, select the PGS stream you want to us as the subtitle, then Demux. Take the newly created .SUP file and used SupRip to convert it to SRT format. Name the .srt file the same as the movie file name, placed them in the same folder on the wdtv drive I am using. Bam, I now have subtitle for my blueray.

I hope this helps anyone out there experiencing the same problems I am. Once again thanks for the help in this forum!! I have just been piecing together forum posts and testing them and stated what has worked for me. Awesome support here!



Trackerxx

[JjMon]

There is now a public Snapshot of HandBreak

Core Lib:
New build system, allowing 64-bit binaries (around 10% faster)
Soft subtitles and Closed Captions
Better support for non-DVD inputs:
- Sources with no audio
- TrueHD
- DTS-HD demuxing
- 8 bit audio sources
- Preserves MP4 metadata
Better AV sync
libdvdnav and DVD angles support
DTS passthrough for MKV
Better sample interleaving
Updated libraries, for better x264 performance
Variable verbose logging levels
Better, optional deinterlacer for decomb (EEDI2)
Mac, Windows, and Linux interfaces:
Live video preview
New subtitle tab
New filters and picture settings inspector
Custom anamorphic mode
Updated Sparkle
Custom number of preview images
Quality slider now works off actual rate factor/quantizer values instead of percentages
Updated advanced x264 tab
New built-in presets

Mac:
Core Audio AAC encoding
H.264 video source decoding bug fixed
Windows:
New audio tab
AAC audio source decoding bug fixed
Improved picture settings controls
Tray minimization is now optional
Queue can now be started from main window

Linux:
Cosmetic GUI improvements
Inhibits sleep mode while encoding
Single title scan
Chapter duration display
Notifications when encodes complete
Tray minimization
Full screen preview

CLI:
Options to handle new subtitle, anamorphic, and preview features

to download the snapshot go here

[B2K24]

Because of this thread i bought the WDAVN00BN media player. I LOVE IT as it plays everything i have thrown at it with exception of DTS but thats easily fixed converting to AC3.

I notice with i power off the unit my 1 TB WD external stays with a constant blue light. When it's playing or seeking data the blue light is moving as the drive is working/spinning. If i use this media player every day is it better for the external to stay plugged in with a constant blue light when the player is not in use? I worry to many times powering on and off is bad for my data and the drive?
Whats better for the long term?

[ocgw]

Because of this thread i bought the WDAVN00BN media player. I LOVE IT as it plays everything i have thrown at it with exception of DTS but thats easily fixed converting to AC3.

I notice with i power off the unit my 1 TB WD external stays with a constant blue light. When it's playing or seeking data the blue light is moving as the drive is working/spinning. If i use this media player every day is it better for the external to stay plugged in with a constant blue light when the player is not in use? I worry to many times powering on and off is bad for my data and the drive?
Whats better for the long term?

I would turn it off, heat is the killer of HDD's and externals have limited cooling capabilities

ocgw

peace

[FulciLives]

@Trackerxx

Try encoding using pre-sets made for a Sony PS3 as these will be compatible with the Western Digital Media Player.

My guess is that your encodes are not being done "correctly" i.e., they are not up to DXVA specs. Using a PS3 profile will ensure that.

XVID4PSP is a great program to use. It has a PS3 MP4 profile or a M2TS profile that works basically the same way. In fact if you don't need multiple audio files nor subtitle files for a particular movie then I would go M2TS vs MKV.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[LifeIsGd]

Because of this thread i bought the WDAVN00BN media player. I LOVE IT as it plays everything i have thrown at it with exception of DTS but thats easily fixed converting to AC3.

I notice with i power off the unit my 1 TB WD external stays with a constant blue light. When it's playing or seeking data the blue light is moving as the drive is working/spinning. If i use this media player every day is it better for the external to stay plugged in with a constant blue light when the player is not in use? I worry to many times powering on and off is bad for my data and the drive?
Whats better for the long term?

Blue light means USB HDD has power switched on; it does not necessary mean HDD is spinning.
USB HDD built in recent years has the ability to stop spinning when it senses no USB signal.
You should be able to feel it with your hand or hear it with your ears (close enough) when HDD spins.

As long as HDD does not spin, device should stay cool. There shall be no heating issue.

[vhelp]

Its unfortunate that the WD gets hot, too, even when the unit is off. In the summer season, its hot to the tuch though not sevearly hot. So, I unplug it when not in use. So far, I have not had the chance to update to latest firmway, any for that matter. They are on sale at bestbuy for $119 currently. I picked up another 1T HDD, (diff brand this time: SimpleDrive) on sale for $109 also, was last one, so I grabbed it. I'm still investigating optimum xvid playback on the WD..but it keeps me busy.

[OT]The WD TV is a great piece of equipment. And now I'm investigating, of all things, Digital Picture Frames the past month. They are awsome, too. I have several, one at 1024x768 and picture (and videos, inc h264) come out really well, I'm surprised! The HP and Sylvania are the best. I'm going for the HP one, 800x600 when they get more in stock. I may do some reviews at a later date.[/OT]

-vhelp 5149

[LifeIsGd]

The unit gets into "standby"mode when you try to shut it down.
I hope WD engineers can add a power saver option so that when you press the power button it can shutdown completely.
I do not mind the time it takes to reboot.
In the summer, the unit gets pretty hot in standby mode. Unplug is a sensible thing to do, but annoying...

[Rudyard]

I have just been lead to this thread, ive skimmed many pages but there is so much info, I was wondering if anyone could tell me if you can somehow use chapters or skip to time without physically fastforwarding in real time?

[Supreme2k]

Get the latest firmware, then you can skip by 10 minutes by using fast forward and next chapter.

If your media has chapters (mkv, among others), press option, then select the chapter from the top menu (along with audio, subtitles, etc.)

[Rudyard]

Get the latest firmware, then you can skip by 10 minutes by using fast forward and next chapter.

If your media has chapters (mkv, among others), press option, then select the chapter from the top menu (along with audio, subtitles, etc.)

Thanks for the reply, sounds very promising. Can you help me with one thing. I am about to encode 50 hours of VHS captures for my mother to play through a media player.

I was advised to use high bitrate MPEG2, can I somehow add chapters to this the player will read or does it need to be MKV (that is a video format??)

[stiltman]

Just picked one up last night.
just composite and HDMI

I haven't tried any of the modded firmwares on the new one

Guess this is the old one

[vhelp]

@ stiltman

I'm pretty sure that the *new* 'er version will have either a new packaging and/or name, something like

WDTV pro
WDTV plus

'er something like that.

bestbuy had the original wdtv's on sale for $99 bucks last week. Its prob still going that price today.

On the other hand, there's another mediaplayer device, similar to wdtv, but in addition to wdtv, it comes with component outputs. The unit was more sleeker and flat versus the wdt'd 4-pack (cigarette) size. I was tempted to pick it up but I passed it up on due to my cards spending limits/per/day maybe tomorrow will re-consider it unless someone already has and can spare pros/cons about it.

-vhelp 5174

[jagabo]

bestbuy had the original wdtv's on sale for $99 bucks last week. Its prob still going that price today.

That's pretty much the going price these days. Fry's and NewEgg has them for that. Amazon too with free shipping.

[jman98]

Guess this is the old one

Well, it's the ONLY one available. The "new" one hasn't even been announced yet, so it could be released next month or December or never for all we know. Nothing in the prototype photos that I saw makes me regret the one I bought last year.

[vhelp]

..and here I was thinking that I was helping, oh well.

. . .

Well, i'm not looking to replace my wdtv, i like it very much though i've been only using it with my 8gig sticks and not to its fullest, like a nice size ws monitor, etc., i guess i'm not too picky or else i'm that lazy..anyway.

..just me going off the deep end here..

What i want to do dump all my vids to 1-t drive, but i can't justify dumping whole vids (w/out re-encoding them) even with that size hdd. seems a waist of space and don't understand some peoples rash in doing this. the only problem with dumping (after re-encoding) is the process behind it.

You see, depending on the codec format, you either have to: deinterlace=faster, determine if ivtc'able=slower, or worse, break each video into smaller segments for deinterlacing / ivtc -- some TNG and Babylon 5 are examples of these, they have 30p and telecine mixed in. The point I'm trying to make here is that it takes time, lots of it if you have tons of stuff, or in my case, many tv series. And it gets much messier (when dealing with tv series) on an episode-by-episode bases because in my dealings I've come up against many insonsistant ep's that are mixtures of fallups in telecine videos..so much that I sometimes feel like giving up. I could let a popular invtc algo/plugin do the guess work but there that slight change of hope that the video is restorable, either 24p or 30p, and that's the time kicker: do you take a chance and go that route or go a simple "auto" route and let the algo/plugin think for you.

So I was trying to decide on what route I want to take: deal with each videos telecine aspecs or just do it all one way--deinterlace but not deinterlace if that makes any sense to you. I've been experimenting on this idea. You see, you take a telecine (not all-interlaced) video and instead of deinterlace it you decompose it, where you restore the progressive frames, and anywhere where it interlaces, you decompose it (for lack of appropriate term) or keep the dup frame keeping 29.970 aka 30p framerate, if that makes any sense to any of you guys. I did a few videos this way and I like the way it came out though i'm still debuggin algos. I dont have any receipies or do-it-all functions because i'm still working out the idea as an alternative to those videos (tv series) that would otherwise take too long to deal with and consiquentially ware me out.

For example, I have the complete Babylon 5 series, all five seasons. Its CGI's are 30p and videos are 30i telecine. The problem with this series is that they are not as clean as I thought. The begin/end points from 30i to 30p to 30i is inconstant and you have to deal with them, assumng your route in the manual one. I'm talking about trying to make perfect 24p restoration, which is not posible w/ this series since its a mixture of 30p/30i. But there are many other tv series that are drulling to work with. As for this series I would think it best to 30p it completely and let those inconsistant begin/end points be delt with by the deinterlace algos.

But, I do wonder how others in the WDTV boat are fairing on this endeavor, especially for tv series. Are they just dumping dvd iso's onto 1-t HDD's or are they re-encoding them painstakenly or re-encoding them with the help of some auto assist algo, etc. I just think that dumping dvd's or iso's is not making the best use.

-vhelp 5176

[festmaster]

But, I do wonder how others in the WDTV boat are fairing on this endeavor, especially for tv series. Are they just dumping dvd iso's onto 1-t HDD's or are they re-encoding them painstakenly or re-encoding them with the help of some auto assist algo, etc. I just think that dumping dvd's or iso's is not making the best use.

-vhelp 5176

The majority of my DVD collection is TV shows, too. The vast majority of those are interlaced, which I correct when I convert to Xvid. My Xvid files on are on portable drives 250gb-500gb. The WDTV doesn't play nicely with ISO files of TV shows since it will only play the first episode. I am happy with the output of the Xvid files on the big screen.

[stiltman]

@ stiltman

I'm pretty sure that the *new* 'er version will have either a new packaging and/or name, something like

WDTV pro
WDTV plus

'er something like that.

bestbuy had the original wdtv's on sale for $99 bucks last week. Its prob still going that price today.

On the other hand, there's another mediaplayer device, similar to wdtv, but in addition to wdtv, it comes with component outputs. The unit was more sleeker and flat versus the wdt'd 4-pack (cigarette) size. I was tempted to pick it up but I passed it up on due to my cards spending limits/per/day maybe tomorrow will re-consider it unless someone already has and can spare pros/cons about it.

-vhelp 5174

Well, i was playing with it this weekend.
It will not recongnize my TV HDMI to DVI (the old HD-DVD A3 wouldn't either)
I went through a range of videos and all were playing fine. Then after playing a mpeg2 file, it stopped playing any files, even the ones it played before. I have to remove the external 1TB Terabank drive, delete the wd folder and let it scan the drive again.

This is all on the OEN original firmware.

It might be going back to the store, if I can't get it to do HDMI to DVI on my TV
what a pisser

[jman98]

Well, i was playing with it this weekend.
It will not recongnize my TV HDMI to DVI (the old HD-DVD A3 wouldn't either)
I went through a range of videos and all were playing fine. Then after playing a mpeg2 file, it stopped playing any files, even the ones it played before. I have to remove the external 1TB Terabank drive, delete the wd folder and let it scan the drive again.

This is all on the OEN original firmware.

It might be going back to the store, if I can't get it to do HDMI to DVI on my TV
what a pisser

Some are defective out of the box and have to be returned based on reports we've had here. Mine had no playback problems, but I had to have the support folks send me a new remote control within days of setting it up. A new remote fixed my issues.

You might try contacting the support folks and ask them if HDMI to DVI is unsupported. If so, it sounds like that will be a deal breaker for you, stiltman.

[stiltman]

Some are defective out of the box and have to be returned based on reports we've had here. Mine had no playback problems, but I had to have the support folks send me a new remote control within days of setting it up. A new remote fixed my issues.

You might try contacting the support folks and ask them if HDMI to DVI is unsupported. If so, it sounds like that will be a deal breaker for you, stiltman.

I was thinking about exchanging it tonight or tomorrow to see if it's just a bad box.
On the remote, the up arrow works about 50% of the time.
It's also extremely slow responding to remote inputs (arrows, entering, back) is that normal?

[jman98]

I was thinking about exchanging it tonight or tomorrow to see if it's just a bad box.
On the remote, the up arrow works about 50% of the time.
It's also extremely slow responding to remote inputs (arrows, entering, back) is that normal?

No, that's not normal. My player simply refused to respond to the remote control 2 days after I bought it, but after I got a replacement remote it has been fine. The response to remote inputs is just about instantaneous. It sounds like your player is definitely defective.

[stiltman]

Now to find that bestbuy reciept


Edit:
Ok, I just replaced it with another one. This one is much more responsive. However it's still a no go with HDMI to DVI
This time however I get the WD logo when it's booting up, but once it does, it goes blank on the HDMI connection and my TV says no signal.

One another note, I have to repace my current upconverting surround sound system because it sucks. I compared a Xvid to the original DVD and the Xvid transfer played at 720x460 via composite actually looked better than the DVD

Wow, what a strange setup I must have....Now it makes me wonder if any HDMI to DVI devices will work....I guess so much for early adopters, as my HDTV is a 1st generation model.

This 42" TV now might become my Bedroom TV and to be replaced with another Plasma TV in the family room....more current of course

Edit 2:
It had no problems playing my high kbs Xvid files 4000Kbs +
It wouldn't play regular VOBs for some reason, even though it woiuld play DVD ISO files

[stiltman]

Just a follow up.
I was able to get HDMI working. Kinda screwy though. I had to have both HDMI and Composite hooked up. I then selected HDMI at 1080i. Max for my TV is 1080i

The system took for ever to do anything, then all of a sudden it turned itself off. I turn it on, it turned itself off. Did this about 4 or 5 times

Disconnected HDMI and turned it back on.

I went and selected HDMI again, this time I selected 480p
Boom it works. I then changed it to 720p, it did fine
I changed it to 1080i and it went, but it was like a little shaky.
I went back to 720p

Took the HDMI cable off and put it back into my surround sound system
Put a HDMI cable from the WDTV to my surround sound system
Selected HDMI pass through on my surround sound system, and zero nada ziltch
Went back from WDTV to TV and all is good again.

Bummer

Now I'm wondering if I should waste money on a HDMI port switch, as that may not work either, Then on top of that having to get a digital out cable for the WDTV to connect to my surround sound system.

I have to admit though, the picture is outstanding. All my encodes are really high kbs. With handbrake, I usually set the constant quality to 94 or 95

In the end, I think I'll keep it

[vhelp]

keep it..!!

hey stiltman, i'm glad you got it going finally. this usually only happens to us faulks who make such idle threats--at the first sign of trouble, back it goes--but keep it in the end. Looks like you are slowly setteling down with it--great!

I haven't quite tested bitrates with the wdtv. been too busy in many things. but most of what I threw at it played fine, even those said not possible. So it all depends on the video, the codec and the arkaine encoding params we cooked into each video. I'm still deciding on a final codec. Its become more complex than I had initially thought. but I did pick up an LG portable player, (built in 500g hdd, though different menu system) also to test, and so far, its a champ too. i got it because the price was screwy at the store and I managed to pinch the salesrep at the lowest price.

Like you, i haven't tried and firmware updating. I'm too scared that i'll miss some wdtv functions. And, the only thing I want changed on the wdtv is the filename and menuing (searchability) needs lots of work. Don't know what they were thinking when they created the menus on this devices. same with the LG though it at least plays a stamp-size video as you scan through the files on the hdd. If they improve on the wdtv's searchable menu function, i'd prob go for the firmware. should you or someone else figure out an alternative, pass it on.

yeah, there is are other uses for this gizmo too.

and I agree, the quality of the unit's output is very nice indeed. The beauty is its portable, don't have to drag a pc around, not to mention electric and all that nonsense.

-vhelp 5179