I dropped my subscription to Brazzers almost a year ago but still have all the files. I'll pull some together and see if I can figure out what is going on. I do recall there being something hinky going on with their file formats. And yes, VC-1 is the same as Windows Media 9. **EDIT** I just checked. Some of my Brazzers archive contains WMV files encoded with WMV2, which the WDTV-L won't play as that is unsupported. For reference, I can't get them to play on my Seagate Theater Plus either (I haven't returned that one yet). However, pretty much everything I have that was produced from September of 2008 and onwards in the archive was encoded as VC-1/WMV3, which the WDTV-Live does play. I've not yet found one in that date range that doesn't play. Thus far, I've been testing files from Big Wet Butts, Pornstars Like it Big, Big Tits at School and Big Tits at Work. I'll keep testing a few others. Edited by - lubenluv on 11/13/2009 10:07:32 AM
I'm not talking about their SD WMV files. A few months ago, Brazzers started producing HD files, which I've just become eligible to download. Those are the ones with a problem. After converting to a .asf file and then re-encoding with Windows Media Encoder, I was able to view one of their files, but the audio format was unsupported. I'm going to try some of the other audio options in WME. However, re-encoding took about 2 hours to complete for a 30 minute file. That's not something that I'm willing to do for every file. Also, although the picture quality is definitely better with the HD file, I don't know if it's worth the 5X the disc space that the corresponding SD file takes up (straight from Brazzers it's 1 hex as large, the re-encoding process compressed it by half). I'm probably going to be very selective as to which scenes I want in HD. Edit - update: a file re-encoded with a lower quality audio stream worked on the WD HD. However, I noticed that WME took it down to 720p, from 1080p. If that's going to be the case, I may as well run this process on the 720p version of the file. Maybe that will speed up the re-encoding process. Note: I did experience the same initial problem with 720P files on my WD HD. Edited by - Bill on 11/13/2009 11:59:50 AM
I think the basic capabilities such as video/audio codecs and video resolution and stuff like that are "hard-wired" in the design and can't be changed by firmware update. But things like user interface and menu layout can be changed with firmware.
Not sure where this tidbit fits, so I'll put it in here for now. Many of these digital players and STB's offer Youtube streaming. Honestly, I could care less about the feature but Youtube just announced that they were going to curtail API-level access to their stuff and this is the method in place for many STB's. An official from Western Digital just reported that WD will continue to support Youtube streaming with their line of products.
Heads up WDTV-Live owners. The newest firmware update (1.01.12) is available for the unit, but there are widescale reports that attempting to install this totally bricks the unit. I'm not talking about a few cases but thousands of reported cases, forcing you to return the unit for a replacement. WD really seems to have totally fucked up this product launch and ensuing support and I can't recommend it at this point until they get their collective act together. Fortunately, I had refused the update since I already had read about this issue, but if you keep yours connected to the 'net (I do) it will try to download it automatically. More info on WD's official support forums here.
^ any new info on the problems they were having with the newest firmware? i was thinking of getting one to watch movies on. I just figured out how to watch files on my PS3 from my computer and was pretty impressed with it. Here's my setup - I have a Mac Mini, Macbook, 1x500GB WD external HD, and a 1TB WE external HD that I need to hook up to the Mac Mini, which is my primary computer. The Macbook is just used for portability; I do all of my downloading on my Mac Mini which the external HDs are hooked to. All of this is set up on a wireless network in my house using an Apple Airport Extreme router (which LubeNLuv helped me with. ). Questions: -If I get a WDTV-L, can I watch movies off of my external HDs that are connected to my Mac Mini, which is on my wireless network? Or does it have to be on the actual Mac Mini itself? [The HD on there is only 320GB, so I put most stuff on the externals]. My HDTV is on the other side of the room so it would be a bitch to have to unplug stuff and move it every time I wanna watch some porno on my TV. -With watching a file from my Mac Mini to PS3, it kind of 'stuttered' a bit. Like when you fast forwarded at 1x it was ok, but hit FF again to make it go to 1 hex and it would freeze for about 15-20 seconds then speed through the part that happened during the 15-20 seconds when it was frozen. I don't remember if it would then do 1 hex FF or if it would play regular...that's not the issue though. My question is does the WDTV-L kind of freeze or slow down when you try to FF or change the speed of FFing, like my description of the PS3 streaming seems to do? RARELY do I watch a porn without FFing; I'm FFing, playing, FFing, playing, Rewinding ect. Will it be sluggish if I try to do this and make the video/video response slow? -I've got a lot of HD files that i've downloaded from various sites; Kink, Anal Teen Angels, etc. Most of the ATA ones are .wmvs. Would I be able to play those on the WDTV-L without a relatively large amount of hassle? I've also got plenty of .avi's, .mp4's, .m4v's...the .avi's shouldn't be a problem from what I've read here, and if there is a problem with a file I can always convert it in Handbrake, but it would be a lengthy process to convert a whole bunch of them. Would I have any problems with the HD .wmv's? I assume they're done with a newer WMV codec but I could be wrong, or does it matter with the newer WDTV-L as it did with the old WDTV? I've been thinking of questions to ask about this for the last few days and I think I covered everything I had concerns about but I'm sure I'll think up more questions later. I read the link comparing all of the players that LubeNLuv posted a ways up, also. Anyways, any answers to one or more of my questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
WD released new firmware this past Monday. However, this whole debacle of bricking anyone's box when they tried to upgrade automatically via the internet put them behind about 2 months in development of REAL features. So the update they just released this week is just a fix to their internet updating system which, hopefully, won't brick anyone else's box again. Meanwhile, they still don't play DVD menu's off of ISO's, and there are some various bug reports about MP4 video/audio synch issues. I've not experienced any of the latter, but I have the former. I rip all my DVD's straight away to ISO's and with the WDTV-L you won't be able to use the menu's to see extra features, BTS scenes, etc. You CAN watch these but it requires a few workarounds to do so. My Seagate Theater +, however, DOES play ISO menu's without any issues. The UI on the Seagate is a little wonky and picture viewing on it is really bad for some reason, but for movie playing, I've yet to find a non-WMV format that won't play. It won't play pre WMV8 files, but unless you've got scads of these, no biggie. Right now, given what an epic fail WD has been with their newest box, I can't give it a primary recommendation anymore. It is NOT "plug and play" and it should be. For the same money, I'd go with Seagate for now unless you are patient and/or don't have terabytes of ISO images you want to play (like I do).
It depends on how you connect your WDTV-L to your Airport Extreme network. The WTDV-L has to be connected either ethernet or via a wireless USB dongle (these are supported). But generally, yes, if your hard drives are connected to your Mac Mini, your WDTV-L and the Mac Mini are both connected to the same network, then you can browse and play the files off the Mac Mini. This may not be plug-and-play...you may end up having to fool around with network share settings and the like as the WDTV-L is a pretty dumb network appliance. What you might want to do instead is reverse the topology by attaching any external USB hard drives you have to the WDTV-L...it will support two USB devices. The Mac Mini can see those as the WDTV-L has the necessary networking smarts to act as a primitive NAS device. Anything attached to it shows up in your network as a shared drive. Either way, you'll get better performance with ethernet than via wireless but wireless if still plenty fast enough to stream an HD file from a remote device to the WDTV-L.In my experience, no it doesn't, but I'm running my WDTV-L via ethernet (wired) connection. I can watch a MKV ripped Blue Ray disk, which is about a 12 gig file, without any pauses or hesitation via my WDTV-L. My PS3 would choke on something like that. My PS3, via wifi, has always had some stutter. Frankly, I think the PS3 is just not that great of a ghetto media player. It does some files fine, but most are very slow for me over wireless. This is a fairly common complaint of other PS3 owners on various forums. WiFi streaming performance for the PS3 really varies from user to user.I have terabytes of Kink.com content and it all plays fine except for some really old stuff. And for all the other formats, I don't think you'll have any issues, although I've heard some reports of .MP4's having some audio/video synch issues. I've never experienced that myself. However, WMV's are a crapshoot. It really depends on how recently the file was encoded. I've got some that just flat out aren't recognized by my WDTV-L or my Seagate. You'll see some comments in this thread about that already. If your WMV content is fairly new and encoded with WMV9, you should be fine. Anything prior to that....iffy to no support.
I bought WDTV Live from BB earlier today and already returned it. I didn't expect it to be comapatible with all my video files but the picture quality from this unit for the formats that were supported was very disappointing through HDMI. It was able to detect all of my files but whenever I tried to play any HD WMV file, either from my network or USB, WDTV would lock up. All that would appear on my TV screen was the rotating blue circle. I had to unplug and reset the unit for it to play any files after that. I tested the unit before and after installing the firmware update. The firmware update didn't hose the WDTV but it didn't make it perform any better either. Is there anything else currently on the market that has more compatibility with 1080p WMV files?
^ I had the same problem with the WD TV (not the "Live" version) on HD files from Brazzers. I've taken to re-encoding them using Windows Media Encoder, before loading them to the drive that I use with the WD TV. It's a pain in the ass. But it works.
Eek. I'll pass on this and the Seagate then and just watch stuff on my computer. I can always stream a good file to the PS3 and deal with the stuttering. I don't wanna spend +$100 and still have a bunch of compatibility issues. There's other stuff I need that I'd rather buy. thanks for the insight and help LubeNLuv. It's appreciated as always. :)
#SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03
Posted - Jan 15 2010 : 4:32AM
CMJ, have you tried connecting the PS3 and the computer to the router via ethernet cables instead of wirelessly, and seeing if you still get that stuttering problem?
^^ What Harri said. That may help with the PS3 stuttering. It did for mine but I just found the PS3 too unwieldy to use as a primary media player. Some of the stuttering, however, has a lot to do with the PS3 architecture. I've read that the only ones that don't suffer from stuttering are those where either you store the media directly on the PS3's hard drive or very small native PS3 video formats (such as those formatted for the PS3/PSP). Incidentally, I checked your anal teen angels website. I didn't realize that was part of the same family of websites as assholefever.com. I'm betting they are using similar encoding for their WMV's. I've got many files from that family of websites (used to subscribe) that are both in WMV and MP4 formats. The newer (downloaded Jan/Feb of 2009) WMV formats play fine on my WDTV, although some of the older ones from 2008 do not. Edited by - lubenluv on 1/15/2010 10:02:17 AM
It is indeed a Brazzers HD video that was causing the lockups. Either way, the PQ of the videos that did play through WDTV Live were poor. I could take the same video, burn it to standard DVD, play it back on an upconverting Oppo DVD player and the PQ is far superior. The settings on WDTV Live were miniscule so if I did something wrong, I have no idea what it could have been. I want the ability to watch some my HD porn collection on my TV. The Oppo does a very good job but it's not true HD. Blu-Ray burners are cheaper now but the media is still expensive. If WDTV is the best of what's currently available, it looks like I'll have to wait a while longer.
The router is in another room and the PS3 and computer stuff are on opposite sides of my bedroom. It's waaay too much trouble trying to get everything close together and it's just way easier to watch the stuff on my computer rather than an HDTV. I can always stream a good scene I wanna see through the PS3 or burn dvds. I need to save my damn money anyways. Thanks for the tips though Harri. Thanks for checking the vids for me LubeNLuv. I think I'm just gonna stick with how things are now. I appreciate all your help.
Just picked up the FreeAgent Theater+™ HD Media Player today from Best Buy. It costs a little more but I'm much happier with this unit than the WDTV Live. It's handled everything I've thrown at it so far with the exception of Brazzers HD WMV 1080p, which I wasn't expecting. Picture quality is outstanding from the USB port via HDMI. Streaming of the same videos from my network is not so great, about on par with my PS3, but I don't intend on using it for that anyway. I have no intention of streaming music either because my AVR can more than handle that. I wish I had purchased the Free Agent Theater in the first place!
The really nice thing about the Freeagent Theater + versus WDTV-L is that the Seagate units support ISO images, menus and all. I really thing WD dropped the ball on the WDTV-L. Hopefully, some firmware updates will address a lot of the missing features. In the past, they were much more on the ball than they have been with this release.
I'm just sticking with my MacBookPro as a server for AVIs and other video files, into an HDMI input on the TV. What the world needs is a monster wireless hard drive with every conceivable output, so I can control video and audio by remote from the same box. But not at APPLE prices.
Re: Brazzers HD Has anyone tried to get Brazzers to change their encoding parameters in order to be compatible with the Digital Video Players? Seems this would be the obvious solution. If the majority of customers are using a PC for playback, they can always find another player or codec or whatever in order to fix any compatibility issue. But the DVP owners are more limited, and should be catered to, IMO. Seems like the sensible thing to do.
^ I've been successful at re-encoding the Brazzers 720p files using Windows Media Encoder. The only parameter that I change is that I set the audio to "CD Quality". Given the distance that I sit from the TV that the WD TV is connected to, the difference between 720p and 1080p is not visible (at least not to someone with 20/20 vision). It took me a while to get caught up to all of the HD scenes that I've downloaded. But now that I'm caught up, it's not a big deal to keep current on a day to day basis. I typically transfer Brazzers files from my PC to the hard drive that I use with the WD TV every week or two. So, as long as I keep relatively current, I don't end up having a backlog when it's time to transfer them. I wish that I didn't need to do this. But, I'm happy that I found something that works.
^^^ Bill -- I'm not clear on what you're saying. Are you transcoding video files from 1080p to 720p or are you downloading 720p files instead of 1080p files and then encoding them into some other format? Have you had a problem with 1080p sources from other companies?
^ I'm transcoding 720p to 720p. Windows Media Encoder won't create anything higher than 720p. It appears that the problem with the Brazzers files is that the bitrate it too high for the WD TV, on both 720p and 1080p files. WME encodes at a lower bitrate, that is compatable with WME. However, the first files that I re-encoded had good video, but no audio. Lowering the audio quality to "CD Quality" took care of that problem. Even with the lower bitrate, I'm very happy with the picture quality on the 40" TV that I have the WD TV connected to. I'm just using the TV speakers for audio, so "CD quality" is more than sufficient for my needs.
Would mind telling me what settings you use for re-encoding the Brazzers HD files? I've used the WME once for a 30 minute Brazzers 1080p scene and it worked, but it took FOREVER! WME is also a CPU and memory hog. I don't have the fastest PC but it's not the slowest either (Quad Core QX6700). I have 4 gigs of RAM running Windows 7 Ultimate and I didn't expect the Encoder to take as long as it did.
^ it takes a long time (1.5 - 2.5 hours) to re-encode these files. My PC specs are pretty consistent with yours (Quad Core Q6600, 8 gigs of RAM running Vista Ultimate 64-bit). I typically start a session before going to bed and let ti encode overnight and then I start another one before leaving for work. So, I get two scenes encoded during the time that I don't need my PC for anything else. Also, since the output of WME is 720p, it really doesn't make sense to start with the larger 1080p scene. Start with the 720p scenes. The quality should be just as good. But it shouldn't take as long.
My WD TV is driving me nuts. I few weeks ago, I downloaded the Microsoft Expression Encoder in order to recode the Brazzers 1080p scenes in 1080p to watch using my WD TV. Aside from the fact that it causes my PC to freeze unless I do a fresh reboot immediately prior to running, I like Expression Encoder. It allows you to create a list of files to be recoded, start the process and walk away. This is perfect for starting an encode of 5 or 6 files before going to bed and having them finished the next day when returning home from work. The problem is that I can't get my WD TV to play the audio from these files. I get an "Audio Not Supported" error when trying to play them. What gets me is that the audio from Expression Encoder is nearly identical to the audio from Media Encoder. When I use MediaInfo to view the streams, I see: English(US),64.0 Kbps, 44.1KHz, 2 channels, WMA (Version 2) for the Windows Media Encoder version, which works and English(US),64.0 Kbps, 44.1KHz, 2 channels, WMA (Pro) for the Microsoft Expressions Encoder, which doesn't work. Has anyone got any suggestions? I'd really like to be able to continue to use the Expressions Encoder to (A) encode in 1080p and (B) to be able to encode multiple files unattended.
^ I don't think that's for me. I really want to continue to use a small stand alone unit for media playback, not a home theater PC. I think that I may have found a solution to my problem. Although WMA Pro is the default, it appears that Expressions will allow me to encode the audio in standard WMA. I'm hoping that this will provide the same audio output as Media Encoder does. I'm encoding a new file right now. So, I'll find out if it solves my problem in another 2.5 hours.
^Is there an option to do a partial encode, say 10seconds worth or so? That way you can experiment and test out various alternatives without the wait time. When I'm forced to re-encode clips to suit my Philips media player, I use MP3 for the audio encode. I believe MP3 to be more universal and future-proof. But...who knows?
^ I was going to encode a small non-HD file to see if it would work. But I really want to see if it handle a 1080p file along with the audio or not. I guess that I could have downloaded a partial file from Brazzers and tested on that. But it didn't occur to me at the time. At this point, I'd rather let the current encode run to completion (another 1hr, 15 min to go).
OK. It works. If you set Microsoft Expression Encoder to WMA, rather than WMA Professional (which is the default), you can re-encode Brazzers scenes (both 720p and 1080p) so they can be viewed on the WD TV. You can also keep the original video bitrate. However, the audio bitrate must be reduced to 64 Kbps. If you use Windows Media Encoder, the maximum output resolution is 720p and the maximum video bitrate is 5 Mbps (which still looks pretty damn good).
Forget WME! I just found out about asfbin and it only took seconds to correct (not decode) a Brazzers 1080p video. It plays fine on my Free Agent Theater +. Not sure if it will work on WD TV.
Anyone watching/waiting for a digital media player deal, the Patriot Box Office is looking mighty good right now. Patriot has a $35 rebate, and the various retailers are selling it for $100-ish or slightly below, so you can get it for $65-ish after rebate. I hastily ordered one last Friday with the rebate ending 31July, and ended up overpaying in the rush. But now the rebate continues through 31August. So shop smart.
"You have sacrificed nothing and no one." 3689 Posts 8/10
Posted - Apr 3 2012 : 11:05AM
Since this thread, the Western Digital - WD TV HD Media Player for USB Storage Devices has become a little long-in-the-tooth. I still use mine, and for the most part it still works pretty-well. Over the past three years, however, we are all moving towards downloading movie files (especially scenes and clips) from sites like VideoBox. My preference is to download the WMV DVD and/or HD 720P (which is H.264) -- but this is precisely where the WD TV HD Media Player fails miserably. It will not play the WMV files, and the H.264 files are just more than the unit can handle. Even the smaller H.264 DVD files overwhelm it. Up until now, we have been going through the time-consuming process of converting our downloaded files into formats that the WD TV HD Media Player can handle (such as MPG2). While watchable, you can tell there is a quality-loss in the converted file vs. the original -- and it's all such a pain-in-the-ass. FYI, Any Video Converter is an excellent free conversion program for your file conversion needs. There is the free version as well as paid versions. Be sure to download the free version (currently v 3.3.5). http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/ The real solution is to update to a hardware media player that will play the WMV and H.264 files without going through all the conversion nonsense. Also, while I still will make the occasional DVD video, hardware media players are far more suitable for collecting and playing scenes. I just purchased the Micca MPLAY-HD 1080p Full-HD Digital Media Player For USB Drives and SD/SDHC (Realtek 1055). Although I haven't received it yet, I have high hopes that this unit will step-up to the job. IMPORTANT: I am talking about this unit only, not all Micca media players! Here is Micca's product page: Micca MPLAY-HD 1080p Full-HD Digital Media Player For USB Drives and SD/SDHC (Realtek 1055) http://content.miccastore.com/micca-mplay-hd Here is the product at Amazon.com: Micca MPLAY-HD 1080p Full-HD Digital Media Player For USB Drives and SD/SDHC (Realtek 1055) http://www.amazon.com/Micca-MPLAY-HD-Full-HD-Digital-Realtek/dp/B002XVBAKI/ref=sr_1_17?s=tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1333297440&sr=1-17 Amazon currently has it on sale for $59.95 with free shipping. This review is what clinched it for me:I'll report back about my results with the Micca MPLAY-HD 1080p Full-HD Digital Media Player For USB Drives and SD/SDHC (Realtek 1055) after I have a chance to work with it.
I'm kind of surprised that you're having so many problems. With the exception of Brazzers/Mofo's scenes, I've never had problems with WMV3 files. WDTV can't play WMV2 files. But WMV3 has been the standard for about 5 years now. If you want to be able to see all of the relevant info of a video file, try downloading Mediainfo. I used to recode Brazzers/Mofo files into WMV3 files with a more reasonable bitrate using Microsoft Expressions Encoder (using bitrates 8000 video/128 audio). But, their beta site now has HD mp4 files. So, I download them instead. If you're getting WMV2 files from someone, I would complain to them about that. WMV2 files can be converted to WMV3 files of equal video quality using Expression Encoder. You'd want to use Mediainfo to get the bitrates of the original and use the same rates for the reencode. As far as H.264 files are concerned, it's likely a header compression issue. Using media info, take a look at one of your H.264 files. Does it say something about compression on either the video or audio portion of the file? If so, that's the problem. WDTV Live doesn't support header compression. Header compression can be removed from a large H.264 file in about 30 seconds using MKVMerge/MKVToolnix. In the MKVMerge GUI, highlight the video portion of the file and click on the Extra Options tab. In the Compression dropdown, select "None". Then do the same for the audio portion of the file. Click on the Remux button and 10-15 seconds later, you will have a file of identical quality to the original with the headers stripped off. This file will play in the WDTV with no problem at all. Personally, I've had really good results with the WDTV Live Plus. If I wasn't, I would have replaced it a long time ago.
Goldstein, I just looked at the specs for the Micca. It will likely have problems with some of the same WMV files that you are already having problems with. It's WMV playback is also limited to VC-1 (aka WMV3 or WMV-9HD). It doesn't appear that it will play WMV2 files either.
"You have sacrificed nothing and no one." 3689 Posts 8/10
Posted - Apr 4 2012 : 1:36PM
This is a newer product than the original unit I have. In fact, the original unit (i.e. the original product that was released) isn't sold anymore. I considered buying the WDTV Live Plus, found the built-in 1-GB hard-drive appealing, but just didn't trust that it would work any better than what I already have. I'm expecting that the Realtek 1055 chipset on the Micca will make performance improvements, and am hoping that it will do better with the WMV and H.264 files. If nothing else, the full-size remote will be a decided improvement :) I will report back. If it doesn't do what I expect, I will try your additional software suggestions. Edited by - Goldstein on 4/6/2012 8:49:17 AM
Part of the reason the media players don't do wmv7 and wmv8 is because of the proprietary nature of Microsoft product. If you have to go thru the hassle of converting files to make them play on your box, I wouldn't convert them to wmv3 (another propriety format); I would convert them to something better, such as mp4. Edited by - ninja1 on 4/4/2012 5:35:33 PM
I have the original also. The reason that I upgraded was the networking capabilities. That meant that I no longer needed to copy downloaded scenes from my PC to an external hard drive before I could watch them on my media player. I still have the original WDTV and have loaned it to friends so they could watch some TV shows (both SD and HD). The original is more susceptible to the header compression than the newest model is. But whenever my friends have had problems, it's always been because I haven't stripped the header and doing so has always solved the problem.
The primary problem is that the only program that I trust to create mp4 files is Handbrake. Handbrake doesn't work with wmv files. Also, since all of the major media players work with wmv9 (WMV-3/VC-1), there really is no downside to converting older wmv files to wmv9.
You're right. I don't know why I got it into my head that it doesn't. Also, when writing about the WDTV's wmv capabilities, I forgot that it won't play files that use WMA(Pro) audio. It needs to be converted to WMA2. Hopefully, the replacement that Goldstein ordered won't have the same limitations. Edited by - Bill on 4/5/2012 9:29:41 PM
Definitely not without its share of problems. But, IMO, still the best available option if you don't have the time, know how and money to build a really good HTPC.
^None of the various boxes is perfect; it just boils down to your specific requirements and which one comes closest to doing everything you want and how slick you need the user interface to look.
So true. I added a Dune H1 about a year ago and am very happy with it overall. However the claims (based on cutomer reviews) that the device can "handle anything you throw at it" are simply not true. So far it's handled almost everything I've thrown at it. On occasion I've had to use Freemake in order for the video codec to be compatible with the Dune. This baby is very fast though! No waiting forever for it to initially compile a media library.
Yeah I take it with a grain of salt when I read that phrase in a media player review. IMO it says more about the writer's limited library than about the capabilities of the box.
).
I think I'm just gonna stick with how things are now. I appreciate all your help.
