Western Digital TV???

My parents DVD player in their living room is acting up and I'm thinking one of these media players might be a better solution for them. I see different versions and am thinking that the latest or more recent versions may be better.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has experience with any of these devices? I am thinking the live version w/netflix streaming is not needed. I am wondering which model has good up-to-date firmware support? I've read so far about some AV syncing problems but these are pretty old reviews. Not sure what the recent models are like.

My siblings and I have huge collections of AVI and MKV files that we could load up on a flash drive whenever mom and dad are in the mood for a movie or when the grand kids are visiting to watch on the living room flat panel. Any suggestions are appreciated

 

they are great. they are no replacement for a dvd player though. also the remote is really easy to lose

edit: im also pretty sure they dont do mkv. they didnt on my freinds anyway

 

MKV support depends on the device. Well really, it depends on the device in general along with what your needs are.

I'm using a brite view cinematube go or something like that. Supports mkvs. UI is so so. network support is doable but well...the biggest pain ever so I didn't even try. It can read NTFS formatted hdds and can handle 1080p mkvs, dvd isos (with menus) and other stuff.

'course it has it's fair share of issues. Subs are plain (one color no special effects, though that's gonna be the case with all of these things), It doesn't like turning off (Might be blaming my vizo tv on that one. It sends a signal to both hdmi ports if it's turned on and on hdmi, or something I dun get it. But the cinematube takes that as "turn me back on"), and The UI is so so like I said earlier (folder menus like windows explorer or something, 'bout it for picking videos. No fancy covers or anything like XMBC or something).


I mean it suits my needs but *shrugs* the whole pre-built htpc stuff (wdtv or whatever) are all hit or miss still. Sometimes they randomly hate files or decide to have an aneurysm or whatever. I've come across a few mkv files I've had to repack into new mkvs because whoever created them corrupted the headers (you get no sound or no video or just "corrupted, can't play" if you run across those files. They play fine on your computer though).

So basically if you want something that may have a couple issues with turning back on when you don't want it to and really difficult to setup network support...but besides that excellent media support the cinematube works nicely: Amazon.com: New Arrival! brite-View "CinemaTube Mini (BV-5005HD Mini CT)" 3-in-1 1080p Full HD Networking Multimedia Player/Streamer/Torrent Downloader, Black (HDMI cable INCLUDED): Electronics

If you have some other questions I'll try to answer 'em for you. It doesn't get firmware updates often/ever (there's one you can download when you first set it up and hook it up to the internet) but *shrugs* still seems to play everything avi or mkv or dvd iso I throw at it.

edit: I also second josthor. Remotes for these sorts of things are tiny and if you lose it you're in trouble.

edit the edit: Also it says on the amazon link that it supports flv video. It doesn't (or at least it doesn't recognize .flv files...so *shrugs*)

 

I have a WDTV Live and it was the best $80 I ever spent on an entertainment device.

It replaced my $300 HTPC I built and its better in every way because the family actually uses it, its ultra small, low power, and does everything it needs to.

I have a 2TB HDD hooked up to it with about 800 movies, I transfer them from my PC via FTP over the wireless network so I have a local copy as a backup but I can also stream anything from any of the other pc's and watch it wireless (except 1080p, that must be local) Its like a super cheap blueray player since I have dozens of BR movies and no BR player in the entire house

I do not use the stock firmware I use BRAD and I have movie sheets and thumbnails for all my movies as well as IMDB ratings & info so its super nice and fancy to look at and use.

PS, it does MKV just fine its the most predominate format most of my movies are in, it also works with dual audio and subs and all that other fancy stuff.

 

Thanks all!!!

@joshthor. Easy to lose the remote eh. I'll chain it to a huge cement slab

@MagnusDraco. Thanks for the info on the brightview cinematube mini. I'll look up some info on it tonight.

@ViciousXUSMC. I was kinda leaning toward that WDTV Live. Is there a way you could tell me what model # you have? Is the housing gray or black?

 

I have the black one, and I use a $10 USB G Wireless adapter to use it wireless instead of wired for the internet/network connection.

Not sure what model# it is, just the first WDTV Live model. There is a new WDTV Live+ and its the same except they added netflix streaming and I think improved .vob support.

 

Ditto, on the WDTV Live. Runs good, and I have only run into a couple avis or mkvs that wouldn't work, just recoded and they worked.
However, if I did it again, I would opt for one of those ION things, as they are a complete HTPC and only around a hundred bucks more, (I paid $130 for the WDTV Live and $119 for an external 1TB drive, a year ago). But other than that, it's a cheap way to stream to all your network devices.

 

It's well worth looking into a company called xtreamer. I've got an xtreamer sidewinder and it's just amazing, I've not yet found a file that it won't support and it even supports blu-ray isos.

Initially there were a few bugs with them which were well reported but they've been sorted out through firmware releases and they're now expanding the feature set more than bug fixing. The next iteration promises Opera and wireless keyboard support. Just my two pence worth

 

A little more expensive, but has BD ISO support with menus, Netgear NeoTV 550, probably one of the best in the market atm, but really depends on your needs.

 

BD Iso is a horrible idea when they are 20GB+ each IMO, BR Rip ~3-6GB is much easier to handle especially with a large collection.

 

It really comes down to what you want, personally i think going up to BR to rip down is not ideal, investing in expensive home theaters setups to have sound and image degraded its not for me. The problem atm is that HDD are still too small to handle br isos, you need huge arrays to have a big collection, but people that truly want to keep their sound/image intact will spend the extra mile on big servers, i see 40tb home builds (my own is very small still at 8tb), but again its personal preferences.

 

I would bet you my entire paycheck I can rip a BR and show you the original and you will not be able to tell the difference.

Quality is not a reason to not use rips, the only reason that is valid is that you want to maintain the original .iso structure or have menus.

But both are useless for 99% of the people out there and so its not worth the extra 5x more space it consumes esp if you have a large collection.

Also to play raw BR it requires a much stronger PC or device than a rip.