Showing posts with label WD TV Live. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WD TV Live. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Can WD TV Live Media Player play Blu-ray in ISO, M2TS(BDMV) and MKV format?

WD TV Live Media Player can play Blu-ray in ISO, M2TS(BDMV) and MKV format, and the MKV is the best format for it, Pavtube ByteCopy may be the most appropriate tool for you. Why? please read the following article.



Can WD TV Live Media Player playback Blu-ray backups? 

Many people have this question: "Can WD TV Live play Blu-ray backups?". The answer is YES. WD TV Live Media Player can play Blu-ray lossless backups in different forms, like ISO, BDMV, M2TS, and MKV. Well, so many formats, which is the best format to convert Bu-ray to WD TV Live Media Player. Following is a simple analysis for your reference.

Which is the best format when converting Blu-ray to WD TV Live Media Player for playback?

My personal suggestion is MKV format, which can play with lossless quality, multiple audio tracks, subtitles, and chapters.

To backup Blu-ray discs keeping lossless video quality, you can copy M2TS streams straightly from BD, or make the whole BD into an ISO image file. But there is a problem- When you play BD ISO or M2TS clips through the WD TV Live Media Player, which will not allow you to forward movie or select a chapter to start. That's why many WD TV uses prefer to turn to MKV format, which holds a whole movie in a single file including lossless video, multiple HD audio tracks and subtitles. MakeMKV can convert Blu-ray to MKV. But This conversion process does not make any necessary changes for the original video, and WD TV Live HD Media Player, like WD TV Live Plus HD Media Playerdoes not supports PGS subtitles in MKV container. so that the subtitles are not displayed when you watch the ripped Blu-ray movie (in MKV format) on HDTV. There are two ways to get subtitles for MKV Blu-ray backup:

  • 1. Convert the Blu-ray subtitles to something compatible with WD TV Live Media Player when ripping Blu-ray to MKV. This can be done with ByteCopy.  A guide here.
  • 2. Rip the Blu-ray Disc to MKV with MakeMKV first, and extract .srt external subtitles from Blu-ray Disc later. If you don't have the Blu-ray Disc at hand, convert .srt subtitles from MakeMKV. This takes longer time.

WD TV Live Media Player supports subtitle format srt, ssa, sami, and ass. But mostly people use .srt subtitles for MKV.

Tips for newbies on ripping Blu-ray

1. Blu-ray Disc Drive: It requires a Blu-ray Disc Drive to read BD.

2. Be patient: It takes much more time to convert a Blu-ray than that of a DVD.  DVD to MKV rip can be done in 10 minutes while Blu-ray to MKV rip 1-2 hours or even longer based on the computer you use.

3. View Audio: A Blu-ray movie may contain HD audio. It is better to check if AV receiver support them before ripping a Blu-ray. If not, downmix the audio when ripping Blu-ray. 

4. Personally I recommend ByteCopy for ripping Blu-ray or DVD to HD media player, cause it's very flexible with various backup solutions.

Monday, June 9, 2014

A brief review of WD TV Live Media Player(Pros and Cons)

If you don't already own an Xbox 360, PS3, or Blu-ray player and you're serious about networked streaming, the WD TV Live is one of your best choices for getting content to your TV. The short post takes a brief review of WD TV Live and tries to explain the pros and cons of WD TV Live. 



Supported formats 

WD TV Live Media Player mainly includes the supported formats

  • Video – MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264), M2TS, TP, TRP, TS, MP4, ASF, VOB (unprotected or unencrypted)
  • Photo – JPEG/JPG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
  • Audio – MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
  • Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL
  • Subtitle – SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

Pros and Cons of WD TV Live Media Player 

What's good Network digital media streamer; Netflix, MediaFly, Flickr, MediaFly, and Pandora Radio built-in; Live365 channel; YouTube channel; HDMI out; two USB ports; digital optical audio out; quick, easy-to-use interface; includes composite and component wires. 

  • WD TV Live supports a wide variety of the most popular files including MKV, MP4, XVID, AVI, ISO/VOB and MOV video formats. Get the freedom to enjoy your media now, in virtually any file format.
  • Stream videos, music, and photos from your USB device, network drive and any PC or Mac computer in your home.
  • With WD TV Live, you can enjoy the best entertainment on your TV. You can stream thousands of hit movies, view the latest viral videos, catch up on shows, stay connected to your social network and watch highlights from the biggest games of the season.
  • Watch and control your live or recorded shows on any TV with the SlingPlayer app on your WD TV Live.

What's bad No Wi-Fi--separate accessory required. 

Connections 

The WD TV Live Plus offers two USB ports, so you can connect older portable hard drives that draw more power than a single USB port can deliver. Most people, however, will use one of those ports to plug in a USB Wi-Fi adapter so they can connect the media player to their network and the Internet. Western Digital supports a wide range of third-party adapters. If you have a PC running Windows 7, you can use Microsoft's Play To feature to "send" media from your PC to the WD TV Live Plus.