Western Digital's WDTV HD Media Player is one of my favourite recent products; in essence a simple USB-to-video interface, it makes it easy to transfer all sorts of video, music and image files from your PC to your TV using a portable device such as a pocket hard drive or USB stick.
One of the most attractive aspects of the WDTV is that it is firmware upgradeable, so it should keep pace with the latest developments in video and audio codecs. But what's in the latest firmware and is it worth updating? Time to find out...
Plain and simple
The upgrade is simplicity itself; download the V.1.02.07 software from www.wdc.com/en/products/wdtv/, unzip it into .BIN and .VER files in a USB device's main directory, connect to the WDTV, navigate to the SETTINGS menu and select UPGRADE. The WDTV performs the upgrade then reboots itself. V.1.02.07 includes all the upgrades from previous versions of the firmware.
So what do you get? The most visible improvement is that the file listing menu has been redesigned for increased clarity. Support for thumbnails in Music and Photo folders is also improved.
Pay and display
But the most useful enhancements I found were to subtitle and codec support. Subtitle files are now supported in SMI, SUB, ASS and SSA formats, as well as the more common SRT. We had previously had trouble making subtitles display at all, but now they're fine. Also added is a subtitle default On or Off toggle, and subtitle thickness selection of THICK or THIN. Subtitle language is now also displayed, and new subtitle languages including Turkish are supported.
New file formats supported inlcude .TRP and .MOD, and in MKV wrappers, FLAC and VC-1 are now supported, as is chapter selection for video playback with chapter support.
There are several new options for display of file sizes, and bug fixes include a resolved issue when playing 23.976 FPS video files in 1080p24Hz, HDMI signal issues with Sharp LC-32GA5T televisions, line offset issues with subtitles where multiple lines are displayed, improved synchronization between video files and external subtitles, resolved issues with Cyrillic text in filenames, with audio in videos created by some digital cameras, with embedded subtitles in .MKV files, and with file display for multiple drives. There have also been several bug fixes for issues involving various USB devices, playback issues and device support.
Boot camp
The default boot up menu cursor location has been changed from Photo to Video, and a Jump feature has been added to the remote, so while fast-forwarding or reversing, if the NEXT or PREV buttons are pressed, video will jump 10 minutes. There's an added spin-down function for USB drives when the device is powered down; previously spin-down only occurred when a drive was ejected.
WD's willingness to respond to user feedback with these useful upgrades emphasises what a well-designed and user-friendly product the WDTV really is. There's lots of competition, but no other manufacturer has yet come up with such a simple, flexible box.
For news on the upcoming second generation WDTV HD Media Player, click here.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
In the latest Home Cinema Choice:
New file formats supported... except for RM/RMVB
mediavantage - 21 July 2009 - 10:16am"New file formats supported inlcude .TRP and .MOD, and in MKV wrappers, FLAC and VC-1 are now supported, as is chapter selection for video playback with chapter support."
It is good to know that WDTV is upgrading its supported audio and video formats. A friend purchased WDTV media player last week and we did a test on it. To my surprise, it cannot support RM/RMVB (real media video formats). Moreover, we also cannot watch 1080p MKV files with higher bit rate due to screen artifacting and other visual problems. I think it has a problem with 29fps @1080p.Compared to my Mvix Ultio, it supports 1080 videos in RM/RMVB formats.
My sister is complaining
joycee (not verified) - 23 July 2009 - 1:59pmMy sister is complaining about her newly purchased WDTV. Though they are upgrading it there are still problems like forcing you to disconnect your USB hard drive to copy stuff onto it and reconnect because it lacks network connection. She also complains with its slow remote response. My Mvix Ultio gives me great pleasure by having complete network connection I found no trouble transferring and copying my files. Also, it streams all codec I can throw at it. I feel bad for the poor girl.
maybe she should actually do
Alan Smithee (not verified) - 25 July 2009 - 5:07ammaybe she should actually do some homework before buying something, like checking to see if it does networking out of the box? thats like me buying a car with 2 seats and moaning it doesnt have 4...
dont tell me, she moaned it didnt have a built in hard drive too... and that it doesnt make coffee...
Whatever...
Alan Smithee (not verified) - 29 July 2009 - 10:27pmUmmmm, if she bought it not knowing that THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS DEVICE was to discsonnect your drive and hook it up to your PC, the she should have done more homework. It is not designed to be a network device, although if she was smart enough, she would have downloaded a hacked firmware and got a USB --> Ethernet network adapter, but there ya' go...
As for the remote response, try it with a Logitech Harmony...problem solved, unlike the issues in her brain.
Firmware Issues
Some Guy (not verified) - 15 August 2009 - 9:06pmThere is a serious issue that was introduced in version 01.02.04 apparently. All firmware upgrades after .03 have contained the problem to some degree. That problem is that many .mkv files have audio that is out of sync; sometimes VERY out of sync. When I bought the WDTV, I had no such problems; my firmware was old, pre-.03. But when I upgraded to .07, the newest official non-beta release, I found that .mkvs that had previously worked, now had out of sync audio. At the time, I didn't know that it was a firmware problem, but I soon discovered that many other people did know and that there exists a very helpful community of WDTV owners at http://wdtvforum.com. There I learned how to revert my firmware back to .03. Had I not been able to do that, I would have returned the product.
Audio Channel 1 (Unsupported)
WDTV MANIA (not verified) - 7 December 2009 - 11:57amI'm having problems with my ripped Bluray movies. It's easier to watch them on HDD. 1080p playback is flawless, but on the audio side of things some movies come up with 'Audio Channel 1 (Unsupported)'. Has anyone experienced this? I then have to listen to audio channel 2 but that has the director's comments over the movie dialogue. Anyone know how to fix this?
Audio Channel 1 (Unsupported)
A (not verified) - 7 January 2010 - 4:48amLet me guess, the movies w/no sound contain DTS audio?
If this is the case, you need your HDMI or Optical out going to a receiver that can decode DTS. OR you could get 'PopCorn MKV AudioConverter' and convert to AC3 and all should be fine.