How to play/transfer Blu-ray/DVD movie and mkv to WDTV Live
How to play/transfer Blu-ray/DVD movie and mkv to WDTV Live
Basic knowledge first
What's the difference between the WDTV Live and the Live+?
The ONLY functional difference (aside from internal hardware and firmware) is that the Live+ supports NetFlix streaming. Hereafter, both units will be referred to generically as WDTV.
Are there any OFFICIAL documents I should look at first?
Absolutely! Here's a bunch.
List of devices that can be connected to the WDTV Live and Live Plus: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3805
Knowledge Base for WDTV Live: http://support.wdc.com/product/kb.asp?groupid=1003&lang=en
Knowledge Base for WDTV Live Plus: http://support.wdc.com/product/kb.asp?groupid=1006&lang=en
Product Update for WDTV Live: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdfwdtv_live
The WDTV documentations says that it supports AVI (or MKV or WMV or M2TS) but when I try to play it, it says it's invalid! What the Heck!?
That's only part of the issue. AVI, MKV, M2TS, etc. are only containers. They are not video formats. An AVI file could contain QuickTime Video (which is supported), or it could contain DV streams, which are not supported. An MKV could contain AVC (which is supported) or WMV2 (which is not.) Each container can also carry multiple audio types, not all of which are supported by the WDTV. See "How to Re-encode" below.
I'm trying to play a DVD, but the menus and navigation aren't working. It just plays everything back-to-back. What's wrong?
You must be running firmware version 1.03 or higher.
If your DVD is ripped as a collection of VOBs in a VIDEO_TS folder, you must play the file named VIDEO_TS.VOB. If that file doesn't exist, find the FIRST VOB in the folder (often named VTS_01.VOB or something similar)
If it's still not working, it's likely a problem with the RIP. Some DVD Ripping software will corrupt the PGC (ProGram Chain) data making menus useless. Try using the trial ofthe DVD Ripper and rip DVD directly to ISO for WDTV.
How to Re-encode video for WDTV Live
If you have a file that is not supported or causes playback issues on the WDTV, consider "Re-encoding" them using a program such asHandbrake. This video converter supports a large number of input file types, and software is available for Windows and Mac. Import the file into the video converter, select the "WDTV" preset, and output to MKV using h.264 video.Try the resulting MKV file on the WDTV. If the bit rate is still too high, you can try increasing the "Frame rate" factor to numbers higher than 22. Quality will be degraded as the Frame rate as increased, but so will the required bandwidth. A side benefit of re-encoding is that the resulting files will often be significantly smaller than the source media with no noticeable loss of quality.
I have some MKV files that the WDTV doesn't play. Either there's video but no audio, or it won't...
The Matroska specification allows for a form of compression called "Header Removal," that before recently was rarely encountered. The WDTV players do not support this form of compression, and may not give an error if it's encountered.
Recent versions of the popular Video Converter (which is used to transcode video filies) turn this feature ON by default on audio and certain video tracks.
Certain MKV files will not be playable. Further, if an attempt is made to play such a file, it may render the WDTV unable to play ANY video files after that. The main symptom of this is that the screen just goes black, without the On-Screen-Display that usually appears when a file starts playing. You may also notice when browsing videos, that the name of the .mkv that had the header compression, is displayed at the top of the browser, as if it was an audio file playing in the background while you browse your media.
To recover from this condition, perform all the steps outlined in Section 1G and either delete or re-mux any compressed header .mkv files.
I have many Blu-ray and DVD disc collection, and I wanna to put these Blu-ray/DVD movies onto WDTV for playback, how...
Blu-ray movies have a great performance in HD movies playback, and Blu-ray discs are very popular now in our daily life. We just need a ripping tool to rip Blu-ray to mkv or m2ts for WDTV Live. Google has many good Blu-ray Ripper such as this Blu-ray Ripper. Load Blu-ray/DVD disc onto the Blu-ray Ripper, choose "WDTV" perset and start conversion from Blu-ray/DVD to WDTV supported format. The Blu-ray to WDTV converter features supporting all the versions of Blu-ray discs(Mkb v19) and high output quality.
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