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Anyone here use a WDTV live? I do.. and have a question or two!

J

jrm27

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
579
31
Hi all,

I was given a WDTV live as a present yesterday and it is really cool! I have a TB drive that already is about 75% full of movies and tv shows that I have ripped using handbrake. I ripped them using the Apple Universal preset which means they are .mp4 files. The WDTV live recognizes and plays the files, however, I can't do things like fast forward/reverse/access chapters with the mp4 files. I re-ripped a file as an .mkv and I have full access to fforward/reverse/chapters with that format. Is this normal for the WDTV? If it is, is there an easy way to convert from mp4 to mkv without degradation (just want to change the video container really).

Also, I'm finding that there is a hacked firmware out there.. wdlxtv (or something like that)? Anyone use that? Any thoguhts/experience? I'm not going to be conencting this thing to the internet (as we dont have internet where I live) I just want to make the interface a little more informative and attractive! Thanks!


-jon
 
jrm27 said:
Hi all,

I was given a WDTV live as a present yesterday and it is really cool! I have a TB drive that already is about 75% full of movies and tv shows that I have ripped using handbrake. I ripped them using the Apple Universal preset which means they are .mp4 files. The WDTV live recognizes and plays the files, however, I can't do things like fast forward/reverse/access chapters with the mp4 files. I re-ripped a file as an .mkv and I have full access to fforward/reverse/chapters with that format. Is this normal for the WDTV? If it is, is there an easy way to convert from mp4 to mkv without degradation (just want to change the video container really).

Also, I'm finding that there is a hacked firmware out there.. wdlxtv (or something like that)? Anyone use that? Any thoguhts/experience? I'm not going to be conencting this thing to the internet (as we dont have internet where I live) I just want to make the interface a little more informative and attractive! Thanks!


-jon
Click to expand...

Jon,

What I would do is connect to the internet somehow with the wdtv and download the most current firmware update. I have one and I think the last update fixed this issue. I will check later today to see if that is true. You can download the most current update somewhere else and extract it onto a flash drive to update your wdtv if it is still where you do not have internet. I do not know about hacked firmware but some of the betas had that option.

Glenn
 
jrm27 said:
Hi all,

I was given a WDTV live as a present yesterday and it is really cool! I have a TB drive that already is about 75% full of movies and tv shows that I have ripped using handbrake. I ripped them using the Apple Universal preset which means they are .mp4 files. The WDTV live recognizes and plays the files, however, I can't do things like fast forward/reverse/access chapters with the mp4 files. I re-ripped a file as an .mkv and I have full access to fforward/reverse/chapters with that format. Is this normal for the WDTV? If it is, is there an easy way to convert from mp4 to mkv without degradation (just want to change the video container really).

Also, I'm finding that there is a hacked firmware out there.. wdlxtv (or something like that)? Anyone use that? Any thoguhts/experience? I'm not going to be conencting this thing to the internet (as we dont have internet where I live) I just want to make the interface a little more informative and attractive! Thanks!


-jon
Click to expand...

As Glenn said, this quirk in playing Apple formatted files is fixed in the latest firmware. My WD TV Live is running version 1.04.10, but this issues was fixed a few updates back.

Before WD fixed the problem, I found an easy work-around. Handbrake uses Apple's ".m4v" file extension when it generates MP4 files for Apple devices. Simply changing the extension to ".mp4" restores the fast-forward and other functions when playing the files on the WD TV Live.

I tried the wdlxtv software on my older WD TV. The main feature I was after was network access, like the WD TV Live offers. Using a USB-Ethernet adapter, it kind of worked, but was not very reliable. There are probably some other features which can be enabled with the hack, but I decided I had no interest in that stuff after upgrading to the "Live".
 
The update worked perfectly! Now I can fast forward/rewind and access chapters. Awesome!

Everything is working nearly perfectly now. There are afew files where the audio plays out of sync with the video (but the file plays fine on my comp). Just gotta figure that one out, but it's 99% good to go. Thanks so much all.
 
FREE iPhone Media Controller for the WD TV Live

Hi Jrm,

There is also a free iPhone app for the WD TV Live: ZappoTV. You can get it from the App Store, just look for zappotv

It has Video Podcasts, SHOUTcast, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook Photos, Facebook Videos and it controls your local media servers.

Cheers,
JEEVO
 
JEEVO said:
Hi Jrm,

There is also a free iPhone app for the WD TV Live: ZappoTV. You can get it from the App Store, just look for zappotv

It has Video Podcasts, SHOUTcast, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook Photos, Facebook Videos and it controls your local media servers.

Cheers,
JEEVO
Click to expand...

Can I use ZappoTV if my WD TV Live is connected via Ethernet to my Linksys wireless router?
 
Hi Slipper,

Yes, the only thing that you need to be sure of, it that the WD TV Live is on the same local area network as your iPhone/Pad/Touch. ZappoTV can only find your WD TV Live if it is on the same local network.

JEEVO
 
i won one of these thru work but at home im all apple...

cant decide if i should open this or try and return to best buy for an :apple:tv
 
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