WD HD TV Live

[jcheil]

(I already own the DVD product)

Could someone recommend the best way to take my existing DVD movies and make them available to my HD TV Live box that is connected to my NAS.

Since space on the NAS is NOT an ssue, I would rather not worry about re-encoding, etc. And since I have 500+ movies, time is more important.

I know the WD box supports VIDEO_TS folders so would simply copying the entire root structure of the DVD to a NAS folder work or is there something regarding copy protection that would prevent that from working?

I would like to be sure that it retains all menus and audio tracks, etc.

Thanks.

[AGJ]

From what I have read the WD HD TV does not support menus at the moment but I could be wrong

[billbell52]

I have the WD TV Live. I just got it. I have a 2T Network drive. I am still concerned on space. A DVD can be 6G-9G and 500 movies is 3T. I want to backup (raid 1) so that is 6T. That is a lot of disk space. I only do main movie. If I want to view the full movie I can always use the original disk or rerip the movie. I almost never do that. I have several players with some not supporting the latest formats like MP4 and H264. The common format for all players is XVID. So right now I convert main movie to XVID. I cannot tell the difference between DVD and XVID. This way I can stream the movie from the network drive with no problem. The avg file size is 1.5G.

I have tried several formats including ISO, MP4, XVID, MTS and H264 and they all work fine. I have not tried VIDEO_TS folders. This is one great box. I have it working with Tversity. I can stream Sirius radio.

[jcheil]

Just for clarification, we are talking about the WD HD TV Live (the new one), not the original WD HD TV (not live i guess you could call it).

And I guess not withstanding the "menu" part (which I am sure they will address with a firmware update if needed), do you have any thoughts on the main part of my question?

Thanks

[jcheil]

I have the WD TV Live. I just got it. I have a 2T Network drive. I am still concerned on space. A DVD can be 6G-9G and 500 movies is 3T. I want to backup (raid 1) so that is 6T. That is a lot of disk space. I only do main movie. If I want to view the full movie I can always use the original disk or rerip the movie. I almost never do that. I have several players with some not supporting the latest formats like MP4 and H264. The common format for all players is XVID. So right now I convert main movie to XVID. I cannot tell the difference between DVD and XVID. This way I can stream the movie from the network drive with no problem. The avg file size is 1.5G.

I have tried several formats including ISO, MP4, XVID, MTS and H264 and they all work fine. I have not tried VIDEO_TS folders. This is one great box. I have it working with Tversity. I can stream Sirius radio.

Thanks for the insight, but for me, space is not an issue. I have 6TB usable on my NAS (configured as a Raid5 [2tbx4]) and by the time I fill that, 4tb drives will be as cheap as the 2tb drives I just bought!

But you bring up an interesting point: IF I were just interested in "Main Movie", what are the recommended settings in DVD FAB to produce the best quality video/audio file?

Thanks.

[billbell52]

I attached the profile I use. I cannot tell the difference between the DVD and this profile. You may want to check volume %. A couple of players I have sound too low. I may want to change it to 150%.

A lot of the newer DVD players will play this format directly so there is no need to create a DVD. You can copy the file to the DVD.

If you have 500 movies to do you may want to check out a batch command script I just updated.

[jcheil]

I attached the profile I use. I cannot tell the difference between the DVD and this profile. You may want to check volume %. A couple of players I have sound too low. I may want to change it to 150%.

A lot of the newer DVD players will play this format directly so there is no need to create a DVD. You can copy the file to the DVD.

If you have 500 movies to do you may want to check out a batch command script I just updated.

Thanks, I took a look it it, but I am curious, doesn't this process change the size of the video? I was hoping for a way to simply get a 1:1 copy.

[billbell52]

I don't think it does. It is 704 x XXX. The NTSC DVD is 720 but 16 bits are used for retrace so that is why it is 704. It should be 1:1.

[billbell52]

You also have the option of ripping the main movie to an ISO. It will play an ISO of the main movie. This way you are sure you have an exact copy. You can always go back later and convert to a mobile format.

On another note you mentioned a firmware update fixing the menu support. I am not saying it won't happen but I have disappointed numerous times on firmware updates fixing major limitations. Usually they fix little things. A lot of time they don't have any firmware memory left to fix major items. Also, it gives us some incentive to buy the next box.

[GregiBoy]

Also, my good friend W&B reports good success with the WDTV using the Samsung profile that I have posted in the "New Profiles" thread