Has anyone gotten the Mini to play MP4 or MKV? How are you encoding?

[supersimmetrico]

Thank you.

Waiting for good news.

[FreddyF]

So far no joy on the MKV.  MKV using the same settings as used for AVI (Xvid & audio copy or Xvid & MP3) do not work.  You get audio but no video.  MKV "Remux" using passthrough audio and video plays for about 30 seconds and ends, could be an audio problem as the preview runs much longer, but it will take a bit more to figure that one out.  I have to edit the profiles to change the options there.

on MPEG4, with the DVDFab I can find 2 video options, h264 (not supported) and mp4.  MP4 does work fine.

I don't know what anyone else has tried as most people don't give more than MKV or MP4. 

I have been using a 3 minute "special feature" file on a DVD for testing.  Only takes a few minutes to encode. 

It's a shame they don't include software to convert the files with optimal settings for the device.  To me it is silly to make this kind of device and not include optimal file settings, but that is what I am trying to put togather here.  Unfortunately I suspect the tech suport people have no idea how to convert video files and like most tech support these days they are reading scripts. 

[supersimmetrico]

I used for ripping and encoding all the following software:

Handbrake-gtk

OGMrip

mplayer and mencoder (command line)

ffmpeg (command line)

I can put my own tries on some public repository if it could be enteresting

but I suspect it would not, because this player is hopless.

In such case (hopeless) I'd like to have a refound or a discount for another

"but working" player

[Flobadob]

Hi guys

Just a quick question, has anyone tried to flash the player with one of WD boxes software that can play .mkv and .mp4? No idea if its possible or whet the result would be but its just an idea. From my experience with sat   decoding as long as the processor is capable all it will need is a software decode, reprog and reflash. Anyone know of any programmers willing to give it a go?

IMO The only reason I can see why WD do not officially release a .mkv .mp4 update for our box is that it would make their more expensive boxes redundant. 

Cheers

Flobadob

[RoofingGuy]

The firmware for a different box will just brick your unit.

The boxes use different chips altogether.

For the most part, the restrictions don't come from the firmware, but from the chip itself... if you give it a stream that it knows how to handle, it handles it... if you give it a stream that it doesn't know how to handle, it doesn't.

So, if you have a supported container, but the streams won't play, that's because the chipset isn't compatible with the codecs used to make the audio and video streams.

In theory, if there was enough free space in the NAND and enough processing power, someone could try to build pre-processing transcoding into a custom firmware, that would change a non-recognized stream into a recognized one, before passing it on to the chip, but it's probably far easier to just encode the file into streams the box will recognize in the first place.

That's the question this comes back to... if you're creating files that don't meet the device's specifications, why are you doing it?  Why not just create files that it will play?

[aMUSICsite]

Hopefully this might help some people.

After many hours of playing around I found there seems to be an (unpublished) maximun bit rate on MP4 video files, possibly on other formats too, By restricting my videos to Average data rate: 2.048 (Mbps) they all seem to work fine but anything above that seem to have problems. There does not seem to any problems with how big the size is just the data rate. Stange as it seems to play vob files with higher data rates so I would guess this is format dependant.

I must say though, this product feels like a pre-beta release. I mean there is no way to randomly play audio files within sub-folders, very little detailed documentation. Even a reccomended best quality encoding would be nice. Even better would be if they put VLC on the box and let anything play...

Playlist would also be a nice addition, surely it can't be that hard to knock up a java program for Windows/Mac/Linux that could scan the hard drive and allow you to create playlist that you could save on the drive and open with the box. especailly as you can't even queue up the next audio track as browsing around the device stops the audio!

I think by 'Simple, intuitive user interface' they mean someone knocked this up in an afternoon and it cost us next to nothing. Boy does this device need a firmware update.

This is a classic example of a good idea done badly.

[user82]

The Format documentation really is a little poor, mroe details would help and ac3 isnt even mentioned(but supported)

VLC wouldnt work its a software player and really unoptimized for speed too

[sdc100]

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DustBunny wrote:

I bought the Mini to be a cheap 480p player and can't get it to play MP4, M4V, or MKV.  I've encoded test videos using Sony Vegas and HandBrake, and all I get is an error that the videos are in the wrong format.

I can play VOBs but would prefer to have a smaller filesize for the videos I'll be playing.

Has anyone gotten MP4 playback to work?  What software are you using to encode and what are your settings?

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MP4 is a container format and it will play fine -- if you use an acceptable CODEC like XVID.   My guess is that you used the more advanced (and efficient) H.264 CODEC.  Unfortunately, the Mini is their budget model and can't play H.264.  Maybe WD can add this feature to their next firmware update but I doubt it. 

I know that it can play XVid but not H.264 because I just encoded a VOB file into MP4 with Xvid and then with H.264.   The MP4 compressed in Xvid played but the one that used H.264 wouldn't.   That's too bad because H.264 is MUCH more efficient than Xvid.  The H.264 MP4 was about a one fourth the size of the Xvid file for the same video.

[sdc100]

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mohabahmed wrote:

Does anyone playing VOB files or MPEG2 files has an AUDIO VIDEO DESYNC after he pauses or forward plays then resumes playing again??.

I Have this problem with all my files and all my DVDs which i copied to my hard drive ,the only format now that doesn't have this problem is the RMVBs ,which was having the same problem after i upgraded my firmware to the current 1.00.60 ,then i requested the previous firmware (1.00.37) from WD and thanks to them they supplied me with , i downgraded again my device and then the problem with RMVBs dissappeared but remained with all other formats;(.

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My Mini came with the latest version,m 1.00.60 and yes, the audio and video goes out of sync after pausing and fast forwarding..  Since I watch RMVBs most of the time, it's good to know that a downgrade would fix this.

Here's my solution whenever it desyncs.  Simply press the HOME button to get out and then play the file again.  Make sure to say Yes to RESUME? when asked so that you won't have to start the video from the beginning.

[FreddyF]

That sounds great! Could you tell us how you did it?  Without the software you used and the settings, we can't do the same. 

For my tests of mp4 on the WD TV Mini, I did not use H264 as I alread know that is not suported, but I did try xvid.  Detained settings and file information would be helpful.

Thanks,