Hi everyone. I am new at all this so I please bear with me… I am thinking of getting a WD Live to play my media. I want to connect a USB external 3TB drive to the WD Live to view my dvds and tv recordings from one location.( Using the USB port). It will also be connected to my router for internet but not all the time. ( I have wireless internet that I shut off at night) What is the best format to have the external 3TB drive in ?,ISO, VOB, mkv, etc. I need to have a fast forward feature and also be able to see the files as a list. ie. not multiple folders of icons, genres, which my Samsung Smart Blurray player does and is very annoying to me. I just want to view a few folders and have all the content as a list. Will the WD Live with an external drive do this for me? Thank you for your time.
You may likely get a lot of opinions, but I am first to reply, so here goes. You question sounds like mine a few years ago. I’ve had a Roku, love it for streaming media selections and ease of use, but it could not play my own media. I spent time looking around and decided the WDTV was for me.
I have a large music collection stored in iTunes from my CDs and digital downloads from eMusic. I wanted them to be accessable. I wanted my DVDs easier to access, so wanted them in digital format, as well as certain photos available to the player. I chose a program that rips my DVDs into an ISO file – i.e direct digital image of DVDs. I like to play the complete DVD with menus and all in case I want to access any of that. Some people like to make MKV files of just the movie itself from DVD. ISO files can be made from DVD and blu-rays. ISO files can be directly played by the WDTV, blu-rays can’t, but the blu-ray ISO can be used to create an MKV file which the player can play.
When I got a tablet I wanted to put some of my movies into the format tablets can play, and that is as an mp4/m4v file. These can be made directly from the ISO file. All these are stored on the HDs connected to my WDTV and elsewhere.
The programs I chose to rip the discs to digital are from slysoft.com and are called AnyDVDHD. It handles both DVD and blu-ray. I also like to use their companion program to create the ISO file, as it affords some flexibility as to how it is done. The programs are not free, but they are well done by a company that has been doing this for a while and the programs always work. There are frequent updates, too. They have a free program called VIrtual Clone Drive that sets up a software version of a DVD drive and mounts an ISO file so I can check from my PC that the ISO file works right and/or just watch movies on the PC if I want to…
The program I use to make MKV files from ISO files is called ByteCopy. It handles both DVD and blu-ray files. Program is not free.
The program I and others use to make mp4 files from ISO files for devices is free and is called Handbrake.
There are free ripping programs out there, too, that people here like. On is called DVDFab. Check this one out, too.
The file display of the WDTV can be as simple or fancy as you like. I, too, just want to a list of files to select from, but others like to use “Themes” to dress up the display. Dealer’s Choice.
I think the WDTV has the best bang-for-buck media player out there, it has a great support forum here, and suggest you get the WDTV Live (SMP) and not the lower cost “entry” WDTV Play which many folks are disappointed in later and wish they had bought the better player.
