WD TV Live vs Asus O Play Air HDP-R3

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Hi,
Ima newbie and have some questions about these mediaplayers.
When looking at the specs, they supports alot of files.

WD TV Live:
AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9.

Asus O! Play Air:
MPEG1/2/4,RM/RMVB,VC-1,H.264
Video File Extension: .trp,.mp4,.mov,.xvid,.avi,.divx,.asf,.wmv,.mkv,.rm,.rmvb,.flv,.ts,.m2ts,.dat,.mpg,.vob,.mts,.iso,.ifo

So what I can see is that, WD TV Live doesnt support divx, trp, rm, rmvb, flv, ts, dat, mts, iso and ifo.

And the Asus O! Play doesnt support AVC, x264, TP/M2T and WMV9.

Am I right or does some of the files means the same, but just different name??
These specs have probably been changed cause of firmware updates or so.

I want a player to my old parents, I want it to support as many files as possible, so I dont need to go there and see why they have trouble to play the video-files.
No HTPC or with harddrive built-in, just an easy media player to watch videos from a USB-stick.

Any recommendations or help, would be very thankful.
Thanks in advance

2

My WD TV Live plays divx videos, just change the .divx to .avi and they play fine…  Al

3

So it wont play as long the name is .divx ??

And I know now, WD TV Live cant play RM/RMVB (real player), but the old Mini version can.

Is there any other video-files that you know that it cant play?

Thanks

4

The WD TV Live will still play files with the .divx extension.  I’m pretty sure I’ve got a bunch of music vids from the old Stage6 days still with that extension and they play ok, apart from several HD files with odd codecs.

The omission of DivX from the “supported files” list is due to licensing issues.  They can’t advertise support without paying money to DivX.  They won’t, so they don’t.  ;)

The only file types I’m aware of there being any significant issues with are possibly OGM (OGG movie type), DivX / XviD with GMC warp points (won’t play on 99% of set top media players anyway tbh), WMV files other than WMV9.

There also seem to be issues with a number of DV cam formats, which can mostly be blamed on the DV cam manufacturers choosing obscure codecs for the audio and/or video.

I’m sure there will be others but, aside from some really old files with old codecs, I’ve not had much bother.  

My experience with MKV and MP4/M4V (and modern codecs like x264 with AAC or AC3) has been mostly positive.  :)

5

The WDTV does not support older .wmv files only the newer WMV9 so a number of .wmv will not play. However it does support .iso, .ts and .m2ts.

The manual is available online and if look towards the back it tells you all the files it will play in a bit more detail.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/updates/?family=wdfwdtv_live

(manual on right hand button)

6

WD TV Live

YouTube, Flickr, Live365,

Pandora only for USA

Asus O Play Air

Internet TV: ABC, BBC News, NBC, fox sports, NHK…100 stations
Internet Radio: Over 20,000 stations
Weather: You can search World Weather by geographical Region or country

7

A couple of reviews:

These people think that the WDTV is ahead of the O Play.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/network-media-streamers/354721/asus-o-play-air-hdp-r3

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/media-players/2010/03/24/asus-o-play-air-hdp-r3-media-player-review/1

8

After searching and reading alot about these players.

I’ve a new mediaplayer on the list, its the AC Ryan PlayOn HD Mini.

And one thing is for sure, after alot of googling, where are the firmware updates??

Seems all of them are buggy less or more, but still, where are the million billion companies that makes these players, they have 1000s of men, but everyone seems to ignore these problems…

9

I would wait for the new POPBOX …comming soon…

10

You can wait for any number of “exciting” new boxes. many of us waited excitedly for the BD Prime and look at the initial chaos with that. Even Popcorn produces duff products so what makes the popbox a sure hit.

The grass is always greener next month in NMT land. Either wait for the market to mature or grab whatever is on offer now. The WDTV LIve represents good value for money at teh low price end of the market.

When you get a POPBOX, please post your review.

11

I fear his review will be heavily biased though…

12

Also, my WD TV Live can play .flv since the last update (but only via network shares, since my DLNA-server does not support .flv).

E.g. this .flv video plays just fine:

Format : Flash Video
File size : 37.2 MiB
Duration : 8mn 31s
Overall bit rate : 611 Kbps
Video Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Muxing mode : Container profile=Unknown@3.0
Duration : 8mn 31s
Bit rate : 482 Kbps
Width : 640 pixels
Height :360 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.070
Stream size : 29.4 MiB (79%)
Audio Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Duration : 8mn 31s
Bit rate : 120 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Stream size : 7.34 MiB (20%)
13

Features aside, my O!Play Air went back to the store because sometimes I would get sound through an HDMI connection and most of the time not. Source didn’t matter, net wired or wireless, upgraded to latest firmware, having sound playing the same files sometimes doesn’t cut it for me. Maybe it was just the unit I had, but I noticed a lot of returns on the shelf where I bought it from.

I exchanged the O!Play for the WDTV Live three days ago and I have no regrets.

1080P RAW files from my JVC HD Cam look and sound great on my 42" Vizio. Files are being pulled from my Ubuntu 9.10 Linux box with the files sitting on an external WD 1TB drive w/ USB 2 connect and over 10/100 wired net. I’m happy!

I do wish however that…

  1. I could connect a keyboard to it for typing.

  2. Typing layout was QWERTY.

  3. I could secure shell into connected drives to do mass push and pulls with Filezilla.

  4. I could save Youtube videos to my connected drives.

  5. I could connect to move online video sources.

  6. I could view my RAW Nikon image format *.NEF