Thanks for the info, guys.

As soon as the blank disc price dropped to a level whereby those smart Unc Hos think it is viable, then there will be a mass 'supply' Oooppss.. we are not to suppose to support Unc Ho here. My bad

Just now while browsing around the electrical section in TESCO in Butterworth, I saw that they are selling a Media Player by the brand of AVF. It was about the size of 4" x 3", white in colour and able to play the usual gamut of video codec including real video (RMVB). I couldn't see any mkv logo there on the box and I presume it cannot support mkv. I also didn't see any HDMI connection.

The display set was hooked up to a small LCD TV or monitor via a VGA cable and was playing some movie from a thumb drive through an USB port. The sound output was via RCA cable to 2.1 sonic gear system. The picture and sound are acceptable; not that great maybe because of the ordinary video file contained in the thumb drive.

It is retailing only at RM269 a set.

Played around with the new WD media player just now.

Performance depends a lot on the type of USB hardware. Didn't do well with my 2.5" and 3.5" HDD enclosures, video freeze, etc.

Worked well with my Transcend usb drive. 720p mkv was beautiful on big screen.

Wonder if it's to do with data read/transfer speed. The WD Mybook or passport is faster too?

wat related to the WD hdd player?


let me test with normal portable hdd and WD passport later

Is there a difference between the branded usb drives vs china/no-brand drives?

PC shops selling, branded more expensive though.

I was talking about HD audio in MKV files, I can't seem to find any. If you remux and re-encode the audio tracks to DTS-HD MA/Dolby TrueHD, it's still not lossless to the original BD, only lossless to the MKV.

Direct rip from BD, that's another story.

I still have issues playing some mkv files. Some files still don't have sound at all.

My connection is as follows:

HDMI from WD tv to Plasma. Plasma audio out via rca cable to home theatre.

Is the connection considered not digital?

Does some mkv files required digital audio in order to have sound?

digitaltech : u need use optical to send out the digital signal. DTS / AC3 cannot be decode to 2 Channel by WDTV, if not mistaken.

Looking at the pdf file, did you set the audio as DIGITAL or STEREO?

Also, if the sound is DTS, you need an amp/receiver to decode. Your plasma can only have sound for other than DTS now.

What home theater you referring to? Why not hdmi WDTV to hometheater to plasma (instead of WDTV to plasma to hometheater)?

Irregardless if those files are MKV or VOB etc.. as long as those audio tracks are in Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital EX or DTS or DTS-ES or Dolby TruHD ot DTS-HD etc... all required AV Decoder to decode those tracks. If you are connecting direct to Plasma / LCD via HDMI, chances are only the stereo (2.0) channel track will be able to recognise and playback from the Plasma / LCD TV. Your audio connection from Plasma/LCD to AV Receiver will be purely analogue 2.0, unless u r using the AV Receiver's DSP to recreate the "artificial" 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 environment.

Good luck on your test!

I am using Panasonic home theatre, with DVD upscaling player and 5.1 speakers.

I cannot connect from wd tv to home theatre, because no hdmi-in in home theatre.

I set the audio in wd tv as stereo. If i set it to digital then all fiels will have no sound.
I read the pdf manual, if you connect via hdmi, it is considered digital.

Maybe the audio out to home theatre is not digital.

I will get an optical cable to try.

Anymore advise?

Looks like the WDTV cannot downsample DTS to stereo.

Maybe optical cable is your hope.

Bro laowai, I have already bought it from zhen^wei. My BIL will test it first. Will see how it goes.

Great !!

Will he test with rips or full BD files? Can't wait for result.

Also would like to hear which usb device he's using. Worried now, seeing that some cannot work.

Bro, do check if your Panasonic HT system come with any AUX input (in optical) which can detect and decode DTS and DD5.1 tracks. Use that to link to your WD HD Media player (to be configured as Digital output) for any audio playback via optical cable. As for video, hook on a HDMI cable from your WD HD Media player directly to your Plasma (Make sure u select the right screen size and signal -> 1080i/p?)

Good luck on your test!

This post has been edited by willphang: Nov 27 2008, 12:08 PM

mkv files adalah. BD rip, I only knew about the availability yday Shall post a review once tested it.

I confirmed that my panny h.theatre got optical in jack. and wd tv got optical out jack.

My question, if I plug the optical cable for sound, it will disable the hdmi sound connection? Is it automatically configured?

If optical cable solve your problem, you don't need HDMI sound anymore anyway

Thats what i tell people before they buy large capacity USB thumbdrives...on the computer itsOK, but if you use it for other than computer to play video files, it will start jerking. Wanna buy, buy branded and fast reading type

Agreed with Bro Laowai, I am using the same method connecting to my AVR and LCD TV respectively. To be safe... just mute your TV sound lor!!