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WD TV review

Discussion in 'Home Theater PC' started by Mez, Sep 16, 2015.

  1. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    I selected this product because it had the most options. It will read WiFi as well as the largest selection of video files of any device I could find.

    I finally broke down and bought a smart device for my TV. I had particular issues. I have a massive DVD library which the burned DVDs are fading away to blank disks. I have been backing up disks for years on to hard drives. I started with DVD brands that were going bad the fastest. I think I will be able to recover 80% of my disks and I may get done this year. I needed to get a top of the line Blu-ray burner. With that I could still read disks that showed blank with a highly rated Plextor DVD drive. This saved over 100 disks well worth the money spent. I have learned I can't buy DVDs that will last more than a year +/- a few months in a brick and motor store. I have learned you can still buy the foil topped slow burning Azo dye DVDs for a premium price on the internet. These last 10+ years and even after 10 years I had a failure rate of about 1%. Most of those rip quickly compared with the faded disks that needed special careful ripping software. The reader may have to read the same sector many times before the software is satisfied that it got it right.

    I bought the WD TV before I learned this. I am very happy that is reads DVD ISO files from a USB device. The USB stick is painfully slow to get going. It takes forever to find your movies because it works like it is in molasses. Once the ISOs are located the process is painless. Even with only a 32 G drive holds about 7 movies. More movies than I have time for at a sitting. You can play them one after the other without bother. I am going to a diskless house hold.

    I have the cheapest device WD makes. Their best has an internal HD. I still need to test mkv files to see if they run smoothly since their band with is over double that of a single layer DVD. If worse come to worse I can leave them on the drive where I store them. I own several external drive boxes. An internal drive slips in to the box without much effort when you want to access the disk. Otherwise the drive is on a shelf. The box can either connect as a USB device or an eSATA.

    I can heartily endorse this product.
     
  2. aldan

    aldan Active member

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    thanks mez,will look into it.looks like you got your work cut out for you tho.
     
  3. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    Actually I am at least 95% done. One big problem I have is the disks keep moving. My kids take them and don't put them back. I have gone through the stacks 3 times. Each time I find less missed ones. I will likely do it 1 more time.

    I make a crude catalog by dumping the disk contents to a text file. I clean it up and append it to a master cvs file. Now I can always find a video!
     
  4. 6t9

    6t9 Member

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    I have a large library of DVD movies and Movies on my hard drive.
    I use EMDB to catalog all my movies (DVD and hard drive).
    It also will retrieve movie information from IMDB and add it's to the catalog.
    http://www.emdb.eu/
     

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