I am using the WD TV Live and I don't think that I will ever burn another video DVD again. I am currently rendering files as Sony AVC AVCHD mt2s files and it is great. The same files also play great on Windows 7 if you run them through tsMuxeR.

I have also tried MP4 and they are not de-interlaced properly on the WD TV Live(they are de-interlaced to 30p and not 60p).

HDV is another format that also seems to work well.

This works: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/11/09/exporting-with-vegas-for-vimeo-hd/

Thanks for the replies.

What about WD Live and "Chapters ?"
How does WD Live display videos/chapters from, let's say, the same vacation ?
Is it simply by "folder" or can you add a "fancy" icon and/or text to the video/chapter ?

I have no clue, this is completely new to me.

Went to BestBuy today to buy a WD TV and was blown away by how cheap they were. WalMart wanted $99.00 and they wanted $71.00. I asked why so cheap, and they said they were clearancing them for a new model. I asked what was going to be new or different, but they said they didn't know. I don't know myself, but I will go out on a limb and guess that they will make the unit with it's own built in hard drive, cause it kind of sucks the way they have it now (remember, just a guess). I am going to call WD in the morning to see what I can find out, and will post. Cin

Cin,

Pay attention to the differences between models. Just in case.

Also, check out the press releases from CES. They are likely posted on the WD website. and may also be found on the CES website.

Thank you Mark, and I believe they were the exact same model, but having said that, I've been known to be wrong :).
I called WD today and spoke to half the population in India (after giving all my personal information, finger prints, DNA, etc.). Here is what I learned: The first WD TV's are called 'first generation', the newest ones are called 'second generation' (go figure) ;) He said the only difference is that gen 1 doesn't play .dts files (I think he said thats Dolby?), and gen 2 does. When I questioned him about why don't they combine their tv with their hard drives into one unit, he laughed and said he would love to see that himself. After I bugged him more on it he said that 'actually, it's already in the pipeline' (c'mon, how could it not!). I asked if he could give me a rough timeframe of when it might be available, but he said that would be up to the engineers. Will keep my fingers crossed. Hope this helps. Cin

What codec to use? Use the closest that matches your original footage - the original aspect ratio, size, frame rate, etc. This way the quality loss in re-encoding will be minimal.

If you combine mix footages (and photos, too) from different sources, set rendering parameters to match the footage with the highest resolution. For example, if I combine HDV 1440x1080, 60i with MJPEG 720x1280, 24p - I will set the project properties to HDV.

About chapters - check out reviews. I haven't seen anything that supports chapters except for DVD. The closest you can get is fast forwarding. I personally own Seagate Theater, it does not support chapters on HDV, and it can fast forward at 32x. I like it better than WD TV for two reasons:

1) Built-in dock for Seagate hard drives (FreeAgent Go). Looks much better than WD where you have to use USB cable. Also, there is an external USB port in case you want to use a hard drive made by someone else other than Seagate.

2) External buttons on the unit. The remote controls that come with any of these HD media players are tiny and very inconvenient to use (you have to point it directly at the unit - a slight angle and they won't respond). As far as I know Seagate Theater is the only model where you can do pretty much everything without using the remote control.

Without the hard drive it costs $50:
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-Theater-Player-STCEA101-RK/dp/B001U3YILI

I bought it on sale in the end of December for $75 with 500GB drive (I think the hard drive alone costs more than that ;-) The newer model (Theater+) has HDMI output, supports 1080p, networking, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't care about. All these HD media players are adding new features, so that's why you see the prices on old models dropped a lot. As mentioned earlier - read carefully the specifications.

"...About chapters - check out reviews. I haven't seen anything that supports chapters except for DVD. The closest you can get is fast forwarding. I personally own Seagate Theater, it does not support chapters on HDV, and it can fast forward at 32x...."

So, when renderring individual Chapters, I guess they simply appear as files on the Seagate or WD Drive ? That's O.K. I don't really need fancy chapters, I'm just trying to wrap my head around this new product.

btw, thanks for the heads-up on the Seagate Theater +. I'll check it out.

"So, when renderring individual Chapters, I guess they simply appear as files on the Seagate or WD Drive ? That's O.K. I don't really need fancy chapters, I'm just trying to wrap my head around this new product."

Yes, it's a very good way to organize if you can render chapters in individual files, and place them in one folder named sequentially. Seagate Theater will play one after another automatically. The transition from one file to another is so smooth that you won't notice it even if you split in the middle of a fast-moving scene. It works like chapters on a DVD. Don't know about WD - might be the same, too.

I've had the original HD Media Player for it seems like 2 years. I use it mostly for HDV footage out of my HV20 and edited in VMSP, as well as HDTV footage captured via my Hauppauge HD-PVR.