Media Player that can play Windows Media Player WTV format

[Mortimer]

I record broadcast TV using Windows Media Player to WTV format - this
preserves the subtitles and the metadata such as programme and episode
titles and synopsis. I store it to a folder on my PC that is shared so it is
accessible to other PCs or anything that can access a Windows network share.

I'm looking for a Media Player that can access this shared drive and can
play the WTV files from it, and which connects to the TV by HDMI (or, at a
pinch, SCART) lead.

Many Media Players can only play vanilla MPG, and it would be a shame to
have to translate WTV to MPG, thereby losing the subtitles and metadata.
Even my LG BluRay player, which can play from external USB devices such as
pen drives or ext HDDs, can only play MPG and none of the MPG-wrapper
formats like DVR-MS and WTV, which is a disappointing omission.

I get the impression that Media Player "extenders" work by pushing the data
from a remote PC to the extender connected to the TV, rather than the player
pulling it from a shared drive, which means that control of what to play has
to be done from the remote PC rather than from the player.

I know exactly what I want - but finding devices that do it is not easy.
Unless I use a laptop as the media player, when I've got access to loads of
software such as VLC, Media Centre, etc.


Any suggestions?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Post by Mortimer
I record broadcast TV using Windows Media Player to WTV format - this
preserves the subtitles and the metadata such as programme and episode
titles and synopsis. I store it to a folder on my PC that is shared so it is
accessible to other PCs or anything that can access a Windows network share.
I'm looking for a Media Player that can access this shared drive and can
play the WTV files from it, and which connects to the TV by HDMI (or, at a
pinch, SCART) lead.

I use one of these to play network shared video.
I don't use .wtv files though, so can't be sure if it will play them.
http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330
So far it's not balked at anything I've thrown at it, although it has
some quirks and isn't open source, which is a bit limiting.

Addendum;
I've downloaded a .wtv file and WD TV Live won't play it - doesn't
even know it's there.
Negative information, but at least you and I now know something about
it.
Otoh, WDTVL is still a useful gadget and will happily play a whole
slew of file types, some of which must be convertible from .wtv and
keep the metadata.

[CD]

Post by Mortimer
I'm looking for a Media Player that can access this shared drive and can
play the WTV files from it, and which connects to the TV by HDMI (or, at a
pinch, SCART) lead.

Don't know about a media player, but you can convert the .wtv files to
dvr-ms by right clicking them & selecting a convert option. Last time I
tried it didn't work on hd recordings.

I long since gace up on Windows Media Center in favour of Mediaportal

www.team-mediaportal.com

A lot more configurable & lets you record more than one channel on a MUX at
the same time. It acts as a server & will supply live TV to other PCs on
the network, which can also access the shared recorded TV.

[airsmoothed]

Post by CD

Post by Mortimer
I'm looking for a Media Player that can access this shared drive and can
play the WTV files from it, and which connects to the TV by HDMI (or, at a
pinch, SCART) lead.

Don't know about a media player, but you can convert the .wtv files to
dvr-ms by right clicking them & selecting a convert option. Last time I
tried it didn't work on hd recordings.

Worth noting that the this option on right click is Win7 only (IIRC)
and for sure only appears if all multimedia files are associated with
WMP via control panel.

[CD]

Post by CD
A lot more configurable & lets you record more than one channel on a MUX at
the same time. It acts as a server & will supply live TV to other PCs on
the network, which can also access the shared recorded TV.

And I should have added, records the file as a raw .ts file with a matching
.xml file with all the relevant data. Which should be media player
friendly.

[Mortimer]

Post by CD

Post by Mortimer
I'm looking for a Media Player that can access this shared drive and can
play the WTV files from it, and which connects to the TV by HDMI (or, at a
pinch, SCART) lead.

Don't know about a media player, but you can convert the .wtv files to
dvr-ms by right clicking them & selecting a convert option. Last time I
tried it didn't work on hd recordings.
I long since gace up on Windows Media Center in favour of Mediaportal
www.team-mediaportal.com
A lot more configurable & lets you record more than one channel on a MUX at
the same time. It acts as a server & will supply live TV to other PCs on
the network, which can also access the shared recorded TV.

Looks interesting. I've installed it on a second PC to try it out. Took a
few minutes to work out how to scan for channels - it's configured in the TV
sever app rather than the player app - but it seems to work well. It's a
shame it uses the EPG listings supplied by the DVB feed rather than an
external one, because you only get one week's listings rather than the two
weeks that Windows Media Centre gets, but I could live with that. I like the
ability to record from several channels simultaneously as long as they are
all on the same mux.

[CD]

Post by Mortimer
Looks interesting. I've installed it on a second PC to try it out. Took a
few minutes to work out how to scan for channels - it's configured in the TV
sever app rather than the player app - but it seems to work well. It's a
shame it uses the EPG listings supplied by the DVB feed rather than an
external one, because you only get one week's listings rather than the two
weeks that Windows Media Centre gets, but I could live with that. I like the
ability to record from several channels simultaneously as long as they are
all on the same mux.

Glad you like it, you can get more listings if you go along the lines of
xmltv & Digiguide, but that's a whole other discussion.

Just messing about one day I got 24 channels recording at once across my 4
tuners, probably could have done more, very impressive.

Other stuff it does: Support for MCE remotes (Media centre needs
disabling), umpteen plugins & skins the online videos one being very good
which adds iplayer & Youtube amongst others.

The forums are also very helpful if you have problems, I rencently had a
problem with the DVB epg causing a deadlock in the database, someone
actually reprogrammed a part of the code & sent me an updated file to try!

Let us know how you get on.

CD

[Mortimer]

Post by CD

Post by Mortimer
Looks interesting. I've installed it on a second PC to try it out. Took a
few minutes to work out how to scan for channels - it's configured in the TV
sever app rather than the player app - but it seems to work well. It's a
shame it uses the EPG listings supplied by the DVB feed rather than an
external one, because you only get one week's listings rather than the two
weeks that Windows Media Centre gets, but I could live with that. I like the
ability to record from several channels simultaneously as long as they are
all on the same mux.

Glad you like it, you can get more listings if you go along the lines of
xmltv & Digiguide, but that's a whole other discussion.
Just messing about one day I got 24 channels recording at once across my 4
tuners, probably could have done more, very impressive.

24 channels at once is very impressive! I've only got one tuner (so far!).
It says a lot for your disk drive(s) and controller(s) that you were able to
support that volume of data being written simultaneously.

I'll see how many channels I can record with my one tuner, though it's on a
fairly slow laptop with a 5400 rpm rather than 7200 rpm disk, so that might
limit me a bit. I didn't want to bugger up Windows Media Centre on my main
PC until I'd made sure it really did every thing it could, so I installed it
on my laptop and borrowed the USB DVB adaptor. One day I'll get an adaptor
that can handle HD, now that my transmitter has just undergone DSO and now
broadcasts HD.

One annoyance is that the player doesn't seem to have a time bar that you
can click or drag along to rapidly move from one part of a recorded
programme to another. Nor does it seem to have a counter to tell you how far
through a programme you currently are. Mind you, VLC does all that so I
could always use that, reserving Media Portal for scheduling and making
recordings.

[CD]

Post by Mortimer

Post by CD
Just messing about one day I got 24 channels recording at once across my 4
tuners, probably could have done more, very impressive.

24 channels at once is very impressive! I've only got one tuner (so far!).
It says a lot for your disk drive(s) and controller(s) that you were able to
support that volume of data being written simultaneously.

It sounds impressive, but it's no where near the amount of data that even
an old SATA 1 drive can handle, the HDD light was barely flashing.

Post by Mortimer
One annoyance is that the player doesn't seem to have a time bar that you
can click or drag along to rapidly move from one part of a recorded
programme to another. Nor does it seem to have a counter to tell you how far
through a programme you currently are. Mind you, VLC does all that so I
could always use that, reserving Media Portal for scheduling and making
recordings.

I control mine through the remote rather than mouse, but there is a time
bar that appears when paused, there's also the 'skip steps' option, where a
click of a key advances the video by 15, 30, 60 seconds etc. You can set
the delay before the skip kicks in, so 2 presses sets it up for 30 seconds
& so on.

If you're just looking at a utility to schedule & record then have a look
at:

http://www.4therecord.eu/

I use this as my tuner rather than MP's TV service via a plugin for the MP
client. This will just sit there cheerfully recording away for you, with
the recordings available over the network again. It can also do post
processing on the recordings, eg. convert them to mkv & then copy to a NAS
drive.

[k***@gmail.com]

Post by Mortimer
I record broadcast TV using Windows Media Player to WTV format - this
preserves the subtitles and the metadata such as programme and episode
titles and synopsis. I store it to a folder on my PC that is shared so it is
accessible to other PCs or anything that can access a Windows network share.
I'm looking for a Media Player that can access this shared drive and can
play the WTV files from it, and which connects to the TV by HDMI (or, at a
pinch, SCART) lead.
Many Media Players can only play vanilla MPG, and it would be a shame to
have to translate WTV to MPG, thereby losing the subtitles and metadata.
Even my LG BluRay player, which can play from external USB devices such as
pen drives or ext HDDs, can only play MPG and none of the MPG-wrapper
formats like DVR-MS and WTV, which is a disappointing omission.
I get the impression that Media Player "extenders" work by pushing the data
from a remote PC to the extender connected to the TV, rather than the player
pulling it from a shared drive, which means that control of what to play has
to be done from the remote PC rather than from the player.
I know exactly what I want - but finding devices that do it is not easy.
Unless I use a laptop as the media player, when I've got access to loads of
software such as VLC, Media Centre, etc.
Any suggestions?

Another way to play WTV files anywhere is to convert WTV to a more supported video format like MP4, WMV, AVI, 3GP, MOV, MKV, FLV etc.
Below is a detailed guide on how to play WTV files anywhere at http://www.idealshare.net/video-converter/play-wtv-files-ipad-mac-iphone-android-wmp.html

[Phi]

Post by k***@gmail.com

Post by Mortimer
I record broadcast TV using Windows Media Player to WTV format - this
preserves the subtitles and the metadata such as programme and episode
titles and synopsis. I store it to a folder on my PC that is shared so it is
accessible to other PCs or anything that can access a Windows network share.
I'm looking for a Media Player that can access this shared drive and can
play the WTV files from it, and which connects to the TV by HDMI (or, at a
pinch, SCART) lead.
Many Media Players can only play vanilla MPG, and it would be a shame to
have to translate WTV to MPG, thereby losing the subtitles and metadata.
Even my LG BluRay player, which can play from external USB devices such as
pen drives or ext HDDs, can only play MPG and none of the MPG-wrapper
formats like DVR-MS and WTV, which is a disappointing omission.
I get the impression that Media Player "extenders" work by pushing the data
from a remote PC to the extender connected to the TV, rather than the player
pulling it from a shared drive, which means that control of what to play has
to be done from the remote PC rather than from the player.
I know exactly what I want - but finding devices that do it is not easy.
Unless I use a laptop as the media player, when I've got access to loads of
software such as VLC, Media Centre, etc.
Any suggestions?

Another way to play WTV files anywhere is to convert WTV to a more
supported video format like MP4, WMV, AVI, 3GP, MOV, MKV, FLV etc.
Below is a detailed guide on how to play WTV files anywhere at
http://www.idealshare.net/video-converter/play-wtv-files-ipad-mac-iphone-android-wmp.html

My understanding is that POTPlayer will play WTV on Windows ...