WM: SEIKI BD-Live Blu-Ray Player BD660

What included in the box, what cables?

None left at the Northland WM when I went there this afternoon around 3pm.....only an empty slot with a price tag at $49.

pac1971 wrote: ↑I picked one up a couple of hours ago at the Shawnessy WM...there were 3 left after I picked one up. They were in the home theatre section and still marked as being 88 bucks but rung up as 49.

hdom wrote: ↑Anyone see them still around the Calgary area ??

To above, yes, it does play normal dvd.

fatboi555 wrote: ↑What included in the box, what cables?

RCA type audio-video cable.

Tuppin wrote: ↑I wonder if there is a way to tell the firmware based on the box. Can someone who has both versions of the player comment on any differences in the box or serial numbers?

I'll start: Firmware BDP-041F3, Serial TLBD1007XX 100629A101XX, XX replaced actual numbers by me

new hardware, new firmware, white box
there's a small sticker that has the serial no: 11091002nnnn 10

Mine's the same as Rabbit except a few digits, sticker with little purple bars on top and bottom with Serial No: 11091004xxxx 10

rabbit wrote: ↑new hardware, new firmware, white box
there's a small sticker that has the serial no: 11091002xxxx 10

It looks like serial number with 1 set of number is new and 2 sets of number is old. I'll be returning my old Seiki and get the new one.

Picked one up tonight. So far so good. Now I need to buy some blu rays!

Can anyone recommend the best way to disable the obnoxious red LED that is illuminated when the power is off? I don't mind if the blue light gets disabled as well.

I don't want to have to break out my electrical tape or black felt pen.

dplay wrote: ↑Bought one last night. Test with blueray Lord of the Rings, picture is great. But my old receiver cannot recognize DTS-HD, it only shows 2 channels. Any idea how to let the receiver read the audio to DTS or Dolby-Digital?

Also tested with my external hard drivers. Yes, it reads both FAT32 and NTFS. Another surprise is it plays rmvb, I'm watching a 720p rmvb now.

Confirmed,this is amazing,for $50,you can't expect more.

I don't know if this is consistent ....

Both boxes are identical except the serial # sticker:
The old hardware box has TLBD________ and 100___________, no bar code.
The new hardware box has bar code and below with "Serial No __________"

The new hardware accepts NTFS, but not the old hardware.

karst wrote: ↑Can anyone recommend the best way to disable the obnoxious red LED that is illuminated when the power is off? I don't mind if the blue light gets disabled as well.

The LED is on the front panel board.. I guess you could snip the wire to "LED_R" if you're brave. Or snap that part of the board off, haha.

Couldn't you just get into where the LED is and break off the leads to break the connection?

sm7681 wrote: ↑All,

I have limited knowledge of the technology. However after reading many posts here, I have a question.

What is better, buying this blue ray player or Patriot box ?. From what I read all this afternoon, only pro with patriot box is that is can streem from a remote harddrive. But can I not connect the harddrive via usb to this BD player and still play the files ?

Also this blue ray player can play optical disc, am I correct ?

can anyone help me decide between patriot box and this blue ray player ? I just need ability to file any kind of files via USB, laptop etc. both these are on slae till this Sunday.

They have different purpose, however there is a small overlap in functions.
The SEIKI player has very limited format support. You don't want to re-encode all the media files, do you? Hope you have a fast computer
The Patriot box by itself cannot play BD disk. The latest firmware will playback from external DVD drive. I am not sure if it supports external BR drive but I don't see why not.
As a media player, I do not recommend the Patriot box. It is inexpensive, but it has very poor network performance. It stutters on most high bitrate files across wired LAN, OK if playback from USB link.
The WDTV Live cost a bit more, but it is a much better media player. Althought it is still not perfect.

BTW, I have all of the above toys.

Anyone played around at their half-broken website? They list "driver downloads" here but the button does nothing: http://www.seikiworld.com/support_downloads.html

And the link to download the manual is a 404. I probably wouldn't trust one of their "driver" downloads even if they had them.

Editing to add an answer:

dplay wrote: ↑Bought one last night. Test with blueray Lord of the Rings, picture is great. But my old receiver cannot recognize DTS-HD, it only shows 2 channels. Any idea how to let the receiver read the audio to DTS or Dolby-Digital?

Set audio output to Bitstream instead of PCM. You will get AC3 multiplex for TrueHD and DTS core for DTS-HD. And if your receiver can't decode even regular DTS (my crappy HTIB can't) you will probably get.. nothing for DTS-HD tracks with Bistream.

chidragon wrote: ↑Set audio output to Bitstream instead of PCM. You will get AC3 multiplex for TrueHD and DTS core for DTS-HD. And if your receiver can't decode even regular DTS (my crappy HTIB can't) you will probably get.. nothing for DTS-HD tracks with Bistream.

Yes, I tried this way in the afternoon and it works! Now I know why it works from your post. Thanks

OK. Picked up two Seiki BD player today and both do not see the DVDs I put in? Unfortunately, I don't have any blue-ray discs to test the units.
I tried inputting the "0000" region code without any luck.

Can anyone help before I'm going to return them?

A couple more file extensions that the "white box" player recognizes:
ASF, FLV, MOV, MP4, WMV

Whether it will actually play them or not depends on the codecs used.


> Can anyone recommend the best way to disable the obnoxious red LED that is illuminated when the power is off?

There's a hard power switch at the back, left side.

loonie_deal wrote: ↑How come the title says back to $88???

don't know...

Big_White wrote: ↑Is this a decent Blu-Ray player to buy as my first? There is a Sony at Zellers tonight for midnight madness for $99, not sure which one i should get. Thank you.

YES! it's my first and only, don't see a reason to buy another one again after paying so little for this and it does so many things.

rambokid wrote: ↑This one is region free. Good for international movies collectors

+1, dvd all-region-free, blu-ray region always changeable

frugal_fanboy wrote: ↑Can someone post a definitive answer regarding playback of 720p mk? There seem to have been mixed responses, but tending towards needing official divx hd encoding vs any h.264 for playback to work. Thanks!

I think the newer revision will playback these better than the original, the original plays the DivX Plus HD certified content best and the rest is hit & miss.

ngaiden wrote: ↑Bought one this morning. I have the old CRT tv and use composite cables. Playing some avi's off my flash drive, I've noticed that some videos are pixelated, while others are not. I formatted my flash drive to fat32 and allocated to 64 and there's still pixelation. Tried another flash drive, same problem. Playing around with the settings didn't seem to help either. Anyone experiencing the same problem or have anymore solutions?

The videos with pixelation on Seiki, all play perfectly on my Philips DVP-5990. I'm starting to wonder if i got a defective unit.

I don't thinnk it's defective but it's not impossible. I think it's the videos that are damaged, also you might have the player's resolution set too low. Is your philips running on the same tv? Is the philips set to 480i or higher than that? pixelation is most likely downscaling somewhere or the vid is damaged. Composite cables are 480i maybe 480p if you're lucky. You should also set the TV type to RGB if you're using composite.

jaszy wrote: ↑So word around town these things get hot...literally. I'd like to take some preventative measure and install a fan. It's been discussed here but a couple of people mentioned soldering stuff, which 'I r Noob'. I did take a look at the mainboard picture provided here and there seems to be two (blue and white) plugs. Can I simply by a small 40mm (+) fan that has either a 2-pin or 3-pin and plug it in there? Can the heatsink be removed with ease? Maybe apply a dab of aftermarket paste.

If not, i'll run it with the top off, if that helps.

Tips appreciated. Want this baby to last!

I don't recommend running it with the top off, you'll allow radiation leak from the optical drive, also there will be light leak/bleed since the disc & player will be exposed to light during operation. If you don't want to put a fan inside then just put some PC heatsinks on the top cover. I don't think you need to solder anything, you can screw a 40x15mm or 40x10mm fan to the heatsink and plug it to the 4pin power sockets available. Just make sure you check what type of 4pin socket they are.

terrencel wrote: ↑Wondering if it will be easier to get a usb fan (like those for laptop)... plug it in the usb port and put the fan around the air opening!!!
Just a thought...

You could do that but I don't think the openings are big enough to allow sufficient airflow in.

desertdeal wrote: ↑+1, any comments guys?

chidragon wrote: ↑Yeah thanks for the responses. I picked up the one in the mostly-white box and there was no environmental fee here in southern Alta for me either. This store must not care too much about selling them as most of the signage says $88 still. Plenty of players sitting there.

Anyone know if there's a difference between the black box and white box? Looked like the black might be older stock. UPC is the same.

black box is the older revision with older firmware, white box supports NTFS now, black box is still waiting for a firmware update like mine.

phoinikos wrote: ↑Black box is older stock. The player inside is the same.

+1

bl.wpg.7734 wrote: ↑Can anyone confirm if the usb is 2.0? My old dvd is 1.1, looking to upgrade.
Also does the network connection allow me to play media from my NAS or is it just for firmware updates?
Thanks

I bet it's USB 2.0 but I doubt it matters, since videos only take a second to load, even 1GB videos and usb 1.1 is 1.5MBytes/s (12Mbits/s) but I'm convinced it's USB 2.0

yuprules wrote: ↑So far, this company has released one firmware update for the previous model, that's a good sign.

It is important for newer spec blu-ray's, they simply won't play. For example, Avatar won't play on some no name players that don't have any firmware updates (it plays on this one btw). So maybe in 2011 Christmas you might buy a blu-ray that might not play unless the company releases an update (but so far, seems good, one update!).

There are 2 firmwares existing for this player. V4.1 BDP-041F3 and v4.2 BDP-042F6. The latter is found in the Blue & White box and is the more improved firmware as only the newer box/firmware supports NTFS filesystem. Both support FAT32. There's also a TLBD# on the box and back of the unit itself. I believe that determines when it was made and the version in some way.

gn22 wrote: ↑For $49. its worth it for the region free DVD's alone, let alone region free BD's....

I *almost* bought it at the previous sale price, but it was just a tiny bit too much since it would have ONLY been for region free play, but again, at $49. I can't pass this up...gotta have one region free player in the house...why not be a BD player ?

It can be set to region free for DVDs but for blu-rays it's just region changeable (meaning you have to set the region you want to play each time you need to play a different region disc). I havn't discovered a single all-region/region-free code for the blu-rays yet.

Captain Snazzypants wrote: ↑Exactly - same thinking here...

This is my first and only blu-ray device in anyway and I bought mine in June/July for $88 with no regrets and constantly being impressed by this machine. It's well worth it at $90 trust me. I'm even more relieved that a firmware update can add NTFS support to the old black box units.

BringTheNordicsBack wrote: ↑Looks like Seiki Inc. is planning to release update for the 660...and other stuff. Will have to check often, the web page might now be "under construction", cos' did not work for me.
Link--> http://www.seikiworld.com/support_downloads.html

couldn't get the download to start using Chrome 7. Does it work with any other browsers?

DPyro wrote: ↑Just read a couple people had issues with it 'dying' on them after several months of use. Within 15 minutes it will shut itself off, not sure what the problem was. Hopefully it's not widespread.

Well the heat from my unit is concerning so in summer I just put 2 PC heatsinks on top the unit and that reduces the surface temp quite well. My unit hasn't died yet and today I had it running for 24hrs non-stop loop but in winter my home (and this player) is much much cooler. I also have it plugged to an ok surge protector. I did get some random shutoffs in september but I discovered it was related to the surge protector and the type of plug I was connecting it to. I highly recommend screwing down a 40x15mm fan to the heatsink if you can. The two 4pin plugs can power it but make sure the plug you use is not some audio passthrough of some sort.

trixR4kids wrote: ↑with the available usb port, has anyone tried pluggin in an ext hd and playing mkv/divx files right off from there?

yes, I run PATA 2.5" HDDs, 8GB USB flash drives, and PATA 3.5" HDDs off this port, no issues. The older revision/firmware won't read NTFS though.

frugal_fanboy wrote: ↑Too bad decent mkv support still seems to be lacking otherwise this would be a very tempting deal

yes I've had some issues with HD MKVs but this mostly applies to user made TVRips. I have no issues with DivX Plus HD Certified MKVs. Visit the DivX website and download their test clip MKV files, Big Buck Bunny, Iron Man, GIJoe, Elephant's Dream, and the DivX Plus HD Showcase demo. Also several of my friend's MKV anime fansubs worked fine and some did not. I believe the issue might be related to the FOURCC tags and the order of the audio track and video track indexing.

phoinikos wrote: ↑FYI: the BD drive is a SATA drive and can be put in a regular desktop computer. Just for that, it's worth the price.

yes but you might need to adapt the power plug to fit a SATA power plug, it looks more like the 4pin molex standard instead of SATA's 5 lead standard.

DavidY wrote: ↑Probably an heating issue. Apparently this make a great heater in cold rooms. Others have posted that they have modded their player (making the unit not returnable) by adding a computer like fan to properly ventilate the unit.

Dave

I don't kknow about cold rooms, it's not powerful enough to heat a room but the ambient temp of the room can greatly effect the unit's temp. In summer since I don't have A/C in my house the unit was burning hot, too hot for me to leave my hand on. so I believe 50-60°C. Right now it's winter so it feels more like 30-40.

jose888 wrote: ↑I read in another forum this machine supports MKV......not sure if this is true - so I am going to buy one and test it out!! Never heard of seiki - so I hope it lasts longer than 3 months!

Yes it does support MKVs, I tested it myself, but the MKV support isn't perfect, what works works well and what doesn't work has macro blocks or unsupported audio but working video or unsupported video but working audio. Best success rate are the DivX certified vids. I had macro blocks on a 720p MKV episode 1 of The Real L Word. I think XviD/DivX MKVs shouldn't have an issue however. Just the h.264 or x.264 are hit & miss.

ORGANIC wrote: ↑Doesn anyone know if this can play avchd titles like the ps3?

yes when you try to load files from a usb flash, usb hdd, or data dvd/cd/blu-ray one of the categories that shows up is AVCHD. Before browsing a drive you have to select what type of file you want to filter ie: (photo, music, video, avchd). Where's that guy with the unit plugged to his HDCP ignoring capture card? He's been taking screenshots you guys can ask him to capture all the features of the GUI for you.

LionheartMG wrote: ↑Sorry for this total newb question, but can this thing play any .avi video file? (Xvid too?) Or does it have to be DivX compression only?

I have a bunch of TV eps that I want to watch on the big TV downstairs, and originally was going to convert them to DVD and burn them, but if I can just burn the .avi files and play them on this player, that'd save me a ton of time and DVD-Rs.

just about so far any avi I threw at it. I ALWAYS watch downloaded HDTV XviD rips on this thing instead of my Aspire 1410 with the HDMI. Reason is I found the images actually look a lot better on this player than when I view with the same external LCD monitor plugged to the HDMI port of my Acer Aspire 1410-8803 with Core 2 Solo SU3500 Intel GMA 4500MHD via HDMI port.

DavidY wrote: ↑Anyone know if this player plays VCDs? Yes, image may be stretched though.

Dave

Not sure what he means about the stretching unless he's talking about the low res of 624x352p upscaled to 1080p on this player. That's how I watch all my downloaded tv shows. I can't see a diff between 624x352 up to 720x408. They seem upscaled on 1080p to the same detail. BTW I'm using a Samsung SyncMaster 2053BW native res is 1680x1050 but I run this player on the screen at 1080p.

instanoodles wrote: ↑woah! what forums is this, if thats the case I am getting one tomorrow.

There's a thread probably in the expired deals about the original deal of this player at $88 when it first appeared in walmart back in June/July. That's where I got my unit from back then. Read through that thread and you'll find my posts trying out various filetypes and a pretty detailed description of how the video tested.

crashxxx wrote: ↑generally, if it plays divx it'll also play xvid

+1

Kouyo wrote: ↑Hi everyone, does it play boot leg chinese DVDs? I would like to get it for my mom to watch her old chinese shows

Basically those DVDs dont work on our DVD player but no problem on my xbox

I read up to page 7 and couldn't find an answer. I'm also not sure what format those DVDs are either (yea..)

Thanks

you shouldn't have a problem setting DVDs to region free, you just need the service code (press 8520 on the setup menu to access the Factory Settings page). Blu-Rays you can alwys change the region to what you need, no single code avail for all-region-free yet.