I’m not sure if this will work for everyones problems, but all I did was change the mp4 extension on any file that showed up as audio to m4v. Now they all play and I didn’t have to rollback the firmware.
1 Like
pkronenw wrote:
I’m not sure if this will work for everyones problems, but all I did was change the mp4 extension on any file that showed up as audio to m4v. Now they all play and I didn’t have to rollback the firmware.
Brilliant!
Now I have the confidence to upgrade to 2.02.32.
Thanks for the idea!
I have also tracked most of my problem files back to files I ripped with the “Copy Audio” option selected in DVDFab.
I’m doing some digging into this issue and it appears it has something to do with the atom structure of the video, namely the position of _ moov _ before _ mdat _ seems to be the culprit.
FFMpeg by default saves mdat before moov , which is why the WDTV will play a problem file after I remux it with FFMpeg.
What is atom structure in an MP4? Adobe has a great explaination here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/video/articles/mp4_movie_atom.html
To help me and WD determine the problem, it would be great if you guys could test your problem files by downloading this tiny 300kb app from here: http://mp4explorer.codeplex.com/
The app is safe; it is the first website Google points to when searching for “MP4 atom viewer”.
Install it, and point it at your problem MP4 file, them click the file name at the top left of the window.
It should (if my theory is correct) show the atom structure as:
ftyp
moov
mdat
Note that it will also have an atom (or possibly atoms) named free , these will be in an arbitrary position and aren’t important in this instance.
A playable file should have the structure (once again with free atoms in a random position:
ftyp
mdat
moov
Guys, it would be great if you could download and run this app and post your problem files atom structure to confirm that this is the issue (I believe that it is).
My theory is that when moov is first , this will not play , and when mdat is first that it will play.
If so, it would be a step in helping WD to fix this player. I know we shouldn’t have to, but it appears the best way to obtain a resolution in this instance.
Tony.
you must have them the wrong way round, all my mp4s play and have the structure:
Atom ftyp @ 0 of size: 24, ends @ 24
Atom moov @ 24 of size: 93274, ends @ 93298
Atom mdat @ 93298 of size: 24569738, ends @ 24663036
Atom free @ 24663036 of size: 59, ends @ 24663095
tonypuryer wrote:
If so, it would be a step in helping WD to fix this player. I know we shouldn’t have to, but it appears the best way to obtain a resolution in this instance.
Hate to say it, but WD fixed this in December 2014 with Firmware 1.02.17 for the WDTV Media Player … so they know / knew what the problem is / was.
- Resolved some .MP4 videos not playing
(and i can confirm, since i have that player and firmware, the MP4 playback issue is resolved / fixed)
Why they haven’t released a new firmware for the WDTV Live Streaming Player to fix the MP4 playback and other issues ?
I Don’t Know 
(it’s the same hardware, for goodness sake … albeit, no Netflix)
barrygreybeard wrote:
you must have them the wrong way round, all my mp4s play and have the structure:
Atom ftyp @ 0 of size: 24, ends @ 24
Atom moov @ 24 of size: 93274, ends @ 93298
Atom mdat @ 93298 of size: 24569738, ends @ 24663036
Atom free @ 24663036 of size: 59, ends @ 24663095
Nope, it just means my theory is wrong.
Not that it matters, I have learned an important lesson today.
I have spent all day trying to find a fix for this, to no avail. I only have one file that won’t play and I poured over it for hours, and when I found that FFMpeg fixed it by simply remuxing it, I thought that the atom position/order was it.
I am tired of trying to do WD’s work for them, like Joey Smyth said, this has been fixed in the new player (which I have too).
I have wasted an entire Sunday when I should have been spending time with my family.
Stuff you WD for wasting peoples time. 15 pages of threads for this ONE issue and no fix? Release a **bleep** patch. Is there some loss of honour in releasing too many firmwares in one year? Microsoft release software patches every few weeks. Android continuously update their OS.
Get with the program, there’s myriad media players breathing down your necks.
I’m guessing they don’t care - every tv will have a media player in it in a year or so, and this product will be like the brick mobile phone - a curiousity.
tonypuryer wrote: Microsoft release software patches every few weeks. Android continuously update their OS.
Probably because they have “In House” development teams
I’m pretty sure WD “Out Source” firmware development which leads to long development time / update schedules
As an example of “Out Source”… (the original WD Idea post is long gone, but heres a copy … read the Acknowledged part in this post)
http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming/Three-XML-questions/m-p/678373#M28183
I find it a bitter pill to swallow because my last media player was an Xbox running XBMC and we were pampered with nightly builds, if we wanted them!
Ah the xbox xbmc days.
That guy was awesome. WD should hire him. Can’t remember his name now. But that was one guy and things were under control. All users were pretty happy all the time.
One guy.
“One guy.”
Yeah, one guy - that’s all it would take to fix these problems. Shows how much importance is attached to this.
Having same issues as others have reported. Some .mp4’s won’t play and some files will play one day and not the next. Kind of intermitent.
Even the TV will play the files directly but I prefer having a separate box. WD had issues with the generation before. Shame these issues aren’t being resolved.
Bad news, looks like themoviedb.org have changed their image fetching API. No more movie covers in “Get Info” 
I had the same issue with playback of some mp4 files. While others would play fine, some files when selected would report no media found. Downloaded Handbrake and retranscoded file to an .mkv file-problem solved. I believe in some instances, becuase firmware issue, the WDTV Live mistakes some .mp4 files as audio files and when it is set for video playback it will only look for video files to playback and in a folder where an .mp4 file resides, it will mistake as a audio file and report no media found.
when i had this problem with the ‘other wdtv’ i just remuxed the *.mp4 to *.mkv using MKVMerge (which only takes a minute or two … with No video/audio quality loss)
Transcoding with Handbrake takes a long time and you will lose quality
Anyone running the old firmware in the uk having issues with iplayer in the last couple of days? My iplayer app is reporting server issues, but all other devices connect with no issue. Tried restarting everything.
Might be time to bite the bullet and remux the thousands of mp4 programmes that my kids watch.
This was the breaking point for me.
Switched to as raspberry pi running kodi and haven’t looked back.
The fact this is still an issue is beyond a joke.
im sorry for issues you are having i really think using handbrake is time consuming, me i have 2000 or so movies i change mp4s to mkv using mkvtoolnix it too can be time consuming, but also does background encoding as has a job queue for batch encoding unfortunately no auto feature files have to be added manually to job queue, mkvs work flawlessly compared to mp4
same here, my homemade clips (in mp4) works perfect, but not full lenght movies. now, here’s a funny thing, i converted a mp4 movie to…mp4 just for fun and the player reads in perfectly! ? ! ? odd but cool. used ubisoft video converter.
I am trying to do a rollback and followed your instructions which make sense. The problem is when I plug in my usb thumb drive with the 5 files, it just says “reading USB” and then “Compiiing Media Library” but it doesn’t give me an option to synch or transfer content from the usb drive. I don’t get to the window where it asks me to upgrade new firmare because my device is not prompting me to with anything when I plug in my external USB thumbdrive? Any ideas what the issue is?
I’ve already validated that the usb drive is not locked and the Media Library Compilation is “On”. I even tried a hard reset a few times and for some reason it’s not readying the usb external drive so I can do the rollback.
