any update on the new firmware?
Thanks.
Thanks for correcting me, TonyPH12345
you’re right, the latest version is Gen3 not 4.
apologies for the confusion.
so Bill_S alludes that the Gen2 will have a firmware update later than 1.06.15 ?
This would be good news. I own the Gen2 and the Gen3, so I have a vested interest here…
regards
@ Mazerati…
how would you compare Gen 2 & Gen 3…
Whats the big difference between the two… other than one has inbuilt wifi and probably new interface ?
Bill, if WD is presently working on testing before release as you had implied in one of your last posts, here’s one for them to check. I had back-graded to 1.05.04V due to lack of auto-framerate matching. Later, I actually dropped even further back to 1.03.49V after running into an unrelated issue (bad file), but came back up to 1.05.04V in order for Win7 shares to work.
I’ve been doing some USB disk space recovery by squeezing all my DVD (.VOB files) folders to MKV files using Handbrake. The WDTVLive plays the MKVs very nicely, but with one key caveat. Most are coded at 24FPS (film) as I left the MKV framerate setting to “same as source”. The player discovers this and correctly sets the HDMI mode to 1080P 24FPS. On almost every film, however, the playback picture exhibited a strobe-like judder, while the sound was fine. The original DVD .VOBs played perfectly, so I was resigned (sigh…) to restore all the .VOB folders from my backup archive, but stumbled on to a solution. When playback was paused and restarted, the judder would change, and, after a about half a dozen pause-play cycles, playback became perfectly smooth for the rest of the film. It’s almost as if it was stepping through some sort of frame sequence alignment, where one of the steps was correct for 24FPS playback.
So presumably, WD will bring back Match Framerate on the next (final?) release (I can’t imagine that they’d permanently nix such a fundamental feature). As far as I and others on this forum could tell, the Match Framerate function itself DID work in 1.05.04V, and I was perplexed as to why it was disabled in 1.06.15V. Perhaps the problem I described is one of the reasons why. When this function is restored, I strongly suggest WD fully test matched framerate playback with 24FPS coded MKV files (H.264 CODEC), and not just re-enable existing code from 1.05.04V on the assumption that it had worked fine.
RPH: That’s an interesting description.
I’ve noticed the same thing on the Hub and SMP; but I’ve not tried that “workaround.”
I’m half thinking that part of the issue is the Handbrake flagging. If you don’t use Same-as-Source, but instead choose 23.976 or 24.000 FPS, there’s no strobing.
Tony
I initally suspected a similar reason, however, the non-deterministic behaviour of the pause-play affecting the playback seems to be a strong indicator of some unclean code somewhere. The player does in fact correctly identify the playback mode (24FPS), as revealed by my TV with a status pop-up (the Live appears to reset the HDMI link when the mode is changed, during the pause before the movie starts playing). The files also play properly with VLC on the PC where the Handbrake processing was done before I xfer the files to the WD attached USB drive.
I had also speculated a possible interaction between the Sharp Aquos 120Hz motion engine and the player, but once I hit the “magic” pause-play step, everything plays perfectly (smooth) from that point on. An interaction problem would probably not clear up like that. I’m pretty certain that the issue is entirely within the Lives playback engine, and clearly a software issue if I can get it to play properly after some fiddling with just the player itself.
Something else I noticed with this particular problem; for some of the steps, the judder is nearly gone but not fully, as the image shudders periodically every few seconds. I have to keep stepping and watching for the effect for a few seconds per step, which is rather annoying. It also needs a segment of video where large, smooth movement is taking place, such as during a camera pan. Also, if the film is stopped or paused later, you have to toggle through the pause steps again to hit the right mode. Again, a pain if you pause at a spot where there is little movement. I really hope the last release will have this fixed.
The deadlines that were previously indicate by Bill_S have not been kept → can you, Bill_S at least confirm, that WD is indeed working on it and maybe convey the urgency once again ?
There are a lot of unsatisfied users (including me) who feel screwed big time by WD ! I do not think that WD is getting the magnitude of the issue at hand …
br, Philipp
Like other users, when i upgraded my WD TV Live to the latest firmware i was positively impressed by the speed in the menus, but soon i realized that this firmware was filled with bugs. If i use a service that connects to the internet the player can’t play movies anymore, and i have to reboot. If i pause or stop a movie most of the times i can’t resume and i have to reboot it again… And so on… And so on…
I tried to downgrade but some problems still remain, this suggests that this last firmware was not like the others…
I think that WD should resolve this issues as soon as possible and release immediately an official answer to all the WD TV Live costumers, or at least provide a downgrade firmware that reverts every change made by the last update.
I don’t think WD wants bad publicity spread out on the internet, in these days users can have a lot of influence on future buyers and current costumers…
I recently witness in my country (Portugal) what can bad publicity in social networks do to a company…
Max_BL wrote:
The deadlines that were previously indicate by Bill_S have not been kept → can you, Bill_S at least confirm, that WD is indeed working on it and maybe convey the urgency once again ?
There are a lot of unsatisfied users (including me) who feel screwed big time by WD ! I do not think that WD is getting the magnitude of the issue at hand …
br, Philipp
Max,
This is the reason I don’t like giving any time frames, because invariably someone assumes that they are fixed deadlines, which they are not. I never gave a deadline. I never gave a commitment to any date or time. The release is being held up. That’s not my fault, and I have not failed in anyway to keep my word, cause I never gave my word.
Now, I can understand the frustration. But nobody is screwing you. So, please forgive me for having even said anything.
For my part, I understand that giving deadlines can be problematic. I still think, however, that WD could help itself and its users by informing us of the status and progress in producing the final FW update and trusting us to accept that the best laid plans of mice and men etc etc…
Quality is at this time paramount and I don’t think there’s a user on this forum who would hurry this process if it compromised the quality of the final update.
grandamoca wrote:
Like other users, when i upgraded my WD TV Live to the latest firmware i was positively impressed by the speed in the menus, but soon i realized that this firmware was filled with bugs. If i use a service that connects to the internet the player can’t play movies anymore, and i have to reboot. If i pause or stop a movie most of the times i can’t resume and i have to reboot it again… And so on… And so on…
I tried to downgrade but some problems still remain, this suggests that this last firmware was not like the others…
I think that WD should resolve this issues as soon as possible and release immediately an official answer to all the WD TV Live costumers, or at least provide a downgrade firmware that reverts every change made by the last update.
I don’t think WD wants bad publicity spread out on the internet, in these days users can have a lot of influence on future buyers and current costumers…
I recently witness in my country (Portugal) what can bad publicity in social networks do to a company…
I have 2 WD TV Live Pluses, and I rarely (and I mean rarely) have any issues with them playing movies. I can pause the movie, go get something to eat and come right back to pick up where I left off. So far, the only movies that it did not play - whether MP4’s, MKV’s, AVI’s - were either corrupted or badly encoded. And that’s only been a hand full. I use my Live Plus daily for at least a couple of hours. Plus, I’ve had one of my devices for 2 years.
I also use my player for Netflix and Hulu + services, so I’m not sure about your services. I’m not real happy with Hulu+, but I’m not blaming the player for that. Hulu+ is so clunky and non-intuitive, that navigation is a pain in the rear. And it takes tooooo long for a show to buffer. Sometimes, I have to back out and then play an episode again before it starts up. Whereas, Netflix starts right up.
Moreover, you should be able to downgrade the firmware without any problems. And we do provide the option to downgrade. If you’re unable to do that, then there is a good chance that your device may be malfunctioning. Now, I’m not saying that there haven’t been issues, but the ones you’re having, you shouldn’t be having. However, I won’t dispute the issues you may be having with your services in Portugal. But are you really sure that’s the Live Plus’s fault? Or are your really sure that the device hasn’t malfunctioned?
Contact me by private message, so we can look into this.
chris110761 wrote:
For my part, I understand that giving deadlines can be problematic. I still think, however, that WD could help itself and its users by informing us of the status and progress in producing the final FW update and trusting us to accept that the best laid plans of mice and men etc etc…
Quality is at this time paramount and I don’t think there’s a user on this forum who would hurry this process if it compromised the quality of the final update.
Thank you. And that’s why I do it. You guys need to understand that I do relate to how you feel, and I do push to get something to give you. And like you said, Chris, “the best laid plans of mice and men…”
chris110761 wrote:
For my part, I understand that giving deadlines can be problematic. I still think, however, that WD could help itself and its users by informing us of the status and progress in producing the final FW update and trusting us to accept that the best laid plans of mice and men etc etc…
Quality is at this time paramount and I don’t think there’s a user on this forum who would hurry this process if it compromised the quality of the final update.
+1
On the other hand, if we have to wait for another 6 months for that update, without any promises to address all the known bugs (which should have been fixed before the latest firmware came out anyway), I doubt most of us will refrain from buying another player (from a different vendor).
There’s got to be a limit somewhere.
VMat
Changing subject. I tried to watch Clockwork Orange yesterday (ISO image from my own original DVD). The image was boxed (all four sides). Is there any workaround for that?
I believe I’m in firmware 1.05.04. And the video output is set to “widescreen” (my TV is 16:9).
Thanks,
VMat
VMatt wrote:
Changing subject. I tried to watch Clockwork Orange yesterday (ISO image from my own original DVD). The image was boxed (all four sides). Is there any workaround for that?
Short of Zooming, no.
I’ve not seen Clockwork Orange, but I’ve seen the same thing on American President:
It’s a 16:9 movie, in a non-anamorphic 4:3 image.
Pillared and Letterboxed.
It’s just a terrible transfer…
I noticed the same issue with the same film (one of my favourites from that era, btw…). My source is not an ISO image but a VideoTS folder with .VOBs. My TV provides zoom capability but only a limited number of steps, none of which properly fill the screen to the sides. I found that opening the film from preview mode (I typically only use list mode) bypasses the DVD menu but gives me access to zoom control in the WDTV Live options pulldown. Kind of a dumb limitation in VOB playback that I wish WD would fix in the final relaease. I found a particular combination of zoom level from the WDTV, plus the the TV’s own zoom, gave me a satisfactory screen fill. This is one case where the WDTV playing the backup of a film actually works better than playing the original DVD, as most DVD players don’t provide fine zoom settings.
I agree with Tony’s assessment regarding retail DVD movies captured this way; I’m sure many of us on this forum could have done a much better job of capture-transfer than the studio. With a resolution loss of almost 1/3 of the standard DVD format potential, the final picture is only a bit sharper than an equvalent size blow-up of a retail VHS movie.
Almost April already… any updates?
Bill_S wrote:
Max_BL wrote:
The deadlines that were previously indicate by Bill_S have not been kept → can you, Bill_S at least confirm, that WD is indeed working on it and maybe convey the urgency once again ?
There are a lot of unsatisfied users (including me) who feel screwed big time by WD ! I do not think that WD is getting the magnitude of the issue at hand …
br, Philipp
Max,
This is the reason I don’t like giving any time frames, because invariably someone assumes that they are fixed deadlines, which they are not. I never gave a deadline. I never gave a commitment to any date or time. The release is being held up. That’s not my fault, and I have not failed in anyway to keep my word, cause I never gave my word.
Now, I can understand the frustration. But nobody is screwing you. So, please forgive me for having even said anything.
Bill,
thanks for getting back, but obviously there is a misunderstanding. If you read my post, I said, that you WERE INDICATING a possible Firmware Release date and this has obviously not been kept by WD.
I assume you have received word from WD that end of February would be a date when customers could receive their upgrade.
If you feel blamed for this - sorry, this was not my intention. In fact I strongly blame WD for screwing the customers !
And even if you do not feel, that WD is screwing us → I do and others for sure feel the same way ! The last firwmare update which has introduced bugs, that simply renders the device unusable (auto framerate) has been released in August 2011 !
We have now March 2012 - and the bugs are still not corrected by WD, nor did any of the affected customers receive an information when and if this is going to happen !
if you do not call that “screwing your paying customers” than you obviously have a very different perfecption of what customer service and customers satisfaction means !
I honestly appreciate your support and your efforts and I understand that you are covering for WD as you are working “kind’a” work for/with them - but clearly customers are let alone with their problems - and that is the big mess here !
Br, MAX
i agree… it’s definitely not your fault Bill. You just happen to be our only outlet to vent our frustrations with WD and their WDTV products. I don’t expect companies to support their products endlessly and without additional compensation, but the problem most of us have on here is that WD has managed to BREAK functionality that existed previously and then hold up their release cycle for 5+ months. There are alternatives to WDTV out there. Most of like and believe in WDTV, but I believe a majority of us are also fed up with WD itself. Developers like myself just can’t comprehend that it takes 5+ months to release software bug fixes (for functionality that used to exist). Seems like a few weeks of man hours should be able to easily get this thing on track. Thanks Bill for all your updates and support. I really hope management over there realizes your contribution but also realizes that support of their products is what will inevitably keep people on as future customers.
