New WDTV Live Plus HD -- No Sound At All

Background – unit is plugged into my TV via an HDMI cable and streaming media from a USB 2.0 WD MyPassport Elite HD. The system will not play any sound  – tested via the following file types.

  1. 20+ .mkv files with DTS sound – will not play anything even when set to “Stereo” in options.

  2. Loaded up some .mp3’s – no sound at all from the music files.

  3. Loaded up the “sample media” on the WDTV disc – no sound from any of those mp3’s.

  4. No sound from mpegs

  5. No sound from AC3 converted DTS mkvs.

  6. No sound from standard DVD .iso

  7. No sound from Blu-Ray image isos.

Video works great. Just getting 0 sound. WDTV initially connected to a HDMI splitter box. Other device on the box would play sound perfectly to the TV set – press the switch to bring in the WDTV and no sound at all. Tried directly connecting. No sound. Tried 5 different HDMI cables. No sound.

Sort of frustrated that I bought the newest model expecting to have the newest firmware so eliminate some potential problems and it’s a paperweight out of the box so far. The TV is a LG 50PS60 1080p Plasma. Works fine with everything else.

I assume that you have tried the audio output settings.

Settings - Audio / Video - Audio Output (enter)

Try all options.

Do you get sound with youtube etc.

I tried stereo, digital and digital without HDMI audio settings – none produced any sound for any format. I have not tried Youtube or any of that because I do not have it hooked up to my network yet. I’m not sure what chance Youtube has at producing sound if a simple mp3 will not even have any.

Just out of interest have you tried the composite audio output cable?

The other cables will not reach. I have my home theater wires routed through a wall and only use HDMI. I will try the unit on my other screen in the bedroom.

Don’t use a splitter box – test it with JUST the one HDMI from the Live to your TV (and test it with more than one HDMI cable, as they are not all created equally).

Frac-it,

  It appears there’s a firmware issue for HDMI connectivity to *some* LG TVs.    This is a known issue to WD.

  In the mean-time, you may have to use the Analog Audio (or S/PDIF if that’s available to you) 

Wow, that specific? I have issues with Audio via HDMI on my LG as well, but would never have thought it would be that specific.

My audio issues are not always there. Actually, it works fine for a while, but then suddenly kicks out (usually when I try to watch something via PlayOn or now Netflix. At that point, NOTHING plays anymore. Even restarting, etc. won’t clear it up. EXCEPT, turns out that I CAN use my Windows 7 box’s Play To feature to send a file to the box and it resets everything. Then, for a while everything works again as normal.

It is really odd, and of course frustrating to no end. I bought this for my wife, and she’s not real impressed. I’ll have to give the RCA plugs a try.

In the mean time, is there some way to send my specifics directly to WD support to help them diagnose the problem?

Well, I presume you can contact them thru the normal SUPPORT contacts…  http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?wdc_lang=en

Gee, thanks. :wink:

No I meant that since you knew about the problem specific to LG TVs and  HDMI sound, I thought you might have contact info for someone directly involved with that issue or perhaps might know of a specific thread on some forum somewhere that I should add to.

PaulY wrote:

Gee, thanks. :wink:

 

No I meant that since you knew about the problem specific to LG TVs and  HDMI sound, I thought you might have contact info for someone directly involved with that issue or perhaps might know of a specific thread on some forum somewhere that I should add to.

This is the only forum and if you are lucky they may read this topic. There is no real contact with the main people, they sit in ivory towers and have little or no contact with the common user.

I notice when I open the Internt Media – Mediafly and play any of the video with sound, the sound will work then go back to home screen then choose other option like Netflix or YouTube the sound will work fine.

OMG! Does WDTV make anything that works?  I returned my WDTV because it continued to turn off on its own.  I went ahead and bought the plus.  Came home set it up- and now NO sound! Yes, its a LG TV- but good grief, WD- FIX THE PROBLEM.  Looks like temporaily I run rca cables.  WD is NOT my fav comnpany today. 

Check with LG to see if they have a firmware update for your TV. In this thread http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/Problems-ith-new-WD-TV-Live-Plus/td-p/30516 heavenlydmeonic reported that he was able to get updated firmware for one of his LG TV’s that resolved the problem. However, there was no new firmware available for his other LG TV.

I called LG and as I suspected its the WDTV PLus!  My cable plays fine hdmi to the lg … I switched HDMI cables still nothing.  This is a WD PROBLEM!  WD- R U LISTENING??? 

Its obviously specific to the plus- cause my WDTV live played fine, until of course it turned itself off. 

64met wrote:

I called LG and as I suspected its the WDTV PLus!  My cable plays fine hdmi to the lg … I switched HDMI cables still nothing.  This is a WD PROBLEM!  WD- R U LISTENING??? 

WD know and they are working on the problem.

richUK, 

Thank you for responding… I plan on calling WD tomorrow (Monday) about this… Incredibly frustrating day yesterday.  Anyway, I am using the live plus connected composite right now and one thing I have noticed is although I am hard wired to my network- the plus takes several minutes to locate and play files.  Whereas, the Live connected immediately.  

Thxs again 

Hey I understand your pain, I just got  a plus because of the Netflix capabilities, well Netflix has stopped working all together, I can get as far as Netflix loading up and then it instantly errors out and says it cant connect, it was working fine but a couple of days ago it just stopped, I cant even get a code to authorize my device on Netflix anymore, got about 140 views on my post about the problem and no replies really, sent in an email to WD about the problem (as no one else is having this problem) and I’ll have to wait another couple days for a response probably, I planned on getting a box to play back my network shares and HD movies and the box works with everything else, so its not a huge deal about Netflix as I have a PS3 and 360 that it plays fine through, so its definitely a problem with WDs box and I hope they figure this stuff out as there seems to be lots of issues with these little things

64met wrote:

richUK, 

 

Thank you for responding… I plan on calling WD tomorrow (Monday) about this… Incredibly frustrating day yesterday.  Anyway, I am using the live plus connected composite right now and one thing I have noticed is although I am hard wired to my network- the plus takes several minutes to locate and play files.  Whereas, the Live connected immediately.  

 

Thxs again 

Are you going via network shares. If you are then instead of going from ‘network shares’ to ‘shared device’ immediately, pause on the shared device icon for about 5 secs and then enter. When you go from ‘network share’ to the ‘shared device’ icon there is some network actively which needs to take place before you carry on. Works for me.