I have had my unit for about 8 months now. It has been perfect.
But about a month ago, I started having problems. Videos would randomly stop playing in the middle of the movie. This got progressively worse. Then a few days ago, nothing would play from my local media. If you clicked on a video to play, it would act like it was buffering and then after a few minutes, it would start playing the video but it was playing very slow, as if it needed to buffer every 3 seconds.
Last night, I reset the device and then everything started working perfectly again. Any video I tried played fine. After watching some videos, I turned the unit off and went to bed.
Today, I tried to watch something and noticed all the text on the menus looking like **bleep**. Checked the TV and yep, it was in 480P. I went into the Settings of the WD Box and tried changing everything to Auto, but it stays in 480P. I can’t get it out of 480P. In addition, any video I play has no sound now. Also, randomly the screen gets a purplish hue. This goes away if I redo the video resolution settings.
I’ve tried resetting the device, rebooting the device, downgraded it, and upgraded it. Nothing has fixed it.
keep in mind it may be hooked up to recieve 1080p but unless the actual video is in 1080p format, you’re not actually watching it in 1080p. if it’s a video on your hard drive/computer then it’s most likely a very low resolution below 480P or 480i anyway.
I’ve been having the same sound issue. If I wiggle the hdmi cable and turn the tv off and back on it starts working again.
I think it’s a bad hdmi port.
the longer I have this thing the more things start showing up. I’m digging out my recipt as I sit here. because I’m taking it back to best buy today and buying something else. this thing is full of bugs and random issues.
Digital TV manufacturers recommend calibrating the digital TV HDMI port to the source device. Every digital TV comes with a HDMI port calibration setup. It is a simple matter of plugging in the WDTV Live to the digital TV HDMI port, using the remote control, going into the HDMI port setup and press calibrate. The digital TV HDMI port should synchronise with the WDTV Live splash screen signal. Then confirm that the WDTV Live is working correctly by playing a virgin rip DVD and bluray disk though the USB port using a USB hard drive.
If every TV has an HDMI setup, then I got short-changed on my hi-end, 2 yr old, 54" Panasonic plasma TV. There isn’t any sort of thing like you describe in the TV. Although, there are plenty of other adjustments available in it. Nevertheless, the HDMI inputs (5, and counting) into the set all work perfectly.
I have a 50” DVB-T Samsung Plasma TV; I had to calibrate all 4 HDMI ports before the WDTV Live worked correctly.
I know a guy who has a hi-end, 1 yr old, DVB-T 50" Panasonic Plasma TV. The WDTV live will handshake correctly with my 50” DVB-T Samsung Plasma TV and not with the DVB-T 50" Panasonic Plasma TV.
The HDMI port on the DVB-T 50" Panasonic Plasma TV works perfectly with a high end Pioneer bluray player. When the WDTV Live is plugged into the same HDMI port, the display on the DVB-T 50" Panasonic Plasma TV is faint and distorted. The WDTV Live GUI can be seen but not enough to read the text and permit navigation to the WDTV Live setup.
Due to time constraints we did not pursue the issue farther.
Can you explain why the WDTV Live works on the 50” DVB-T Samsung Plasma TV HDMI ports and not the DVB-T 50" Panasonic Plasma TV HDMI ports?
We could not try the other HDMI ports due to the DVB-T 50" Panasonic Plasma TV being solidly mounted inside a wooden cabinet.
Well, my first thought after reading the above is, “I’m glad I don’t have these problems.”
I have no idea why one works and the other doesn’t. I have no problems like this; anything with HDMI out to the TV “just works” Maybe it is because all the cables I use are of the same quality/model/brand, and they work, and add or subtract nothing. Some HDMI cables are connected to a 5-way switch box, and even that poses no problem. Most of my HDMI cables are v 1.3c, with a few v 1.4 included, too.
Can you tell me if you have heard of any problems with the units I mention below, as I have no issues?
My 54" Panasonic plasma, is a 2010 model Viera TC-P54V10 , the blu-ray is same vintage Panasonic, DMP-60. The other HDMI-out components connected to TV are: Live Plus, three different models of Roku over the years, and a same vintage as TV, Toshiba DVR,DR-570. Of course, the Comcast Motorola cable box/DVR is connected via HDMI. Then, there is a collection of older connectors: composite, component and S-video units connected. Everything works, and I am happy.
My Panasonic Plasma TV does NOT have an HDMI calibration mode. In fact, I would say that most TVs do not have an HDMI calibration mode. Perhaps some newer TVs might have that, but I never heard of an HDMI calibration mode until panoguy started posting about it in several threads here. No one else but panoguy has ever mentioned HDMI calibration mode.
My Panasonic Plasma TV does NOT have an HDMI calibration mode. In fact, I would say that most TVs do not have an HDMI calibration mode. Perhaps some newer TVs might have that, but I never heard of an HDMI calibration mode until panoguy started posting about it in several threads here. No one else but panoguy has ever mentioned HDMI calibration mode.
Same goes for my Panasonic TV. Nevertheless, perhaps the HDMI calibration control is inside the TV where us mortals should not enter.
The best way I found to adjust/“calibrate” my TV was to find the review of my model at cNET where the geeks there fiddle with all the controls and publish their suggested “best settings”. I printed out those settings and adjusted my TV to them. They produced a great picture, and I only made some minor tweaks to those settings to suit our tastes and room lighting situation.
