Cracky sound with mkv and ac3

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

i have mkv’s (all are old like batman - all the 3 of burton’s and trainspotting) that have ac3 sound, and the sound is cracky when comes out from the speakers, seround dosen’t work, R+CENTER+L are cracky as hell, can’t put volume.

my reciever (pioneer elite sc-07) shows its dolby digital. on my mac its sounds good. i’m using the output from HDMI.

2

So you’re using “digital” as your sound settings on the Live for surround sound and not “stereo”, correct?

If you don’t have this issue with other MKVs I’d suspect an encoding problem – as usual, the gold standard is Handbrake with the High Profile preset (but change output type to MKV and passthrough the AC3 tracks).  Just re-encode and you should be fine (but start with the original source again – do it straight from the DVDs).

3

thats weird cuz on the mac its sounds good, only on the tv the front speakers makes an echo sound and the center makes all the sounds from there and cracky ones…

i do not have the source, just the mkv, can i do anything with that?

4

You didn’t answer me as to how you were set – “stereo” or “digital” on the Live.  If you are playing it “stereo” it’s mixing down channels (assuming it’s 5.1) and that might account for the issue.  Try “digital”.

Playing it elsewhere doesn’t really tell us anything – the Live is the Live, and it behaves the way it does.  And we cannot advise you on material you have obtained from sources you do not own.

5

its on digital, sorry for not making that clear, so what shall i do?

6

As I said, the likelihood is they were encoded badly.  Get the source, legitimately, and re-encode yourself.

As always, the gold standard is Handbrake (freeware) using the High Profile preset (but change the output type to MKV and pass through any AC3 or DTS tracks).  That will play correctly.