No Dolby Digital Through Optical Port

[#1]

Date: 04/29/12

Hardware: WD Live SMP (Gen 3) purchased Nov/Dec 2011.

Audio Setup WDLive -> Pioneer DD AVR via Monster TosLink Digital Audio Optical Cable;

Video Setup: WDLive -> Hitachi Ultravision HDTV via Monster HDMI cable. Note TV is somewhat older, it only supports resolutions up to 1080i

Issue: I cannot , no matter how hard I try or what settings I make, get Dolby Digital sound out of the Optical Port.

The WDLive SMP Audio is set to Optical Pass through to a Dolby Digital receiver - which I know works fine

The best sound I can seem to ever get with this box through my AVR is Dolby Pro Logic.... and I only get that when I set the Audio output to Stereo.

Which firmware were you using? 1.07.15 (Latest as of this writing)

What exactly happened? I connected the WD Live SMP to my Pioneer Dolby Digital AVR with an Optical Cable, I set the Audio Output to be Optical Pass through to a Dolby Digital receiver and I get no sound... At all.

What you were doing? Trying to watch a movie with Dolby Digital surround sound

What hardware and media were you using? WD LIVE SMP, Monster TosLink Digital Audio Optical Cable, Pioneer DD AVR, VOB files (movie)

Does it happen every time? Yes. It does not matter if I do a hard reset, factory soft reset or turn the device on/off.

Does it happen with previous firmware? The same thing happens will all firmware versions from 1.07.15 down to, *but not including* version 1.03.10. Interestingly enough, version 1.03.10 *always* works perfectly!  I can downgrade from any newer version of firmware to 1.03.10 at any time and DD on my AVR returns! As soon as I upgrade... Its gone again. I perform all three types of resets (button, factory and on/off) to no avail. I have tried this downgrade/ upgrade/ downgrade multiple times with identical results - DD on 1.03.10, no DD on 1.04.12, 1.05.18, 1.06.04 and 1.07.15.

Does power cycling the unit solve it? No

Does resetting to factory defaults solve it? No

Have you tried this on other devices? Yes. I have another WD Live SMP (Gen 3). Works identically.

[#2]

have always had this issue with my wdtv also.  my 5 year old popcorn hour can manage optical passthrough without any issues using same reciever

[#3]

Have had a similar issue with my SMP with any firmware newer than 1.04.

SMP connected via optical to my Sony receiver and no audio output when set to passthrough and DD and DTS set to enabled in settings.

Have confirmed this issue with each subsequent firmware release as well. Downgrading back to 1.04.12 always fixes the problem for me.

[#4]

Same issue for me. DD5,1 works in 1.04.12 but not on newer firmwares.

My reciever is a Sony STR-DB940

[#5]

Hi,

We have another thread opened related to Optical out.
As you can see, we were ok on FW 1.04.12. Later we have problems.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Issue/FW-1-05-18-No-DTS-nor-Dolby-Digital-on-Optica...

Best regards

[#6]

Unless this has not been fixed with the current firmware, we will close this issue out due to its age.