Shortly after I posted, a forum moderator arranged for a WD customer service rep to contact me. In the interest of anyone else experiencing the same problem and searching the posts for a solution, I plan to post whatever feedback I get.
The following is the detail I provided to WD:
"The media player I own is:
WD TV Live Streaming Media Player (Gen 3 2011 NTSC)
P/N: WDBHG70000NBK-01
S/N: [Deleted]
Firmware: 2.02.32
The Audio/Video setup I use is:
Video Output: HDMI (Auto)
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen
Audio Output: Digital Pass-Through via HDMI Only
Auto Detect
Dolby Digital Channel: 6 Sample: 32 44 48 88 96
Dolby Digital Plus Channel: 8 Sample: 32 44 48 88 96
DTS Channel: 7 Sample: 32 44 48 88 96
Dolby TrueHD Channel: 8 Sample: 32 44 48 88 96
PCM Channel: 8 Sample: 32 44 48 88 96
HDMI CEC: On
DD Dynamic Range Control: Off
The media player is connected to a Pioneer VSX-1123-K AV Receiver, which supports the above audio media streams.
The media file I am using to test the media player surround sound support is a 24 bit 48 kHz WAV (PCM) file obtained from http://www.jensign.com/bdp95/7dot1voiced/. The characteristics of the file as displayed by MediaInfo are:
Format : Wave
File size : 7.46 MiB
Duration : 9s 49ms
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 6 913 Kbps
Audio
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 00001000-0000-0100-8000-00AA00389B71
Duration : 9s 49ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 6 912 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Back: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 7.46 MiB (100%)
When this file is processed by the media player, the AV receiver recognizes an incoming PCM stream and the correct channel/speaker output sequence is heard:
Channel 1 2 3 4 5 6
WAV FL FR C LFE BL BR
When I convert this file to FLAC using libFLAC 1.3.0, the characteristics of the FLAC file as displayed by MediaInfo are:
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
File size : 332 KiB
Duration : 9s 49ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 300 Kbps
Audio
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Duration : 9s 49ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 293 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Back: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 323 KiB (98%)
Writing library : libFLAC 1.3.0 (UTC 2013-05-26)
Further, viewing this file in Audacity confirms that the correct channel/speaker relationship has been maintained.
When this file is processed by the media player, the AV receiver again recognizes the PCM stream, but this time the channel/speaker output sequence is in error:
Channel 1 2 3 4 5 6
FLAC FL FR BL BR C LFE
(Another indicator that the WAV to FLAC conversion was accurate, if the FLAC file is converted back to a WAV file and since this is a lossless process, the resultant WAV file is processed correctly by the media player.)
It isn’t clear from the WD Community posts that I was able to find, if this is an error with the WD TV Live firmware, or if the WD TV live just doesn’t support FLAC surround sound files period.
Another surround sound audio file error that I have experienced, which may or may not be related, is that 5.0 WAV files are processed and sent to the AV receiver as stereo files. It isn’t clear from my AV receiver display whether it is receiving a stereo PCM stream or some other format. I haven’t done enough tests to determine if the multiple channels have been mixed together or if the receiver is only receiving two channels, and which ones. If you wish I can submit that problem as a separate problem."
I received a form letter advising me that the information would be passed on to WD engineers but that there was no guarantee if or when a solution would be made available. I received no feedback whether the WD TV Live was designed to support FLAC multi-channel and this was a firmware problem, or if the device just wasn’t designed with this feature.
ndjamena:
As you can see from the Mediainfo listings, the channel/speaker layout appears to be the same in the original WAV and the converted FLAC file. I thought that maybe the absence of a channel mask in the tag of the original FLAC created was an issue so I added what I believe was the correct channel mask for a 5.1 mapping but that did not change any of the results.
On the surface, it looks like the WD TV Live reads the FLAC file, and then streams the PCM content to the HDMI output with the channel/speaker relationship in the wrong sequence.
