No audio via digital in .mov files with AC3 or DTS

I have a new WD TV Live, Gen 3, with 1.15.10 firmware installed.  My library has a large number of .mov files that were created from a Hauppauge HD-PVR and HDPVR Capture software on a Mac.  These files all have AC3 audio and H264 video.  I also have .mov files created using MakeMKV (with the audio and video files moved to .mov contaners later) with DTS audio.   None will play back with sound through the WD TV.  I have tried both HDMI and Optical outputs, running through a Pioneer 912 receiver that has decoded both AC3 and DTS from these files without issue before.  I have set the Audio Output setting to Digital Pass-Through accordlingly for both HDMI and Optical, but still no sound.

The WD TV Live is connected directly to a Panasonic plasma TV via HDMI (I tried going through the Pioneer receiver, but the HDMI handshake is not reliable), with optical cable going to the Pioneer receiver.

Please advise, I bought this box because of its “it’ll play anything” reputation.  I can provide sample files if needed.

Thanks…

Correction:  that’s a Pioneer 921 receiver, not a 912…

AC3 & DTS in a .MOV container is not  “Standard” 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats

provide “samples” anyway, so we can test/confirm

Thanks, Mediafire links okay?

Here’s a sample with AC3:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/v4hre2h25b96c1b/Sample.mov

Here’s a more represenative AC3 file (most do not contain a dac3 atom):

http://www.mediafire.com/download/qizf36mndn182az/AC3+sample+%28better%29.mov

… and here’s a DTS sample:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5b5b5cy8go59ag1/DTS+sample.mov

Thanks again…

Hi, auburn3020

Thanks for the samples … Unfortunately none of them have sound through optical audio output

I remuxed all of them with ’ mkvmerge’ and got a number of warnings (particularly with the DTS sample)

Remuxed MOV to MKV results:

Sample.mkv … has sound now     http://www.mediafire.com/watch/n4kmz482102514n/Sample.mkv

AC3 sample (better).mkv … has sound now    http://www.mediafire.com/watch/7vnip2jmnpsuwk1/AC3_sample_(better).mkv

DTS sample.mkv … NO Sound even after remuxing

 

It’s not the WD or Pioneer that’s the problem … it’s an incompatible audio/video file format container that’s at fault

 

mkvmerge will ‘fix it’ in most cases (you won’t lose any picture/audio quality remuxing … and it’s a quick process)

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks.

Obviously having these audio types in a .mov is an out-of-spec variant (even though Apple itself puts AC3 streams in .mov containers for stuff they sell through iTunes–they don’t follow their own spec), but all these files are fully playable as-is in VLC or Plex, or in Quicktime/Front Row with Perian installed.  I’ve been using them for years.  

I’ll have to return the WD TV, unfortunately.

I thought iTunes videos came in M4V format, which is a specific variant of MP4 to allow AC3.

I used Super C media converter (which is free, and for Windows) to bulk convert a bunch of MOV files that weren’t playing and also converted a couple MP4 files that weren’t playing also.  After that…no problems.

Took about 20 hours, but I just found the right format to convert to and didn’t require any user interaction once I got the first one done.

I ran across this tool, may try to re-containerize some sample files to .mp4 (and/or rename the output file to .m4v) as an experiement (although as noted, the mp4 spec also doesn’t officially support either AC3 or DTS):

http://sourceforge.net/projects/containerswitch/

So why not simply go with MKV as a container?

Beyond not wanting to remux several hundred files, the other TV in the house is running Front Row, which doesn’t play well with MKV.

But it does run out of specs MP4s?