I have an external WD 1TB drive attached to my WD TV Live box. It plays the video of all formats just fine but the audio of some .avi files skips. There is an audio break of about 1/2 second every 3 to 8 seconds. If I plug the drive into my Dell laptop the same video files play just fine. If I copy the same video files to a USB stick they play better but the skips are there just further apart. Firmware has been updated to latest. I have played around with all the audio options…no difference. It is connected via HDMI to a new Sony Bravia tv.
Post mediainfo of the files.
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en
Make sure you untick the boxes to stop the install of the ‘added’ software.
Below is the MediaInfo output.
General
Complete name : C:\Users\Earl\Desktop\allo.allo.s08e00.xmas.special.dvdrip.xvid-nodlabs.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 348 MiB
Duration : 44mn 12s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 102 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2540/release
Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : 2
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 44mn 12s
Bit rate : 957 Kbps
Width : 512 pixels
Height : 384 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.195
Stream size : 303 MiB (87%)
Writing library : XviD 1.2.0.dev47 (UTC 2006-11-01)
Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 44mn 12s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 132 Kbps
Minimum bit rate : 32.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 41.7 MiB (12%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.60 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 145 ms
Writing library : LAME3.97
Encoding settings : -m j -V 5 -q 3 -lowpass 16 --vbr-old -b 32
In addion there are a couple of other formats that skip as well such as mp4 and mkv although less frequently. I am sure it is something in the audio prtion of the file somehow.
Your file appears to be an ‘internet download’ and it has been found that these files are encoded in strange ways.
So why do the play fine on my computer but not the WD Live box? I have even tried recoding them with both the default settings and reduced audio rate using both Avidemux and Any Video Converter. Same results.
There is a huge difference between software and hardware players. Some software players like VLC can still play broken files. You could try making them into an mkv file with mkvmerge, its quick and easy.
Nope, didn’t work.
Below is the MediaInfo output of the new file and below that is a file that does work:
General
Unique ID : 254242327110128980233968933253298826267 (0xBF454A84F417B96AB52F332C8C74AC1B)
Complete name : F:\Allo Allo\Allo Allo Season 8\allo.allo.s08e00.xmas.special.dvdrip.xvid-nodlabs.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
File size : 345 MiB
Duration : 44mn 12s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 091 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-02-22 21:41:31
Writing application : mkvmerge v5.9.0 (‘On The Loose’) built on Dec 9 2012 15:37:01
Writing library : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.0
Video
ID : 1
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : V_MS/VFW/FOURCC / XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 44mn 12s
Bit rate : 937 Kbps
Width : 512 pixels
Height : 384 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.191
Stream size : 296 MiB (86%)
Writing library : XviD 1.2.0.dev47 (UTC 2006-11-01)
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Audio
ID : 2
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : A_MPEG/L3
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 44mn 12s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 132 Kbps
Minimum bit rate : 32.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 41.7 MiB (12%)
Writing library : LAME3.97
Encoding settings : -m j -V 5 -q 3 -lowpass 16 --vbr-old -b 32
Default : Yes
Forced : No
General
Complete name : F:\NCIS L.A\Season 3\NCIS Los Angeles S03E16.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 350 MiB
Duration : 42mn 15s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 157 Kbps
Writing application : transcode-1.0.6
Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : 2
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 42mn 15s
Bit rate : 1 001 Kbps
Width : 624 pixels
Height : 352 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.190
Stream size : 302 MiB (86%)
Writing library : XviD 1.2.1 (UTC 2008-12-04)
Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 42mn 15s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 145 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 43.4 MiB (12%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.58 video frame)
Writing library : LAME3.99r
Encoding settings : -m j -V 4 -q 3 -lowpass 17.5 --abr 145
Further details on this issue:
I reverted to an earlier version of the firmware: no change
Did a factory reset: no change
Upgraded to newest firmware: no change
Now all formats are doing the sound skip thing.
I ripped a DVD movie from one I had kicking around…same issue.
I played a movie that played fine a couple of weeks ago, it now skips.
I am beginning to think this is now a hardware issue. This device is virtually unusable now.
