AVI Files Stutter After Latest Firmware Update (1.04.31_V)

Hi everyone,

I recently updated my WD TV Live player to firmware version 1.04.31_V and noticed that any AVI video now played stutters and has no audio.

When playing MKV files I have no issues at all.

I don’t believe that this is related to the encoding of the AVI files in any way as I’ve tried many different AVI’s to no avail.

I’m connecting to the video files over a wired network to a samba share on an iMac running Snow Leopard.

Anyone have any thoughts? I’ve tried resetting to factory settings and that’s done nothing for me.

Someone on AVSforums mentioned this too but my AVIs still run fine, even with dual language.

Yep, every AVI file I have tried stutters for me as well. Something is not right after the last firmware update.

I have also been having this exact problem, since updating the firmware. My WD TV Live Plus connects via samba to a drive on my mac, and it can no longer play any of the .avi files I have played (successfully, in the past) without stuttering horribly — the videos are essentially slideshows.

It’s driving me crazy.

So do all of you have trouble with playback over network? Cause playback from my attached USB HDD works just fine.

Im the same with this update, playing over network.

i have the same issue, but for some reason when i use my mac on the wireless setup it works perfect i can play all the files

So, it’d be awesome if we could get some official fix, or even acknowledgement of this problem… I still haven’t found a way to play almost any .avi files over a network share with any sort of acceptable results.

However, in the meantime, I’ve rolled back my firmware all the way back to 1.03.49_B (using this page: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5800/~/how-to-roll-back-the-firmware-on-a-wd-tv-live-hd-media-player-or-wd-tv-live)) and it fixed it.

It **bleep**, because I’m missing a lot of the awesome new features that have been introduced, like Netflix search support. On the other hand, I can actually watch videos… which is a plus.

Hello,

when playing VOB files over the network it stutters with firmare 1.04.31. With the firmware 1.3.49 everything is fine.

Question to WD: When can we download a correct firmware?

Regards

Klaus

Thanks for providing link to roll back firmware, will make my brick useful again and not cause an RMA.  Amazing they do not test baisc functions after firmware updates.  Had unplugged it and threw it in a corner and hooked a pc back up tot he tv to watch videos again.  Not sure if I willpurchase the other two units I was planningon buying now though, seems as though WD is not sure what they are doing in the least.

AVI is a container.  The important information is the combination of Video and Audio codecs used, since this is not affecting everyone.

Anyone experiencing playback issues needs to download MediaInfo and post the full text output of an AVI file they can confirm 100% will not play properly that will play on an older firmware.

That information will give the WD engineers something to work with.  

Out of curiosity, are any / all of you enabling AutoFramerate Matching?  I’ve had issues with that in the past and leave it off… may be worth trying?

AutoFramerate Matching wasn’t enabled unless it came set that way when I upgraded — I definitely didn’t turn it on.

It looks like the AVI files that I was trying to play were all similarly encoded: XVID video, MP3 audio. Here’s the output for a couple of sample files.

FILE 1:

****************************

Format                           : AVI
Format/Info                      : Audio Video Interleave
File size                        : 233 MiB
Duration                         : 28mn 50s
Overall bit rate                 : 1 129 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            : Yes
Format settings, QPel            : No
Format settings, GMC             : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix          : Default (H.263)
Codec ID                         : XVID
Codec ID/Hint                    : XviD
Duration                         : 28mn 50s
Bit rate                         : 985 Kbps
Width                            : 624 pixels
Height                           : 352 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
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)               : 0.179
Stream size                      : 203 MiB (87%)
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
Mode extension                   : MS Stereo
Codec ID                         : 55
Codec ID/Hint                    : MP3
Duration                         : 28mn 49s
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                      : 27.1 MiB (12%)
Alignment                        : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration             : 24 ms (0.60 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration     : 580 ms
Writing library                  : LAME3.98r
Encoding settings                : -m j -V 5 -q 2 -lowpass 16.5 --vbr-new -b 32

FILE 2:

***********************************

Format                           : AVI
Format/Info                      : Audio Video Interleave
File size                        : 351 MiB
Duration                         : 40mn 37s
Overall bit rate                 : 1 208 Kbps
Writing application              : Some super fast AVI muxer

Video
ID                               : 0
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                         : XVID
Codec ID/Hint                    : XviD
Duration                         : 40mn 37s
Bit rate                         : 1 044 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)               : 0.198
Stream size                      : 303 MiB (86%)
Writing library                  : XviD 70

Audio
ID                               : 1
Format                           : MPEG Audio
Format version                   : Version 1
Format profile                   : Layer 3
Codec ID                         : 55
Codec ID/Hint                    : MP3
Duration                         : 38mn 8s
Bit rate mode                    : Variable
Bit rate                         : 147 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Stream size                      : 42.9 MiB (12%)
Alignment                        : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration             : 24 ms (0.58 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration     : 46 ms

If I had to guess, I’d point at the VBR encoding of the audio… it’s one of the known issues that causes many AVIs to be problematic on many players, including set-top boxes.  The other settings seem like the files “should” play, as far as I can see.

But on the other hand, many of my .avi files that play fine are VBR, so it might be the actual VBR bitrate that’s causing problems.

I’m starting to think I have a magic WDTV though :wink:, because when I was looking through files I know play well, I see:

Format                           : AVI
Format/Info                      : Audio Video Interleave
File size                        : 350 MiB
Duration                         : 21mn 47s
Overall bit rate                 : 2 246 Kbps
Writing application              : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 (build 2439/release)
Writing library                  : VirtualDubMod build 2439/release

Video
ID                               : 0
Format                           : MPEG-4 Visual
Format settings, BVOP            : 1
Format settings, QPel            : Yes
Format settings, GMC             : 2 warppoints
Format settings, Matrix          : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode                      : Packed bitstream
Codec ID                         : DX50
Codec ID/Hint                    : DivX 5
Duration                         : 21mn 47s
Bit rate                         : 2 046 Kbps
Width                            : 624 pixels
Height                           : 464 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 4:3
Frame rate                       : 29.970 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.236
Stream size                      : 319 MiB (91%)
Writing library                  : DivX 5.2.1 (WaffleDay) (UTC 2004-09-08)

Audio
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AC-3
Format/Info                      : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                   : CM (complete main)
Codec ID                         : 2000
Duration                         : 21mn 47s
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 192 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L R
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                        : 16 bits
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Stream size                      : 29.9 MiB (9%)
Alignment                        : Split accross interleaves
Interleave, duration             : 80 ms (2.40 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration     : 80 ms

Ya, this particular one is CBR AC-3 and not VBR MP3, but the QPel, Packed and Warppoints all seem to cause others endless headaches from what I’ve seen.