Both Digital and HDMI Audio Output on WDTV Live Plus?

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Greetings,

I’ve recently purchased the Plus unit, and seem to have taken a step backwards in audio.

On the Live, I could ouput to HDMI to my TV and to digital audio to my surround unit at the same time. This doesn’t seem to be the case with the Plus. Any idea of this will be added, or did I just get lucky with my old unit?

Nifft

2

No, it should work on both outputs simultaneously…

3

Hmmm, when I play a movie with the audio setting at ‘digital,’ I can hear audio thru toslink to my surround, but nothing thru the HDMI to my TV.  So I should be hearing both with the Plus set on ‘digital?’

4

Ah…  There is a known issue with SURROUND on HDMI.   Not everyone is seeing that, though.   You might be one of the lucky few… :wink:

I’m betting it’ll work on both if you set the audio mode to STEREO (but then Surround won’t be surround anymore.)

5

Hi Nifft, 

I saw this same problem, and the solution is correct. Setting the HDMI audio to ‘Stereo’ will not affect the Optical output, so you can still get all forms of surround through your receiver.  You just won’t get phony “surround” through your  TV speakers.  (you didn’t want that anyway, did you?)

6

No, but he might want surround through HDMI instead (and it should work – my Plus does but as Tony says, not all of them do).

7

Thanks for the replies. Tried it again last night:

Audio set to Stereo:

Can hear stereo thru HDMI to TV speakers

Can hear stereo thru TOS to surround unit

Audio set to Digital:

Can hear 5.1 thru TOS to surround unit

No sound thru HDMI from TV speakers

From what I understand, selecting Digital should provide sound thru both HDMI and TOS at the same time, correct? That’s the way it worked on my WDTV Live.

Did I get a bad unit?

Nifft

8

No, that’s not *quite* true.

Selecting “digital” means that it passes through the audio track to whatever device it goes to.  The device has to have the ability to DECODE that audio track.  It’s quite possible your TV can’t decode a DTS or AC3 track you’re passing, in which case you would hear no sound.

Selecting “stereo” actually decodes the sound and sends it out “normally”.  So, the first thing you need to make sure of is that whatever you are playing has a normal, stereo track.  If it doesn’t (if it’s AC3 or DTS surround) you will not hear anything from your TV.

Or, try it this way – connect the HDMI only to your receiver (which apparently CAN decode properly) and choose “Digital” and if you hear sound then things are just fine.