Can't play VOB's or ISO's. Avi's have audio sync issues

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Is there some reason that ISO’s or VOB’s won’t play?    They are not protected content and I’m sure my buddy with the same HD TB Live player has no problem with VOB’s and ISO’s.

Is there a setting or something I am missing.   

Avi’s have audio sync issues where the dialogue does not match what is happening on the screen.

2

You don’t give much info.

Across a network or from WD’s usb ?

Can you see the files in the folder ?

Do you get a message “no media in folder” ?

Both files can be played.

3

I have the same problem with avi audio-sync.

At the start of the movie it is ok but in the course of the movie it is getting out of sync.

Adjusting with the left or right arrowkey on the remote control has no effect.

My firmwareversion is 1.0.11.

4

Try “Reset to factory defaults” in Settings / System settings. I guess it’s because some DVD feature (e.g. multi angle) is poorly implemented and the decoding circuit gets hang when you play or scroll through such things. I already contacted WD support about this issue and waiting their response.

5

I did a reset but it has no effect. Still the same problem.

6

Sorry if that was not clear, but I answered the first part:  “Can’t play VOB’s or ISO’s.” The audio sync cannot be cured by a factory resetting in my opinion.

Now the support has answered and surprised me a little bit:

Dear Laszlo,Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is Nestor V.I truly apologize for the inconvenience you are currently experiencing. The WDTV does not support ISO format, you must convert the file to a supported format in order to be displayed at the WDTV. Please see below the supported formats:http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735

So there’s no ISO support in WD TV Live. What the heck? Now I checked the package and true, there’s no ISO enlisted in the video formats. Anyway, in the shop I bought, it was there.

I am pretty sure the same would happen if I play the same DVD from within the VIDEO_TS folder. It must be something related to DVD features, rather than the ISO format, I guess.

7

I had issues with VOB files either not playing video or  audio that got a little better if I cycled the power.  I called in with the complaint and was told to hard reset the device by holding the reset button for 5 seconds.  It’s the little hole next to the side USB port.   Use a paper clip.  That fixed a lot.  The audio channels are still a little scrambled in that when it says English I often get something else but at least English is there somewhere.  Unfortunately the reset drops all your network settings and other things you’ve entered.  Hopefully this isn’t something I have to do again.  Oddly it doesn’t revert the software version.  I guess that’s why they can be turned into bricks if you get a bad load.

8

I play both ISO and VOB files on a WDBAAN0000NBK-NESN.  They work for me other than the audio channels sometimes being labeled wrong.  I have upgraded the device to .17 but I seem to remember that they worked from the start.  You are correct that the docs don’t list VOB or ISO but they do list AVI and I’ve never gotten a simple AVI right from my Canon camera to work.  I think this is Microsoft style software:  somethings work; somethings don’t.  WD is waiting for us to tell them which do and which don’t.

9

LazaHu wrote:

Sorry if that was not clear, but I answered the first part:  “Can’t play VOB’s or ISO’s.” The audio sync cannot be cured by a factory resetting in my opinion.

 

Now the support has answered and surprised me a little bit:

Dear Laszlo,Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is Nestor V.I truly apologize for the inconvenience you are currently experiencing. The WDTV does not support ISO format, you must convert the file to a supported format in order to be displayed at the WDTV. Please see below the supported formats:All Products: Shop Hard Drives, SSDs, USBs, & Memory Cards | Western Digital

So there’s no ISO support in WD TV Live. What the heck? Now I checked the package and true, there’s no ISO enlisted in the video formats. Anyway, in the shop I bought, it was there.

 

I am pretty sure the same would happen if I play the same DVD from within the VIDEO_TS folder. It must be something related to DVD features, rather than the ISO format, I guess.

I’ve burnt my dvd’s to iso files and they play perfectly.

If your OS is Vista, copy a video file to Public Videos or XP to Shared Folders and try to play.

10

Well page 8 of the WDTV live shows ISO as a playable container. (under Video Container in the table it shows VOB/ISO/IFO)

Obviously WD support has no idea about their own products,

11

I gues they have removed it after they noticed the problems with the ISO playback.

12

LazaHu wrote:

I gues they have removed it after they noticed the problems with the ISO playback.

I doubt that. If they removed everything they had problems with there would be nothing left!!

13

I agree with LazaHu.  I have hundreds of ISO, MPG & AVI files which do not play now.  The only format I can get to play is MKV.

What in the he!! did you do to my WD TV Live WD with the new firmware!!!  I’m flashing back to the prior firmware.  No problems at all before this terrible new firmware was pushed.

/disgruntled.

14

In an effort to flash my WD TV Live back to 1.01.11 I fixed the issue with the media types being unplayable.

I did a soft reset and then a hard reset and it corrected the issue. 

To do a soft reset go into the Settings and choose to Reset Factory Defaults.

To do a hard reset power the WD TV Live unit off by removing the power cable and hold the reset button in for 5+ seconds.  The reset button is located on the side of the unit next to USB1 port.

After I powered mine back on I was pleasantly surprised to find out the issue was resolved.  I can now play MPG, AVI, ISO and MKVs. 

1 Like
15

I have been playing ISOs all along, but you need to run them through software that takes encryption out of them (like AnyDVD) before they can be read by the WDTV.  If I ever can’t read ISOs or MKVs, I might as well use the box for skeet shooting target practice.

16

You have some pretty conflicting posts Democritus…

“I am speaking of old functionality that was stripped out in current firmware, such as USB Hub support, ISO support, the breaking of MP4 support (et cetera).”

In that post you’re saying ISO support is gone and now your saying that you’ve been playing ISOs all along? Which is it? I play ISOs just fine. Although the Gen1 doesn’t support ISOs less than ~30min, my Gen2 is just fine.

17

you have to extract the iso just like an rar file, then you’ll have the video files wihch can be played thru the WD Player

18

I have updated my WDTV Live to Release 1.01.24 (2/9/10) and have no issues playing decrypted VOB/ISO containers .

19

Let me explain what I figured.

Some DVD features are not supported by the chipset, like multi-angle. This feature is used for displaying texts (like a newspaper headline) in different languages, mostly in animation films. Unfortunately when WD HD Live bumps into this, instead of playing the first angle at normal pace, it scrolls through the scene rapidly while showing some random stills. It will still not hang the unit, only when you try to fast forward such a scene. You don’t even notice there was a multi-angle scene, just get a blank screen when you want to return to normal speed. And from this point you cannot play VOB or ISO files until you do a soft reset.

It doesn’t depend on the firmware version - as far as I remember the bug still exists in the current version. Maybe this is something cannot be cured with a firmware patch. (?)

For example I tried 2 DVD rippers to decrypt my Wall-E DVD (legal copy) both ended up in the same crappy result. I had the same problem with some 1-2 other films, but most of the ISO’s play well.