DTS-HD Master Audio?

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Hi,

I’m new to the WD TV Live.

Problem is, that my AV-Receiver does not get a DTS-HD MA signal, neither from HDMI nor the digital output. I unsuccessfully tried several m2ts-files.

Is my device defect??

Thanks.

2

See here:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/DTS-HD-Master-becomming-High-Def-standard/m-p/23895

http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/Does-the-Live-actually-play-HD-sound/m-p/14573

Plus these in the ideas forum

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Ideas/DTS-HD-MA-Passthrough/idi-p/33917

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Ideas/HD-Audio-Support/idi-p/92

3

Thanks.

But What??

A HD-Player , that does not simply outputs the HD-Audio bitstream? And explicitly advertises with DTS support?

That’s a joke!

4

It does have DTS certification.   According to DTS’s own website, “DTS” means 5.1.    It is a different thing than DTS-HD.

According to Western Digital, the DTS says you won’t find anything but a hardware BD player that supports DTS-HD output.

5

Jones wrote:

That’s a joke!

As Tony writes, that’s DTS’ call, not WD’s.  None of the Sigma chips for media players (or the other manufacturers’ chips) will support DTS-HD.  Sigma only offers DTS-HD on their Blu-Ray player boards, for building Blu-Ray disc players.  DTS won’t let Sigma (as of this writing) add DTS-HD support to any of the non BD-player applications.

6

It is (un)fortunately available in other products.

The popcorn A-200 (Sigma Designs SMP8643) officially supports HD audio as a pass-through bitstream. I have seen / heard it myself with a 1:1 m2ts BD file.

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=productspec&item_id=20

Is the A-200 “better” than the Live? -who knows… It also has a fair share of FW issues and format compatibility problems, and it cost almost double. When I need a second media player, I may get the popcorn for my main HT, and ‘demote’ the Live to another room…

Cheers,

BR

7

As you say its twice the price of the WDTV and for that you get HD audio. You pay for what you get.

8

The thing I find *real* interesting is that most of the people complaining about lack of DTS-HD audio are young folks who (and I am making an assumption here, but based on long experience on the Apple forums) don’t even think twice about using MP3 files which are compressed MUCH further than the core DTS track the Live *will* play out of the DTS-HD stream.

I’ve gotten to the (old man) point where I can’t really hear a difference in DTS-HD versus the DTS core and I doubt in A/B tests whether most folks would either.