Few seconds of garbled sound then silence (FLAC 2.0)

Community Archives WD TV Live Firmware
1

Hello, I’m currently using firmware 1.05.04_V and found that while I have no problems with playback with the first 2 files posted below, the third and fourth one only give few seconds of sound at the start (but very choppy and completely out of sync, with frequent cut offs) and then absolute silence. Now I know WD TV Live doesn’t support FLAC 5.1 but this is FLAC 2.0! this should playback just fine right?

My WD TV Live is accessing a Win7 share by gigabit ethernet feeding the stream directly to my TV through HDMI. So fairly simple setup. Both files play just fine in Media Player Classic. My first guess would be the muxer version (the ones that work are > 4.0) but remuxing the ones that don’t work with a newer version of mkvmerge doesn’t work either.

Is it some setting I’m missing or is this a “bug” ?

   Working

General
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.94 GiB
Duration : 48mn 20s
Overall bit rate : 5 748 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-09-03 15:04:43
Writing application : mkvmerge v4.2.0 ('No Talking') built on Jul 29 2010 11:34:44
Writing library : libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0.0
Attachment : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 48mn 20s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 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
Writing library : x264 core 88 r1462 7fcffde
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.80:0.20 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Audio
ID : 2
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Codec ID : A_FLAC
Duration : 48mn 20s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Title : 2.0 FLAC
Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.0 (UTC 2007-07-15)

   Working

General
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 2.26 GiB
Duration : 48mn 19s
Overall bit rate : 6 707 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-07-27 17:54:03
Writing application : mkvmerge v4.1.1 ('Bouncin' Back') built on Jul 3 2010 22:54:08
Writing library : libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0.0
Attachment : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 48mn 19s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 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
Writing library : x264 core 102 r1666 d058f37
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.80:0.20 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=1 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Audio
ID : 2
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Codec ID : A_FLAC
Duration : 48mn 19s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Title : 2.0 FLAC
Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.0 (UTC 2007-07-15)

   Not Working

General
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.97 GiB
Duration : 48mn 20s
Overall bit rate : 5 846 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-05-27 00:45:48
Writing application : mkvmerge v3.4.0 ('Rapunzel') built on May 15 2010 09:38:20
Writing library : libebml v0.8.0 + libmatroska v0.9.0
Attachment : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 48mn 20s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 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
Writing library : x264 core 94 r1583 7608d73
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.80:0.20 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Audio
ID : 2
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Codec ID : A_FLAC
Duration : 48mn 20s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Title : 2.0 FLAC
Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)

   Not Working

General
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.97 GiB
Duration : 48mn 20s
Overall bit rate : 5 846 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-05-27 00:45:48
Writing application : mkvmerge v3.4.0 ('Rapunzel') built on May 15 2010 09:38:20
Writing library : libebml v0.8.0 + libmatroska v0.9.0
Attachment : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 48mn 20s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 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
Writing library : x264 core 94 r1583 7608d73
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.80:0.20 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Audio
ID : 2
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Codec ID : A_FLAC
Duration : 48mn 20s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Title : 2.0 FLAC
Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
2

As per user manual,  if you are using the video container, MKV, the supported audio track are:

MPEG Audio

PCM

Dolby Digital

DTS

 AAC

FLAC is not supported. In my experiences with my WD TV, I have learned that if a code is not supported, the play back will be erratic. I have movies with same audio track, they play perfectly, I restart the WD TV and they do not play at all.

3

Ah ok! Since the first one played perfectly I tought that flac was supported (my bad should’ve check the official specs). I guess I have a feature request then :slight_smile: Thanks!