I am hopelessly clueless about these techy video/audio issues. I just like to buy the item, plug it up and move on with the rest of my life. But I bought this item (WD TV Live Streaming Player - lastest one i guess) to play my mkv movies. Imagine my great diappointment when none of them had any sound. I combed these and other boards for assistance and all I found were a bunch of very knowledgeable but impatient guys telling you about this codec, About DTS something-or-the-other, Popcorn MKC Converter or something, post the log of something, etc, etc. It gave me a headache. So I tried something out:
I have long used Format Factory for EVERYTHING - mostly hard-coding subs to my movies. Well guess what - it will also change the audio to AC3. I know, I know - it takes forever (i just let it run overnight). But so what, at least I can now play my MKV files without a hitch.
Format Factory is very user friendly - even a simpleton like me gets it.
I NEVER post on these boards but I feel sorry for that poor non-electronic genius person perusing these boards for help and all they get is this techy talk that might as well be Latin. Just use Format Factory, make sure you go into options and use the drop-down box by audio and set it to AC3, let it do its thing and voila - play your MKV file without all the headache of Popkorn MKV converter, codecs, logs, whatever, whatever.
Not sure what audio issue you had with DTS. the WD plays every MKV I have on my network(like 6TB worth). It plays AC3 DTS, even TruHD. True it will only play DTSHD core and not 7.1 channel, but that still significantly better than AC3.
The only Audio I’ve found so far it won’t deal with properly is 7.1 channel FLAC. The Channels are all messed up on that.
I specifically bought this this device so that I never have to convert an MKV or it’s audio to any other format.
The WD Community is provided to our users and customers and is not intended for the promotion of third party services, products, websites or organizations.
The WD Community is provided to our users and customers and is not intended for the promotion of third party services, products, websites or organizations.
However it is useful to name certain products that help out users such as mediainfo, handbrake plus media servers etc. This could also be considered to be useful to some people even though I believe it is written in the style of an advert by a person who only joined to post this information. Format factory is freeware and therefore the poster has gained no monetary gain from the ‘advert’. It also may be that he does not consider it be an advert and it has indeed helped him with his problem.
LOL, WOW!!! I assure you gentlemen, I was not “adverting” for Format Factory. I am just a technically unsavvy young LADY who spent almost $100 bucks on a piece of elctronics she could not use because the audio would not work on her MKV files. I found a solution that works for me and I decided to post it because I have seen this issue come up MANY times based on searches I did. This no audio on MKV files thing is a common issue with the WD Media Player. All the responses I saw were so technical and I could not figure them out. My audience is for those poor nudnicks who don’t know a codec from a hole in their heads. Good grief.
FYI, all my MKV files (made from blu-rays) have the audio encoded as AC-3 – all I want is simple stereo, and this does it for me. All mkv’s play audio fine. A look at a video file with MediaInfo will display the audio characteristics, (as well at video, etc).
Why re-encode to ac3, what if someday you want more than stereo or even the original DTS(HD) or TruHD or even 7.1 audio. This is the reason I picked the WD it iwll play any file even if it it will not actually play DTSHD, it still pulls the core and works. Someday onother player will support DTSHD and my files will be ready.
AC3 may be 5.1 but it’s really bad compared to DTS/DTSHD or TRUHD.
FYI, the BD rips that make my MKV files contain all the disc’s audio formats, and perhaps some of the mkvs do. too. I use Bytecopy to make the mkv files, and it has settings for the various WD players, and I just select that one…
This is the reason I picked the WD it iwll play any file even if it it will not actually play DTSHD, it still pulls the core and works. Someday onother player will support DTSHD and my files will be ready.
As I have posted quite a few times, use MakeMKV to convert DTS-HDMA encoded .MKV files to 7.1 FLAC, the WD passes these as multi channel via HDMI to a suitable AV amp (my Denon 4308 displays 7.1 and the sound is really great)
