New Release - Firmware Version 1.14.09 for WD TV Live Streaming Media Player (2/27/13)

Community Archives WD TV Live Streaming Firmware
81

I seriously doubt that you’ll get 30Mbps MKV files to play over a windows network share. The SMB overhead is very high, and I think you’ve crossed that threshold. I had a similar setup, where I was sharing from a windows server. Once I got a linux based NAS and stopped all sharing from windows, I have great success.

Without knowing more about your files, I can’t really say for sure. You should try running one of them through MKVMerge and make sure header compression is set to none. Another thing I discovered on high bit rate files is that DTS audio sometimes puts it past the threshold, and I’ve had good success converting the audio to AC3, not touching the video. I used Popcorn MKV converter for that.

Those are a couple of things you can try. Good Luck.

82

Turning off header compression will INCREASE the bitrate, and will not affect the issue.  

83

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I was thinking that the Bitrate might be too high as well, but these files use to play just fine before the firmware update. I thought it was movies with 30 Mbps bitrate that were problematic. It seems it is all movies above the 20 Mbps bitrate mark. I also don’t think it is my windows server. I can play these movies from my laptop (wired of course) without any problems. Unfortunately, I cannot roll back to the firmware I had before since it is the only firmware that is not available for download. I’ve tried remuxing the file with mkvmerge with no header compression on all of the tracks but the problem persists. I will give the HD audio a shot and see how that goes. Thanks again for the help and suggestions. I’m on a mission to fix this problem. I have three of these boxes and I truly love them when they work properly so I hope I can get all of this fixed.  :)

Edit: I put these problematic files on an external hard drive and connected the hard drive to the front of my WDTV live and they play flawlessly. This was pointing me towards blaming my server. However, these files play just fine over the network when I use any of my networked (wired) computers to play the files.  Here is the information of a file that use to play fine but that no longer plays properly. 

General

Complete name : Transformers 1.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 32.3 GiB
Duration : 2h 23mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 32.3 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-05-10 16:26:22
Writing application : mkvmerge v3.3.0 (‘Language’) built on Mar 24 2010 14:59:24
Writing library : libebml v0.8.0 + libmatroska v0.9.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 23mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 30.8 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 35.2 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.619
Stream size : 30.8 GiB (95%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio #1
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2h 23mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 657 MiB (2%)
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio #2
ID : 3
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2h 23mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 197 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Text #1
ID : 4
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Language : Spanish
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text #2
ID : 5
Format : VobSub
Muxing mode : zlib
Codec ID : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used on DVDs
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Text #3
ID : 6
Format : VobSub
Muxing mode : zlib
Codec ID : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used on DVDs
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Menu
00:00:00.000 : en:(01)00:00:00:000
00:02:04.707 : en:(02)00:02:04:707
00:08:54.534 : en:(03)00:08:54:534
00:15:33.641 : en:(04)00:15:33:641
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01:06:48.421 : en:(12)01:06:48:421
01:11:53.559 : en:(13)01:11:53:559
01:16:56.445 : en:(14)01:16:56:445
01:23:37.345 : en:(15)01:23:37:345
01:29:04.172 : en:(16)01:29:04:172
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01:43:58.106 : en:(18)01:43:58:106
01:49:45.745 : en:(19)01:49:45:745
01:56:54.007 : en:(20)01:56:54:007
02:03:09.882 : en:(21)02:03:09:882
02:10:43.919 : en:(22)02:10:43:919
02:15:02.302 : en:(23)02:15:02:302

84

mobile4357 wrote:

I seriously doubt that you’ll get 30Mbps MKV files to play over a windows network share. 

Really? Over SMB (wired) I’m getting constant ~80 Mbps (100 mbit) and 240 Mbps (Gbit) write speed. Read speads are even higher. The LIVE starts having issues at ~50 Mbps.

85

To give you some update, I still have screen freeze when playing movies from my synology NAS. It stops after a while. Using an USB HDD, the same files would work fine. I access NAS via “Windows filesharing”.

At this point I can’t tell if it is a WDTV issue or a Synology one. NAS is running DSM 4.2 new firmware.

86

Shares are less tricky then DLNA but are you wired or wireless?

87

I am wired

88

This morning Synology released a new media server package and it seems to be working back. So this asn’t a WDTV issue.

89

Back to 1.11 for me, ever since that firmware the skip to desired time function does not work. FIle formats don’t seem to matter, mkv, mp4, avi, mpg, etc…Whenever I try to use it to say jump 30 or 40 minutes into something I just get a looping arrow on any firmware newer then 1.11. Rollback always fixes it.

It may seem like a silly complaint but it’s an annoyingly big deal. There are alot of times where a file will crash during playing and a resume option is not available. Being able to jump to an hour into the movie is a great feature, if it doesn’t work I consider the device almost useless…that is how much I use that feature.

90

Closing this thread down.  New release is out.