Stuttering! ( all FW versions )

Player: WD TV Live

Firmware tested: 1.2.21v, 1.03.49v, 1.04.10v, 1.04.17v

Connection: CAT-6

Content: 720p H264 AC3 mvk, 720p H264 m2ts capture from Hauppauge HD PVR

Issue: after a few seconds / minutes of play time, audio drops and video starts to stutter. it does not recover on its on.

I’ve tried each firmware listed above and each has the problem. I’ve hooked a laptop to the cable and tested transfer rate from my PC and saw an average of 4 MB / sec, so its not the network. I have a WD TV Live Plus in another room that streams an m2ts / h264 / 720 p capture just fine most of the time, whereas this unit - a WD TV Live ( not a Plus ) - does not; it will always start to stutter, etc.

Are there any magic switches I am overlooking to get this to work with the WD TV Live unit? Is 4 MB / sec somehow not enough bandwidth? Or can the chipsets on the unit simply not keep up? I’m ‘this’ close to giving up, returning the one unit I still can and going with a slingbox or just using a laptop till something else comes along. I *really* would like to stream not only HD but live video as well, but that seems near impossible at the moment. Should I just throw in the towel?

I have the same problem, I used the latest firmware and have big stutter and audio loss problems. Yesterday i rolled back to 1.03.49v and still have problems with mkv’s. Almost every file stutters, Im using networkshare:

Win 7—>NetgearWNDR3700—>WDHDTVLIVE with a cat 6 cable

I have the live. I have had it for almost a year now. I used 1.02.21_V until today, because the 1.04.10 & 17 Vs caused the stuttering in mkvs & avis. I updated to 1.03.49_V today & have had no problems. I use Windows 7 netshare as well. I haven’t had any stuttering whatsoever. With 1.02.21, if the mkv was large, more than a 6gb file, I did get stuttering, but not with an mkv smaller than that. I never got stuttering with any other file type with that firmware. Most of my files are mkvs, avis, or isos. So far, today, since updating to 1.03.49_V, I have no stuttering. Again, 1.02.21 gave me no problems whatsoever.

So you never get stuttering, But if you play files over 6GB you get stuttering? I even get stuttering when playing ISO files.

I have recomended this player to friends in real life and on internet forums. But i never gonna do that again.

EDIT: It seems to work without stuttering now, But its like its totally random, Sometimes it works, Sometimes not.

so chuckster, you are saying that with 1.02…you got stuttering with MKV’s over 6 GB?

Version 1.3…plays those just fine?

I am experiencing this exact same issue.

So I just backdated my WD to 1.03… and reset it factory settings afterwards and now it is telling me that the network share cannot be accessed.

And it has been overnight, so I know it has been long enough for it to recognize everything.

Any advice?

jdnidle wrote:

so chuckster, you are saying that with 1.02…you got stuttering with MKV’s over 6 GB?

Version 1.3…plays those just fine?

 

I am experiencing this exact same issue.

 

So I just backdated my WD to 1.03… and reset it factory settings afterwards and now it is telling me that the network share cannot be accessed.

 

And it has been overnight, so I know it has been long enough for it to recognize everything.

 

Any advice?

I’m assuming that you have set up your unit after the reset to factory settings. Can you get youtube etc

Actually, I followed suggestions from other posters about running the mkvs through Handbrake to make them smaller & save space on my NAS or external drives. 4.5 GB files never presented problems. So now that I’m using 1.03.49, I don’t have any large files to test. I just try to keep my files no bigger than 4.5gbs.

The original poster mentioned a data transfer rate of 4MB/s. This is very slow, too slow for high definition video, and I guess that the laptop is the limiting factor. When I test the transfer rate from my PC to the WD TV Live, I’ll see 56-60MB/s, which matches the 100Mbit Ethernet standard that is supported by the WD TV.

For the MILLIONTH time guys:  Check to make sure that the B-Frame setting of the H.264 encoding is set to zero.  This may help.  It helped me.  It removed stuttering from many MKVs made via Handbrake.

For the MILLIONTH time, EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING worked just fine before the new firmware updates.

I think it is ridiculous that we have to deal with issues like this.

How does WD not discover problems like this before putting out new firmware?

**bleep**, pick some of us to Beta test it for you.

I would be happy to and report what I find, before they make the new firmware public.

I should not have to do any conversions, especially when everything worked just fine until the newest firmware releases.

jdnidle wrote:

For the MILLIONTH time, EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING worked just fine before the new firmware updates. 

You didn’t read the subject title, did you?

Cocovanna

Most of our movie collection is our rips of HD & Blu Ray movies, ie on the order of 20-40 GB in size. Playback on the WD TV Live Plus ( running the factory installed firmware ) - local or via the network - plays the content without the stutter issue. Only my WD TV Live - no matter the firmware - fails.

How do you accomplish this Lunar?

Chuckster679 wrote:

How do you accomplish this Lunar?

I archive my DVDs by ripping them using AnyDVD then encode them with H.264 using HandBrake and saving into MKV container.  In Handbrake I use High Profile.  Then under Advanced Tab I set Maximum B-Frames to 0 (instead of the default number of 3).  The same applies to files encoded with XVID, etc… in the AVI container.  If the need arises, I transcode them into H.264 in Handbrake with MKV container using these same settings.

I did that a while ago while going nuts over stuttering in MP4 files and MKV files.  I wasted days till I noticed that with B-Frames set to Zero, the stuttering disappeared.  I did not experiment any further to see any patterns of what works and what does not work with these B-Frames.  The moment I discovered that setting this to 0  resolved the issue, I quit playing with it.  Reason is that such experimentations take a VERY VERY long time.

I have NEVER run into the issue of stuttering after that with my WS Live and Live Plus units.

Why 0 works?  I do not have the slightest idea :slight_smile:

However, I noticed that other programs run into issues with this setting when set to something other than 0.  Like AVIDemux.  Open such an MKV in it and you’ll see what I mean.

I understand the frustration of the users.  I was there also.  But I can either fight it out with WD over this issue, OR find something that works. 

Now, this works with me, hopefully it works with others.

If you need more info please let me know.

Setting B-frames to 0 is going to grow your file size a bit.

I did take your advice, however… in a way. In what I consider a last ditch effort, I bit the bullet and installed the well known custom firmware that is out there. Low & behold, I am able to connect to an NFS share for my content now and have no issues with stuttering whatsoever. Furthermore, with a bit of research and dabbling about, I now have live streaming working flawlessly, picking up a VLC stream of my capture device.

I do NOT like running unsupported firmware nor do I suggest it; I bought a device expecting to use the device as is to accomplish what it states it can do. Perhaps the WD team can work with the person who wrote the cutom firmware and provide these features in a supported manner? It would seem rather foolish not to.

jlaborde3 wrote:

Setting B-frames to 0 is going to grow your file size a bit.

 

I did take your advice, however… in a way. In what I consider a last ditch effort, I bit the bullet and installed the well known custom firmware that is out there. Low & behold, I am able to connect to an NFS share for my content now and have no issues with stuttering whatsoever. Furthermore, with a bit of research and dabbling about, I now have live streaming working flawlessly, picking up a VLC stream of my capture device.

 

I do NOT like running unsupported firmware nor do I suggest it; I bought a device expecting to use the device as is to accomplish what it states it can do. Perhaps the WD team can work with the person who wrote the cutom firmware and provide these features in a supported manner? It would seem rather foolish not to.

I am not suggesting that anybody use 3rd party firmware but I do believe that it is better ‘supported’ than the official WD firmware. You can actually make contact with the firmware writer unlike WD. 

Lunar,

Thanks for the reply. I’m trying that now with one file that I created yesterday. Do you use the 1.04.17 firmware, or an earlier firmware?

Chuckster679 wrote:

Lunar,

 

Thanks for the reply. I’m trying that now with one file that I created yesterday. Do you use the 1.04.17 firmware, or an earlier firmware?

I am using the latest official firmwares for both the Live and Live Plus.  B-Frame setting of 0 will grow the file size a bit.  But it is ok!  Let us know if this works.

jlaborde3 wrote:

Setting B-frames to 0 is going to grow your file size a bit.

 

I did take your advice, however… in a way. In what I consider a last ditch effort, I bit the bullet and installed the well known custom firmware that is out there. Low & behold, I am able to connect to an NFS share for my content now and have no issues with stuttering whatsoever. Furthermore, with a bit of research and dabbling about, I now have live streaming working flawlessly, picking up a VLC stream of my capture device.

 

I do NOT like running unsupported firmware nor do I suggest it; I bought a device expecting to use the device as is to accomplish what it states it can do. Perhaps the WD team can work with the person who wrote the cutom firmware and provide these features in a supported manner? It would seem rather foolish not to.

Does this work on the Live and Live Plus and Hub?  I’d like to try it on one of my units.  Also, what is ‘the well known’ custom firmware?  Where can I find it?  Yes, indeed, why does not WD look into these things that seem to be working fine in these custim firmwares?

That’s interesting comparisons.

The profile I use in handbrake has these options:

ref=2:bframes=2:subme=6:mixed-refs=0:weightb=0:8x8dct=0:trellis=0

So, my ReFrames is set to 2, and B-frames is set to 2.    I don’t have any issues with stuttering on this type of encoding on any of my Live devices (see signature.)

So, it may be something completely different than B-frames-related…