Context:
WDTV Live, just over a week old. 6 year old NTSC Sony Plasma, native resolution 480p, direct HDMI video, accepts and downscales 720p and 1080i. I change WDTV settings to HDMI 480p. Optical audio to receiver (digital, no HDMI setting). Main usage is to replace a 5 disc DVD changer. (ie ISO navigation is critical feature.)
USB1 is 16GB Flash stick (FAT32) and USB2 is 500GB WD external USB drive (NTFS). Media is mp3, jpg, lots of ISO files (straight from DVD, no transcoding/shrinking/editing etc) and some net files (eg TED talks).
Results:
The new firmware is completely unusable for me and I have to revert to1.03.22.
Showstoppers:
If I power off by remote and then power on again the HDMI signal is something that my TV cannot recognise. I have to remove the powercable to get anything visible again. This version defaults to 1080i,1.03.22 defaulted to 720p. No matter how many times I explicitly set 480p HDMI output in menu, after power pull it is back in “Auto”.
Nasties:
After first upgrading to this new version I had no video output, and power cycling had no effect. On connecting composite lead was able to navigate menus and select HDMI 480p and on switching to that did not get anything on HDMI and scrambled composite. Was able to recover by pressing the reset button.
At some point the device mangled the NTFS drive. Windows said the .wdtv directory was corrupt and I had to use chkdsk.
At one point it refused point blank to play any video media saying I should consult my manual and not giving any other details. Worked again after a power cycle.
Unable to play Matt Ridley prosperity talk without massive amounts of flicker. Choose download from this page (it is completely SFW):
http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html
Then pick bottom right in download popup (hires mp4). When browsing USB stick in thumbnail mode this video is played just fine. When switching to playing the media proper (full screen) the screen keeps going black for a fraction of a second giving a very annoying flicker effect. Audio is fine.
Strange :
I have a homemade DVD (iso) made using OpenShot on Linux from a birthday party. It starts with many pictures played to music. The DVD itself is in PAL format - 525i. When playing on 15 year old CRT PAL TVs as well as firmware 1.03.22 the images would flicker a bit. It looked like each field was being displayed in almost the same place as the previous field rather than proper interlacing. When played on a computer or a modern LCD style TV it was rock solid.
With 1.03.35 the photos were rock solid but looked like they were only taking one of the fields so there was effectively ~260 lines of actual resolution but this resulted in horrendously bad image quality. I’m happy to supply the ISO to WD either by snail mail or upload. (It is 1.4GB).