WD TV Live Plus no TrueHD support

[Saltiva]

I picked up the WD TV Live Plus and started testing it to see if it would suit my needs (Netflix, USB HDD files and Network)-  but I am surprised to learn that files (M2TS) with TrueHD tracks are unsupported- 

The same files playback fine from my PC to receiver (Denon AVR591) but no sound through WD TV LIVE PLUS-  I see the audio channels in the menu for the WD TV and the first channel (there is only one since I removed the others) is labeled correctly as TrueHD but no sound-  therefore those of you who think you are playing back TrueHD you are not, you probably have the AC3 or DD track (channel 2) defaulting or something-  I wouldn’t know for sure because I removed that one-  Thus my conclusion is that WD TV Live Plus doesn’t support even passing through TrueHD.  And yes, my receiver automatically determines the best audio and decodes it-  worked like a charm from PC and PS3. 

So I am probably going to be looking into Blu-Ray players with USBs to see if they can achieve this because if you have heard a TrueHD track (Transformers and even Pineapple Express surprisingly) then you know why it is worth it.  WD TV Live Plus would be good for direct to tv setups, car maybe, and for portability but gotta say I’m not even that impressed with the picture quality as compared to my PC using Power DVD 10.

Unless of course someone can tell me a work around to get the TrueHD to at least passthrough to my AMP.

[Saltiva]

Well that was a short research-  I found that some Blu-Ray players (with USB) support video playback via USB from memory however it is limited like the PS3 is-  it doesn’t support a USB powered Hard drive and it must be FAT32-  which I am not reformatting just for this.  WD TV will have to do however it is disappointing that HD audio isn’t supported.  I see the channel labels for the audio and TrueHD is labeled but doesn’t have any sound-  my Audio/Video settings are Digital using HDMI-  even tried the optical for giggles-  I think those that are thinking they’re getting TrueHD are actually getting the next channel which would be regular 5.1-  So for those of you who come across this there is a work around-  which is good since sometimes I will connect the WD TV directly into a TV that doesn’t support this anyways.

Use TSMuxer (also good for taking mutliple M2TS streams like Pineapple Express and making it into one flawless M2TS file) to demux the TrueHD track to AC3/DD/DTS then it will work-  doesn’t take long (Other options are out there but they take a lot longer and may have caveats). 

As for picture quality I noticed some issues with Bug’s Life (don’t know if it’s because it is Animated or what) but I noticed some distorted jaggys  in certain parts such as the intro on the grass-  I will test this further to see what may be the cause compared to other animated and so on.

[Bill_S]

There is a lot of information on the things you’re bringing up in these boards.  I would spend some time reading through them.  You may find some good information for what you’ve asked.

[Guy_K]

Dolby TrueHD passthrough to a receiver should work. If it is not working, then either there is something wrong with your content, something wrong with your A/V setup, or it’s just a bug in the WDTV firmware. If you can rule out any content or setup issues, can you reply to this post with the MediaInfo output for the content you’re having trouble with?

[tm224]

So are you saying that you can do a audio pass through with the HDlive plus?  My amp will decode any audio out there uncluding  DTS master audio to 7.1 and true HD iF this is true how do I set it up? This is the only reason I have been holding off on the M2ts files for the audio