WD TV MEDIA PLAYER: DTS-MA will suddenly not play sound. Was fine 2 hours earlier

WD Legacy Products WD TV Media Player
1

Hello,

I have a really strange problem, strange in the suddenness with how it happened.

MY WD TV MEDIA PLAYER was literally fine, playing a vid with DTS-MA with no problems (I actually didn’t know that there were different types of DTS codecs at that moment - everything has always played fine for as long as we’ve been delighted customers of WD TV).

We watched a 2nd movie last night, also no problem. My wife then wanted to return to the first movie to check something (we had a bet over exact words of a particular line).

No sound. Whoa.

There’s nothing I fear most that having to troubleshoot anything electronic, but I narrowed it down to noticing that our Samsung screen notes that the first movie was “DTSMA” while the second was just "DTS.’

I experimented with a bunch of vids. Every other codec plays fine, but all of a sudden, we can’t get sound for any video that uses DTS-MA.

Has there been some minor release by WD? I can’t think of any other reason, of what could have changed, that we suddenly can’t play DTS-MA.

Our receiver is a wonderful old Pioneer Elite, has served us well. It may or may not be able to play this codec, but it hasn’t changed (cannot receive any remote updates). If there has been a firmware update (I can’t find a notice of that), how hard is it to roll back?

I sure hope someone has seen this before and knows the fix.

Thanks very much in advance.

-Ken

2

Hello,

Have you tried resetting the unit?

What firmware are you running on the media player?

This version of the media player should play DTS files in 2 channels without the need for an audio receiver that can decode the codec. Since you have a receiver, you shouldn’t have any issues.

1 Like
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Yes, tried reset. No change. Sorry, I should have mentioned that.

1.03.07 (current). I had updated this when we first took it out of the box. Today, it tells me that it is current. So that rules out any recent release.

Re your comment… “This version of the media player should play DTS files in 2 channels without the need for an audio receiver that can decode the codec.” This is useful…

I just realized that we run our Apple TV hardware through the receiver, but the WDTV goes to our Samsung UN65KS8000. We do that because the old receiver won’t play the WDTV (a different issue - HDCP).

Here’s the thing. The Samsung is not supposed to be able to handle DTS-MA. From your comment, it sounds like the Samsung does not need to decode the codec. That would make sense because we actually did watch vids that have no sound now. Come to think of it…

It is only now that I notice the DTS-MA codec message on the Samsung screen (reported in a small box, upper left corner of screen). I must admit that I only occasionally notice what the codec is, but I’ve never seen DTS-MA before. So…

Is it possible that the WD TV WAS indeed working as you state (when all was fine), but is no longer behaving that way, sending pure DTS-MA directly to the Samsung, as reported on the screen, which can’t handle it?

If so, how do we get the WD TV to do what it was doing up til now?

Thanks very much for your help! :slight_smile:

All the best,
Ken

4

Bumping this. No one in the Samsung forums have a reply for this.

The Samsung manual says that it won’t work with DTSMA. But in this thread, @ERmorel says that…

This version of the media player should play DTS files in 2 channels without the need for an audio receiver that can decode the codec. Since you have a receiver, you shouldn’t have any issues.

So I gather that Samsung’s limitation re DTSMA is not a limitation (if I’m understanding ERmorel correctly?).

There must be some reason that everything is perfect (and the screen really is sensational) except for the total inability to play DTSMA vids.

Any idea on how to fix this?

Thanks very much,
Ken

5

Make sure your audio mode is set to STEREO, not PASSTHROUGH.

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But I’m using HDMI and have a 7.1 setup. I’ll try it tonight out of interest but it wouldn’t really be the sound setup that I’d want to use.

Thanks for the suggestion - will get back on this.

All the best,
Ken

7

I’m confused. You said your SAMSUNG TV SCREEN shows the codec, but your PIONEER is what’s producing the sound?

How are you cabling this up? Are you going from the WD to your TV and then (via what?) to your Pioneer?
Or is the WD connected directly to the Pioneer?

8

Thanks very much for all the help. I think we pretty much have the answer, thanks to the help! :slight_smile:

@TonyPh12345 was confused and rightly so. In my first post, I said that both our Apple TV and WD TV were passing through our trusty old Pioneer receiver.

I corrected that in my second post…

I just realized that we run our Apple TV hardware through the receiver, but the WDTV goes to our Samsung UN65KS8000. We do that because the old receiver won’t play the WDTV (a different issue - HDCP).

So the WDTV HDMI-out goes straight to the TV, Tony (i.e., to the Samsung), and then from there to the receiver.

EXTRA INFO (might be relevant, I don’t know): The connection from Samsung to the receiver runs via Optical Audio because the Samsung One-Connect does not seem to have an HDMI-out.

@TonyPh12345, I hope that clarifies. Sorry for the confusion.

–

@TonyPh12345 also suggested setting the WD’s audio mode to STEREO. Clever idea! Yup, when the WD sends stereo to the Samsung, it plays sounds just fine. This confirms the guide’s documentation that Samsung won’t play DTS-MA.

I could have sworn that we did play our first few movies, and reviewed again with my wife which vids we had watched, that we had played DTSMA vids with no problem. But there are so many options, we could have played “London Has Fallen,” for example, through the Apple TV option in the Samsung menu rather than from my copy of the file in the hard disk attached to the WD TV.

I was hoping that @ERmorel was right when he said…

This version of the media player should play DTS files in 2 channels without the need for an audio receiver that can decode the codec. Since you have a receiver, you shouldn’t have any issues.

While it wasn’t going to “a receiver,” I would assume that if it did play DTSMA in 2 channels (I don’t know what that means), then the Samsung would be playing those vids and would not have been displaying “DTSMA” in a little black box in the top left corner of the screen. However, it was seeing (and displaying) DTSMA and it couldn’t decode it - the fact that it played the same vids when the WD ouputs it as STEREO pretty much confirms that, it seems to me.

–

Bottom line: Looks like I need a new receiver. That way, I won’t have the HDCP issue with WD’s connection to the old receiver and I can run everything through the receiver. The lack of an HDMI-out was sub-optimal anyway (i.e., having to use an optical cable for sound-out).

Thanks very much for the help, especially to Tony. :slight_smile:

Please let me know if I am drawing any wrong conclusions or if this is truly the bottom line? I’m at the very limits of my understanding.

All the best,
Ken

I guess a second bottom line is…

  1. Samsung should add that codec - it’s common.

  2. HDMI-out would be nice. It’s kind of strange not to have an HDMI-out because in our second home, I run everything through the TV first and then via HDMI-out to the receiver (HDCP issues). The absence of an HDMI Out reduces setup flexibility, it seems to me.

Just suggestions, made in good spirits. I love the TV. :slight_smile:

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I think you’re right on target there… The one difference Samsung may not be making clear is that they probably cannot support even passing through of DTS-HD MA across to the optical connection.

I don’t think most TOSLINK (or S/PDIF) implementations support DTS-HD variants, but I could be wrong there…

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Many thanks, much appreciated!I

Anyway, I knew it was getting time for a new receiver. :wink: (We live about 20 yards from the Caribbean Sea and this 9 year old Pioneers is the only piece of electronics that has not been fried from the salt.)

It’s also simpler when everything goes either into the TV or into the receiver. It was driving me nuts, changing inputs and remembering which way which was wired. :wink:

Seriously, I really appreciate the help!

All the best,
Ken