I am writing to portray my sincere disappointment in the latest product I have purchased. I recently bought a WDTV Live (WDBAAN0000NBK) from my local DickSmith Electronics store. I have been a massive fan of the old Gen 1 WDTV HD Media Player (WDAVN00) since its release and it has served me well, and continues to till this very day. The live however is where my concern lies.
I bought it in good faith, with no concerns as to its functionality due to my pleasant experience with the previous gen of models before the move to new hardware. And I can’t help but feel sour after straight away noticing that whilst using the live with my 750GB WD Passport it had swiftly rendered half my media collection, mainly consisting of MP4’s, unwatchable due to a distinct and annoying audio “cut-out” every few seconds. I found myself waiting for the next audio judder rather than concentrating and enjoying the glorious 12bit colour, HD resolution picture. A problem I am pleased to say did not in any way shape or form exist in the original WDTV HD media player, the player I have since gone back to after tedious hours spent fiddling with input and outputs, settings and various versions of firmware including older firmware that I had to trick the unit into installing over the latest 1.02.21. I have done some more online digging and have uncovered that I am not the only one experiencing this disappointment.
I am first and foremost an enthusiast, and secondly I am a HUGE Western Digital fan, I only use WD HDD’s in my PC’s, I only own WD portable HDD’s. And up until this point, I have only owned WD media players. I plan on returning this “defective” product to my local store later on this evening, I just thought I’d let you know the reasons as to why, and I will gladly purchase this product again should the audio circumstance change in the near future, however, seeing as the latest firmware update has been out since March 2010 and I have not received any indication that WD plans to release a firmware fix anytime soon, I can see no other way. I regret to inform you that my perception of Western Digital as a top quality brand has been damaged as a result of my experience.
While you apparently, do have an issue, you do realize, don’t you, that the posts you point to refer to your OLD device, not the new one, or an issue with VIDEO, not AUDIO?
yes, I do realise that they don’t only focus on my audio issue, but something in each caught my eye in terms of what i was experiencing. My main concern is that I’ve gone from a Gen 1 WDTV HD Media player that played everything perfectly, to a brand new WDTV Live with the latest firmware that couldn’t play half of my 720P MP4’s without the audio studder. I just feel like WD have dropped the ball, I feel like we’ve gone backwards, and a few people in those articles have been experiencing the same issues. Any ideas? I am hoping it’s not a hardware issue, as I know that the first one I purchased a few years ago is a 300mhz with 100mb of RAM. The new Lives and HD’s both have a new 500mhz and more memory too… any advice would be appreciated
The Live doesn’t play well with MP4s – never has, and audio issues are one symptom (usually sync is the issue).
Just to eliminate that as the reason, take one of your files and run it through Handbrake using the High Profile preset (but change the output type to MKV). If that plays properly then you at least have narrowed down the issue.
I’ve just updated firmware to 1.03.49_V and while it updated without any errors, my WDTV Live device has no more audio through HDMI. Just before the update everything was working for the last 11 months without any issues. I plugged the composite cables in at the sound plays, but no matter which settings I change the HDMI audio will not work. Absolutly no sound from any setting, any source.
Is there a way to install the older firmware 1.02.xx? Anybody had the same issue when upgrading to the newest firmware?
That worked. Thanx. I’ll follow the subsequent updates and see if they fix that bug. BTW, I haven’t seen it, but is there a plan for Netflix for Canada update in works? Would love to unplug TV from monopoly over here.
No, not for the LIVE (which I think is what you have). It’s only on the Live+, and it’s still up in the air if Canadians’ Pluses are going to be enabled or not…
