WDTV Live Hub does not recognise AAC encoding on some videos in MKV Containers

Community Archives WD TV Live Hub Firmware
1

I am haveing some problems with audio encoding.  I have some videos in mkv containers with the following audio codec information and these are not recognized by the unit,

It seems that with the AAC codec the format profile LC is not recognized in some files and the media will not play but it will in others.  As well there are other videos witht the format profile HE-AAC / LC that do work.  Is it simply an encoding problem, or a WD problem as these files work quite well with other players such as MediaPlayerClassic and VLC?

2

Out of interest you cannot compare software players like MediaPlayerClassic and VLC with a hardware player like the WDTV. Software players can play pretty well anything that you throw at them if they are badly encoded or damaged whereas a hardware player works to a predetermined specification.

You could post the mediainfo of the files which don’t work.

mediainfo (free)

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

3

Here’s the info from one file.

Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 2
File size                                : 161 MiB
Duration                                 : 24mn 9s
Overall bit rate                         : 930 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 2012-03-05 18:16:23
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v4.1.1 (‘Bouncin’ Back’) built on Jul  3 2010 22:54:08
Writing library                          : libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0.0
Attachment                               : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High 10@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 8 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 24mn 9s
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 23.976 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Writing library                          : x264 core 118 r2085+614 d1cc25d
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.00 / psy_rd=0.60:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / fgo=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=infinite / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=19.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=81 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=2:1.00
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : A_AAC
Duration                                 : 24mn 9s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Text
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : **bleep**
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/**bleep**
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Menu
00:00:00.033                             : en:Intro
00:00:38.038                             : en:OP
00:02:07.961                             : en:Part A
00:10:55.989                             : en:Part B
00:22:04.990                             : en:ED
00:23:33.662                             : en:Preview

4

And another

This is another

Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 2
File size                                : 297 MiB
Duration                                 : 24mn 5s
Overall bit rate                         : 1 726 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 2012-03-07 18:55:25
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v4.0.0 (‘The Stars were mine’) built on Jun  5 2010 16:39:06
Writing library                          : libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0.0
Attachment                               : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High 10@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 8 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 24mn 5s
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 23.976 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Title                                    : AVC (720p)
Writing library                          : x264 core 120 r2146+3 f75dd64
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.50 / psy_rd=0.70:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / fgo=5 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=400 / keyint_min=12 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=81 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=40000 / vbv_bufsize=30000 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:0.70
Language                                 : Japanese
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : Yes

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : A_AAC
Duration                                 : 24mn 5s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Title                                    : AAC (2 ch)
Language                                 : Japanese
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : Yes

Text
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : **bleep**
Codec ID                                 : S_TEXT/**bleep**
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Title                                    : **bleep**
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : Yes

Menu
00:00:00.000                             : en:OP
00:01:30.007                             : en:Part A
00:15:12.036                             : en:Eyecatch
00:15:14.997                             : en:Part B
00:21:50.059                             : en:ED
00:23:19.982                             : en:Preview
00:23:34.955                             : en:Omake

5

The “problem” isn’t the Audio, it’s the Video:

High 10@L4.0

That’s not a supported profile on the WDTVs.

6

hrm.  ok thanks. It’s wierd then that the WDTVLiveHub would report unsupported audio format then.