it’s funny, I had the same problem when trying to put Spanish subtitles to mkv with mkvmerge, the live WDTV crashed with that video and did not play any until unplug from AC and turned on again. I noticed that, from the version 4.1.1 header compression option is activated , it may be that, I will try with version 4.0…
cause I was usin latest version…
I will try it…
Yes, that is *exactly* the case. Playing a video muxed with the video and audio headers compressed with crash the Live and then it won’t be able to play ANY videos (this is Bad Behavior and should be corrected but since the newest beta firmware will play these files properly it isn’t too big a concern).
Just remux with those options turned off and you’ll be fine (or use the older version of MKVMerge – same difference).
mkelley wrote:
It’s a “simply” because, in the first place, this only affects folks who download illegally. There are NO commercial sources of such files (because commercial sources are authored correctly) and folks who own the materials themselves can make them properly in the first place.
If you download illegally then you take the time to remux (which only takes a few seconds). It’s that simple.
Who talked about “illegal” downloads in first place? WDTV team never stated that it needs to be used with DRM files or only on self produced sex tapes. Neverthless, your remark looks naive, don’t you imagine they would never decided to produce this device in first place if they wouldn’t have the support of the guys of the “illegal” downloads you’re talking about? people who bought this device don’t use it to watch the wedding tape of their cousin, wake up, but I’m digressing.
THIS is a media player, like an advanced old tape / dvd / player, it’s supposed to play media files at its best, it should care less the source of these files.
But now that I know that gen1 support is dead ( gg to dev team, they produced two devices and they discarded the first one already, wow ) I can throw out of the window already, what a smart investment I made lol.
Lightman wrote:
mkelley wrote:
It’s a “simply” because, in the first place, this only affects folks who download illegally. There are NO commercial sources of such files (because commercial sources are authored correctly) and folks who own the materials themselves can make them properly in the first place.
If you download illegally then you take the time to remux (which only takes a few seconds). It’s that simple.
Who talked about “illegal” downloads in first place? WDTV team never stated that it needs to be used with DRM files or only on self produced sex tapes. Neverthless, your remark looks naive, don’t you imagine they would never decided to produce this device in first place if they wouldn’t have the support of the guys of the “illegal” downloads you’re talking about? people who bought this device don’t use it to watch the wedding tape of their cousin, wake up, but I’m digressing.
THIS is a media player, like an advanced old tape / dvd / player, it’s supposed to play media files at its best, it should care less the source of these files.
But now that I know that gen1 support is dead ( gg to dev team, they produced two devices and they discarded the first one already, wow ) I can throw out of the window already, what a smart investment I made lol.
You are missing the point. Downloading means that you have no clue how they were encoded. No hardware device can cope with the multiple ways that media files can be encoded. Thats why it its advised to re-encode if you have problems. I would also assume from reading the forum that most people use it for DVD/Blu Ray rips.
Lightman wrote:
But now that I know that gen1 support is dead ( gg to dev team, they produced two devices and they discarded the first one already, wow ) I can throw out of the window already, what a smart investment I made lol.
That’s weird. My Gen1 still does everything it did when I bought it, and everything I bought it for… when did yours stop functioning?
But then, my 2 Commodore 128s from 30 years ago still work (and still get occasionally used), maybe I should be upset that I can’t watch HD with them.
Lightman wrote:
But now that I know that gen1 support is dead ( gg to dev team, they produced two devices and they discarded the first one already, wow ) I can throw out of the window already, what a smart investment I made lol.
Actually, if you have a Gen 1 device you’re posting in the wrong forum (but apparently you’re too not smart enough to understand that, either).
richUK wrote:
You are missing the point. Downloading means that you have no clue how they were encoded. No hardware device can cope with the multiple ways that media files can be encoded. Thats why it its advised to re-encode if you have problems. I would also assume from reading the forum that most people use it for DVD/Blu Ray rips.
In my case the media are .mkvs of weekly TV Shows or anime episodes at 720p. I had a black screen just after starting the playback. Someone in this thread referred to a bug dued mkv header compression. After the first black screen, then every mkv was giving a black screen. So I googled about the problem and found this thread. Resetting the device worked for now, until I’ll play another mkv with the compressed header maybe. This should be a bug the dev could (should) fix since the header compression is a well known feature since 2005 (as stated by the user as before).
But that’s just it. There are several bugs, not just that one.
If I make an .iso rip of “Star Wars”, the WDTV doesn’t handle the multiple titles within the video stream properly. Even if upgrades for the Gen1 hadn’t stopped, I could have either sat there whining, waiting 6 - 9 months to be able to watch the movie when the update gets released, or I can do the work-around myself in a couple of seconds and be back watching the movie. My personal choice was to just go with the work-around and not wait for WD. As it turns out, they then announced there’d be no more updates, so I’m glad I fixed things myself and I didn’t decide to wait 6 months or a year to be able to watch the movie again.
If I make an .mkv with header compression enabled, that’s my own fault. I’m perfectly capable of making an .mkv without header compression. No matter which WD device I have, whether it’s an EOL one, or a Live Plus, I can either deal with the issue myself in a few seconds, or I can sit and wait and wait and wait and wait and see if WD ever fixes it. (And for the Gen1, they’ve said many times that they _ won’t _.)
So, the question comes down to your “weekly tv shows and anime episodes”… either you’re encoding them yourself, and are perfectly capable of not encountering the “bug” in the first place, or you’re downloading them off the internet, and are perfectly capable of repairing them yourself, or of legally obtaining the media and not encountering the bug in the first place.
It’s not WD’s place to aid and abet piracy. If you want to watch pirate encodes, that’s your decision, but it’s also up to you to deal with the ramifications of that, not WD. If new “scene” releases won’t work properly, perhaps you could ask “the scene” for your money back.
Lightman wrote:
richUK wrote:
You are missing the point. Downloading means that you have no clue how they were encoded. No hardware device can cope with the multiple ways that media files can be encoded. Thats why it its advised to re-encode if you have problems. I would also assume from reading the forum that most people use it for DVD/Blu Ray rips.
In my case the media are .mkvs of weekly TV Shows or anime episodes at 720p. I had a black screen just after starting the playback. Someone in this thread referred to a bug dued mkv header compression. After the first black screen, then every mkv was giving a black screen. So I googled about the problem and found this thread. Resetting the device worked for now, until I’ll play another mkv with the compressed header maybe. This should be a bug the dev could (should) fix since the header compression is a well known feature since 2005 (as stated by the user as before).
So if you want to play these MKV’s now, you remux them with header compression turned off. New firmware will be available at some future date which will allow you to stop remuxing. Its not a bug its an implementation (after 5 years) by the developer of MKVmerge.
I had the same problem and i get solve updating the firmware to
1.03.41
It did work fine for me!
Good Luck .
*
RoofingGuy wrote:
But that’s just it. There are several bugs, not just that one.
(1)
If I make an .iso rip of “Star Wars”, the WDTV doesn’t handle the multiple titles within the video stream properly. Even if upgrades for the Gen1 hadn’t stopped, I could have either sat there whining, waiting 6 - 9 months to be able to watch the movie when the update gets released, or I can do the work-around myself in a couple of seconds and be back watching the movie. My personal choice was to just go with the work-around and not wait for WD. As it turns out, they then announced there’d be no more updates, so I’m glad I fixed things myself and I didn’t decide to wait 6 months or a year to be able to watch the movie again.
(2)
If I make an .mkv with header compression enabled, that’s my own fault. I’m perfectly capable of making an .mkv without header compression. No matter which WD device I have, whether it’s an EOL one, or a Live Plus, I can either deal with the issue myself in a few seconds, or I can sit and wait and wait and wait and wait and see if WD ever fixes it. (And for the Gen1, they’ve said many times that they _ won’t _.)
(3)
So, the question comes down to your “weekly tv shows and anime episodes”… either you’re encoding them yourself, and are perfectly capable of not encountering the “bug” in the first place, or you’re downloading them off the internet, and are perfectly capable of repairing them yourself, or of legally obtaining the media and not encountering the bug in the first place.
(4)
It’s not WD’s place to aid and abet piracy. If you want to watch pirate encodes, that’s your decision, but it’s also up to you to deal with the ramifications of that, not WD. If new “scene” releases won’t work properly, perhaps you could ask “the scene” for your money back.
(1)I can understand if I should do this hack one time, two times, no harm done.
(2)
I don’t think it should be considered “a fault” using header compression. Furthermore you have to understand that not all people, unlike you, who bought this device, are used to encode his own movies. Maybe those people don’t even know what a codec is. Buying a device doesn’t mean you should automatically know all the stuff about that branch. Like if buying a TV would require to know how satellite transmission works or cable transmission works. Furthermore I don’t get one thing, reading all over here: do you all use WDTV to watch only self encoded stuff based on own DVD/BD copies?
(3)
It should be okay doing this one, two times, for me, but not every week, it would be discouraging. It could be difficult or impossibile for others. Right now it appears that the problem was: a single mkv had corrupted something internally and until the WDTV was reset, the issue continued. So I thinked people started encoding mkvs with some new technique. Fortunally after resetting the device the error is gone, until I’ll meet another “faulty” mkv.
(4)
I don’t understand at 100% what you tried to say here. Header compressed mkvs could come out from legit free movie downloads also, or movie trailers, or … I don’t see header compression as an exclusive feature of some tv show releases 
Header compression IS strictly true of only illegal files – commercial sources know enough not to do that foolish thing (for one thing, there ARE no commercial sources of MKV files).
And your TV analogy would be fine except you DO pay for the content you watch – you either pay for the products that support it (commercials) or you pay for the cable/sat that supplies it. When you buy content, it should play on the device that is supposed to play it. And there’s no such thing as a free lunch – one way or another, you pay for stuff to entertain you (or you steal it, in which case you shouldn’t even be here complaining).
But none of this whining really matters – the beta version of the Live/Plus software solves this issue anyway, so it’s all moot.
Hi -
I followed you instructions and used mkvmerge to remux an mkv-file without header compression. But after I have done this the WDTV Live doesn’t seem to find the file!?
I have tried to restart, reset to factory settings but nothing helps.
Now I have tried to download the new firmware upgrade, but I cant find the firmware upgrade option on my WDTV Live - only the option to upgrade over the internet… I have copied the three files to my usb-harddrive connected to my WDTVLive.
Anyone who knows how I can get this problem resolved?
What method are you using to get your files? USB? Media Server ? Network Share?
I assume the WDTV was able to find the file BEFORE you did this?
The assumption is that you did something more than what the instructions say…
i know you tried to explain it in as simple words as possible but could you be a bit more specific??? I don’t have my device for a long time and i have tried updating it from it’s settings a couple of times and it always says it’s up to date. what is that mkvmerge 4.xx you said? how do I find it and how do I install it? what should I do step by step after that? sorry if I am troubling you
Welcome to the forums.
MKVMerge is a program used by a lot of folks to create (or as one step in the creation of) MKV files. Versions later than 4.0 had a “feature” that essentially “breaks” a lot of media players. So if you play a file made by this program it will require you to reset your Live before it will work again.
You can fix this in two ways – first is easy; don’t play those files (those files are *always* illegal download files and you get what you paid for). Second is to take such a file and remux it with a version of MKVMerge 4.0 or earlier (you can find this by doing a Google for “MKVMerge 4.0” or some such – you can even search for it in these forums with the same words and you’ll find a link to the earlier versions). When you download the program and run it just load up the offending file(s) and press the “Start Muxing” button and that’s all there is to it (for your level this is all you need to know).
Download link for MKVmerge version 4.0.0 (windows)
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/win32/mkvtoolnix-unicode-4.0.0-setup.exe
MKVmerge
It appears that with the release of MKVmerge v4.4.0 the author has decided to add the turning off of header compression to the program options. So now you can just tick the box in options and the compression will be permanently switched off. If only he had done that some time ago when asked we would not have had this huge problem.
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/ChangeLog
* Released v4.4.0.
* mmg: new feature: Added an option to disable extra compression
when adding tracks by default.
I will give it a shot and see what happens. Thanks for the info
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