WDTV Live "pale" colours

Hello

I´m using a WD TV Live, happy with it so far, but there is an issue that keeps bothering me.

The WD does seam to lack contrast/saturation/brightness adjust and that , i believe, causes to have a very pale image.

Adjusting the settings on the tv does not work because the image becomes very saturated.

After comparing the WD to another media player the difference become even more clear, so the question is, can i, does th WD TV support adjust of these settings?

Thank you

How are you connecting your unit to the TV.

What firmware is on the WDTV.

No you cannot adjust the settings.

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I´m connecting the WD trough  HDMI, tryed 8 and 12 bit option, auto, high RGB, and ycbcr.

I tried a couple of official fw , including the latest,and now i´m using a custom firmware because of moviesheets.

I tried the WD on a different TV, and the result was even worse, probably due also to the lower contrast of the TV.

Basically the richness of colours and overall image quality provided by HD movies seems washed out in the WD.

It is not a bad image, but after seeing and owing another players there is a difference, and a very noticeable one in that field.

Thank you.

I have seen the issue on a Panasonic Plasma TV. The HDMI handshaking is not communicating properly. Reset your digital TV to the factory default settings and manually set up your HDMI inputs on your digital TV and WDTV Live HDMI output.

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Going to try that later, but i dont think it will make a difference, since i tested the WD TV in another TV with the same results.

I´ve read that in the early stages the WD TV had issues with colour spacing. Could this cause the "paleness"of the image that i ´m experiencing?

Many thanks

It could be something to do with the firmware you are using. I know that you are using un-official firmware but just recently WD released a firmware update that made the picture washed out.

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I´m using one of Brad FW, and only going to upgrade as soon he releases another one, oficial WD fw are a no go, moviesheets are crucial for me.

Thanks

There are no colour adjustments in the WDTV Live; if the colour is washed out return the box for a warranty repair/replacement. The unofficial firmware contains no firmware changes and is identical in performance to the stock WD firmware, including WD’s bugs. I have tested both. The only difference between the unofficial firmware and stock WD firmware is that the unofficial firmware contains movie sheets editing, a computer accessible backend and the provision to bypass the buggy Windows Samba driver.

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But is impossible, due to hardware limitations, to implement colour adjustments  or they don’t exist because they weren’t implemented in the fw?

Thank you

herculesxt wrote:

I´m using one of Brad FW, and only going to upgrade as soon he releases another one, oficial WD fw are a no go, moviesheets are crucial for me.

 

Thanks

The WD boxes use Sigma 865x chips. According to the publicly available information published by Sigma, the 865x chips are a hardware device manufactured to international digital broadcast standards not computer software codec devices. The WDTV box software is only used to switch the various digital modes. The same chips are used in free to air; satellite and cable set top boxes and PVR’s. There are no reports on any of the technical forums of the 865x chips misbehaving. In fact the opposite is reported; brilliant high definition colour and resolutions. If the colours displayed on your digital TV are not HDTV broadcast standard resolution you have either a defective WDTV box or your settings are mismatched to your digital TV. All reports have indicated that the mismatch is usually in the digital TV settings. Installing the WDLXTV flash will not resolve the video issue.

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Thank you for the reply.

I´m going to reset the TV to factory settings and configure the HDMI port and see how it goes.

I have the same issue.  It’s not so bad that the picture is unwatchable, and many people might not even realize that a problem exists.  However, the image does look pale and washed out compared to, say, HDMI coming directly from my computer.

This was a big issue for me at initial setup, but I quiickly determined that using the Component connection instead of HDMI gives me what I want.  As it turns out, my projector at startup doesn’t recognize HDMI from the WDTV piped through my Pioneer receiver, so using Component is the workaround for both issues.

Frankly, as Steve Jobs says about Apple TV, the WDTV feels more like a hobby than a commercial product.  Since I’ve been able to get it to work well in my specific setup, and it was pretty cheap to buy, I’m happy and can live with its quirks, though it would be nice if WD would actually fix more bugs.

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You described the problem perfectly.

I glad i´m not the only one with this issue, i thought it was me being too picky.

Going to try the Component connection to see if it works.

Component doest support 1080p right?

Thanks

I believe you’re correct, but fortunately my projector is native 720p.

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Just to wrap this up, i did reset the TV to factory settings and disabled Philips Easy Link.

Worked great, i got my contrast an vibrant colours back:)

Thanks to all.

Another update.

I believe the cause is the 24p option.

Selecting this option does give lower colour/contrast in all videos, those that are 24fps and all the other videos with different frames.

Selecting 1080p 60hz increases the image quality.

Is there any FW with auto detect frame rate?

Thanks

What version are you CURRENTLY using?   It sounds like you’re using an older version that did have an HDMI color bug.

Using version 1.02.21 if i´m not mistaken.

The HDMI Color bug I’m referring to wasn’t present in that version…