No Sound at all after WD Tries to play DTS Digital MKV file + Reboots my TV Vizio M221NV

[Blood1]

Okay I searched the forums, many times and need to post this. I have a refurbished WD TV Live unit that I recently got at NewEgg for a shell shocker. What ever. I hooked it up to my VIZIO M221NV via HDMI.

Problem #1:

Well I played many files, (avi, mkv) and they work fine unless the WDTVLive unit tries to play an mkv file that has been encoded with Digital DTS. There is just no sound. I understand it cannot play this audio encode, fine. I need to use the TOSLINK to a AV receiver to get sound. I have my WDTVLive+ hooked up like and it works great.

This unit though, after it tries to play a mkv file with DTS Digital it breaks the sound for anything else I try to play.

I stop the movie, then go to another file that I know the audio works and I get no sound. This is a bug. The unit should reset the audio channel/line and play the sound on files it knows how to decode after the fact.

I updated the unit to the latest firmware version as of yesterday: Release 1.02.21 (3/30/10) and the problem still exists.

Anyway Problem #2 now hits. I figured if I switch the TV input to another HDMI, say HDMI #2 and then switch back it would fix it. Not at all. Actually what happens is when I press the HDMI button on the remote to go to HDMI #2 input, my TV does a hard reset. It turns off and goes through the blinking logo as if I just unplugged the TV's power cord and plugged it back in. I can reproduce this every single time the Unit gets into this broken audio state after it tries to play a DTS Digital mkv, then I try to switch the HDMI input to another HDMI = TV Resets itself.

I even tried switching to say AV1, or Component then back to HDMI #1 and the TV reboots itself. So what ever the WDTVLive unit does, it puts the HDMI port in a really bad state where it causes the TV to reboot, after it tries to play a mkv file that it cannot decode the DTS Digital on.

This has to be fixed please.

[mkelley]

You might want to post the MediaInfo on that DTS MKV file -- if it was made with MKVMerge later than 4.0 that's probably the whole issue right there.

First of all, the Live DOES play DTS just fine -- it will mix it to stereo and it will also pass it through properly.  No worries.  The likelihood is that file was one of the "bad ones" and one of the symptoms of a bad one is that it will break all others played after it.

You can fix it by running it through a version of MKVMerge 4.0 or earlier (you can fix it with MKVMerge greater than that but you will need to go to both video and audio headers and turn off compression).  Remuxing will take seconds and then your file should play and not break the Live (note: this is going to be addressed with a firmware update Soon).

[TonyPh12345]

I'm pretty sure that if your TV Restarts when you change HDMI inputs that it's a problem with the TV, not the WDTV!

That also makes me think the TV isn't properly decoding other audio after it decodes DTS; there should be NO issue with that.  Countless people here are using DTS via HDMI with no issues at all.

[Blood1 · Accepted solution]

Okay this was weird and maybe I don't understand the audio modes but when I switched it to Stereo I started to get sound via the HDMI on mkv files that were Digital DTS encoded?

I just hit a new problem and will doc it.. :-(

[TonyPh12345]

Well, that's correct.   If you select STEREO, it will downmix the DTS to stereo.  My guess is, when outputting certain audio modes to your TV, your TV's audio decoder dies, and the steps you're taking forces the TV's HDMI to reset the decoders.  And really, it shouldn't matter if the WDTV outputs random GARBAGE out the HDMI... your TV should not reboot.   THAT bug is your TV's.