WDTV won't play video with sample rate of 48KHz

[Joolz2020]

Is the above statement right? I've been to and fro with WD for a number of weeks for them to finally tell me this, and that I should convert the video to 44KHz or preferably 41KHz.

If it was just a few videos I guess I'd grin and start looking for a convertor, but it's actually 2 podcast subscriptions, one of which is updated daily.

Shouldn't WD just do a firmware update to support higher sampling rates? I bought the WDTV on the basis that it plays a variety of formats, and checking the manual nowhere does it say "but only if we feel like supporting the sampling rate".

The problem is that the video playback is accelerated (possibly doubled) while audio is fine. To add insult to injury, while my WDTV which is dedicated to playing a multitude of video files has this problem, my new Samsung TV has the ability to play some video files from an attached USB drive and has no problem! Unfortunately the TV doesn't support playlists.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts...

[mh2360]

I'm assuming you are referring to the audio track's sample rate.

I have AVI files with AC3 or MP3 audio tracks encoded at 48Khz, as well as MP4 files with AAC audio at 48Khz, all work fine in my WDTV (1st gen HD).

[Joolz2020]

Thanks. WD are adamant they don't support 48KHz. The files in question are H.264 in MP4 container, which the manual says is supported. I've suggested a firmware update is needed instead of fobbing me off.

My WDTV is fairly new (2nd gen?) and also HD so maybe they've screwed up the newer models and aren't admitting it.

[Case]

My WD TV Live HD (August 2010, firmware 1.01.12) has no problem with 48 kHz audio in movie files. Most of my AVI video files have 48 kHz audio. Come to think of it, probably only playing MP3 files through the WD TV so far have been 44.1 kHz.

[jagabo]

WDTV series plays 48KHz audio with no problems. The problem is more likely the audio codec. Use MediaInfo to get information about the audio, post what it tells you.

The problem is that the video playback is accelerated (possibly doubled) while audio is fine.

This is not an audio problem. It's a video problem. There is some confusion in MP4 files about whether the frame rate of 30i video should be set to 30 or 60 (each frame of 30i video contains two separate half pictures to be viewed sequentially, so 30 frames per second is viewed as 60 half pictures per second). There is a quick way to patch the videos so that they play at the right speed (I don't remember what it is, maybe a remux with Yamb?). Can you give a link to the podcast? I'll try it on my WDTV Live. If nothing else, you can probably remux into an MKV container.

[Joolz2020]

GeekBeat is one of the podcasts in question, HD version from iTunes. I think this link should work:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/caliextralarge

I've attached the mediainfo file from GeekBeat which was also supplied to WD.

Thanks.

[jagabo]

Your link gave me a blank page. But I went to GeekBeat.tv and downloaded episode 25. It appears to be the same episode in your mediainfo report but the specs (file size and frame rate) are a little different. Both the audio and video played at the right speed on my WDTV Live with recent beta firmware. There was some problem with the video update speed: it looks like only every other frame is being displayed (jerky) but the overall running time was normal (no A/V sync problems). I've seen this with other Revision3 MP4 files.

Revision3 MP4 videos were more problematic on earlier firmware versions of the WDTV Live. I would check to see if you can get updated firmware for your model.

[Joolz2020]

Sorry. You can get the format I'm looking at via iTunes with this link:

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp4/videos.revision3.com/revision3/web/geekbeattv/...5--hd.h264.mp4

I notice that there is also a 30fps version (above should be 24fps) on the revision3 site, but this doesn't seem to be offered as an iTunes feed.

My firmware is 1.01.77.

[jman98]

WDTV series plays 48KHz audio with no problems.

I have the first generation WDTV player. I got it within months of it coming out. It plays 48KHz audio fine just like jagabo says.

[jagabo]

Sorry. You can get the format I'm looking at via iTunes with this link:

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp4/videos.revision3.com/revision3/web/geekbeattv/...5--hd.h264.mp4

That file played ok on my WDTV Live. The conversion from 30 fps to 24 fps makes for four little jerks every second, but that's a problem with the video, not the WDTV Live.

See if there's a firmware update for your model.

[Joolz2020]

Can you believe this response from WD on reading this thread:

Unfortunately we cannot do anything else then convert the file to a lower sampling rate and try that out.
Perhaps older firmwares did play the file, however this would still have been unsupported and the media player simply happened to play the media.

To say I'm frustrated would be an understatement.

[jagabo]

Every DVD has 48KHz audio sampling. The inability to play 48KHz audio would be a catastrophic flaw for a media player. Maybe the tech is thinking about 96 KHz or 192 KHz audio? I don't know of the WDTV plays those.

[Joolz2020]

Latest response from WD:

The Codec MP42 is not supported as a codec. The sampling rate is currently too high at 48.000, and should be downsampled to 41.000. If you downsample and recode (convert) the files, you may be able to get them to play.

[jagabo]

MP42 is a video codec, Microsoft MPEG 4 v2, an early attempt by Microsoft at the same spec as Divx/Xvid. But it's different enough that the WDTV series can't play it. In fact, I dont' know of any hardware players play it. See MP42 here: http://fourcc.org/codecs.php.

Again, this has nothing to do with the audio. Try the attached file. It has 48 KHz, 192 kbps CBR MP3 audio. It just a quick flash and beep every few seconds -- for testing A/V sync.

General
Complete name : TestTones.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 778 KiB
Duration : 16s 0ms
Overall bit rate : 398 Kbps
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 (build 2366/release)
Writing library : VirtualDub build 28312/release

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode : Packed bitstream
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 16s 0ms
Bit rate : 65.2 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 5:4
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.006
Stream size : 127 KiB (16%)
Writing library : XviD 1.2.0SMP (UTC 2006-01-08)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 15s 958ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 374 KiB (48%)
Alignment : Split accross interleaves
Interleave, duration : 41 ms (1.03 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 500 ms