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[Motorbreath]

I had this problem with earlier FW too...
The movie plays nice and then suddenly I loose sound and it slows down and I have to press stop or pause and resume it...
My harddrive is formatted on HFS+, I had it on NTFS before and I think it works slightly better now but still happens,the HDD is Samsung Mini S2 500GB. Did not try to play the movies without subtites so no idea if it works good without subtitles on... will check that.
Edit: I forgot to say that the issue doesnt seem to be appearing on movies that are around 8GB, if they are bigger I am sure to have some problems, with some more with some less.

General
Complete name                    : F:\Revolutionary.Road.2008.1080p.BluRay.DTS.x264-DON\Revolutionary.Road.2008.1080p.BluRay.DTS.x264-DON.mkv
Format                           : Matroska
File size                        : 14.6 GiB
Duration                         : 1h 59mn
Overall bit rate                 : 17.6 Mbps
Encoded date                     : UTC 2009-05-25 09:52:21
Writing application              : mkvmerge v2.5.3 ('Boogie') built on Mar  7 2009 15:00:41
Writing library                  : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames
Muxing mode                      : Container profile=Unknown@4.1
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 58mn
Bit rate                         : 15.7 Mbps
Nominal bit rate                 : 16.0 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 816 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 2.35
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Resolution                       : 24 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.417
Stream size                      : 13.0 GiB (89%)
Title                            : x264 VBR @ 16000 Kbps
Writing library                  : x264 core 67 r1153M 7b6ce6a
Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy_rd=1.2:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=48 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-4 / threads=6 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=10 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / bitrate=16000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language                         : English

Audio #1
ID                               : 2
Format                           : DTS
Format/Info                      : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                         : A_DTS
Duration                         : 1h 59mn
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 6 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Resolution                       : 24 bits
Stream size                      : 1.26 GiB (9%)
Title                            : English DTS 5.1 @ 1536 Kbps
Language                         : English

Audio #2
ID                               : 3
Format                           : Vorbis
Format settings, Floor           : 1
Codec ID                         : A_VORBIS
Duration                         : 1h 59mn
Bit rate                         : 80.0 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Stream size                      : 68.1 MiB (0%)
Title                            : English Vorbis 2.0 @ 80 Kbps
Writing library                  : libVorbis 1.1.1/1.1.2 (UTC 2005-03-04)
Language                         : English

Text #1
ID                               : 4
Format                           : UTF-8
Codec ID                         : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                    : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title                            : English
Language                         : English

Text #2
ID                               : 5
Format                           : UTF-8
Codec ID                         : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                    : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title                            : Chinese Simplified
Language                         : Chinese

Text #3
ID                               : 6
Format                           : UTF-8
Codec ID                         : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                    : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title                            : Chinese Traditional
Language                         : Chinese

[jayallan]

Did you encode the file yourself or download it.     The ref frames look ok but it could easily be a bad encode. 

I do not have these problems with ANY properly encoded 1080p MKVs.

[Motorbreath]

I downloaded, the movie plays good on PC, lower size 720p seem to work flawless, 1080p too but if they are around 8GB, if bigger I will have problems...

[Motorbreath]

OK, the problem seems to be connected to croatian subtitles as the english ones work good and without subtitles it also works good. I will upload the subtitles for some of the movies that are having problems, but only if they are bigger than about 8GB... I have tried central european, eastern, ISO and all seem to have same problems, the movie comes to a point where I loose sound and it looks like someone is fast forwarding it...

I uploaded subtitles here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f4a410903e0b2cb0e62ea590dc5e5dbbe04e75f6e8ebb871
In The Notebook , this movie works great but around and hour or so when the rain starts to fall it looses sound and looks like someone is fast forwarding, doesnt happen with english subtitles or without subs.

[Ninjate]

Your issue seems pretty much same as mine as described here:
http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=335.0

Which at first step I converted my HDD to HFS+ but then realized the problem is with the subtitles... just like you(rs).
This problem is still not solved and effects the main functionality of the device, I hope WD devs can have a look in to this asap!

[Motorbreath]

WD please fix the problem!

[MrMod]

Try remuxing to m2ts with tsMuxeR.  m2ts stream extraction is handled totally in hardware whereas mkv requires some extra CPU cycles to read the container and extract the streams (info taken from Sigma SDK).  By using m2ts you should be able to get the few extra CPU cycles needed to display the Croatian subtitles successfully.

[Motorbreath]

I will try thx.

[Motorbreath]

it worked for one movie, need to try something else, this could be a great solution!

[Motorbreath]

Works great now on all movies, you can lock this down as far as I'm concerned.

[bj25430]

Video is choppy and seems to skip every 1/2 second.  Audio is right now but video skips.  This only happens on larger video files in .avi format of 720x480.  File size is about 2gb or less.  If i play video that is like 700mb smaller resoution then it works fine.  Im thinking it just cant process the files fast enough.  I have tried both HDMI cables and VGA cables, no difference in play back.  From Thumb Drives to other externals, nothing changes.  Looks like this unit is going back into the box and returned.  I hooked my Laptop up to the tv, and played the video off the same usb external drive, plays smooth as silk.  Looks like i'll just use my laptop run through the tv till WD get there product to par.

[jayallan]

Video is choppy and seems to skip every 1/2 second.  Audio is right now but video skips.  This only happens on larger video files in .avi format of 720x480.  File size is about 2gb or less.  If i play video that is like 700mb smaller resoution then it works fine.  Im thinking it just cant process the files fast enough.  I have tried both HDMI cables and VGA cables, no difference in play back.  From Thumb Drives to other externals, nothing changes.  Looks like this unit is going back into the box and returned.  I hooked my Laptop up to the tv, and played the video off the same usb external drive, plays smooth as silk.  Looks like i'll just use my laptop run through the tv till WD get there product to par.

You are not giving us enough info but I am sure the problem is with your files not the WDTV. I have many 13-22 GB files that play perfectly.  I also have a ton of avis that also all work just fine.  If you are downloading crappy encoded pirated material then you can expect some problems.   

[bj25430]

Video is choppy and seems to skip every 1/2 second.  Audio is right now but video skips.  This only happens on larger video files in .avi format of 720x480.  File size is about 2gb or less.  If i play video that is like 700mb smaller resoution then it works fine.  Im thinking it just cant process the files fast enough.  I have tried both HDMI cables and VGA cables, no difference in play back.  From Thumb Drives to other externals, nothing changes.  Looks like this unit is going back into the box and returned.  I hooked my Laptop up to the tv, and played the video off the same usb external drive, plays smooth as silk.  Looks like i'll just use my laptop run through the tv till WD get there product to par.

You are not giving us enough info but I am sure the problem is with your files not the WDTV. I have many 13-22 GB files that play perfectly.  I also have a ton of avis that also all work just fine.  If you are downloading crappy encoded pirated material then you can expect some problems.   

They have been from original disks, no torrent downloads of .AVI files.  Used Slysoft Clone dvd Mobile.  What is the best format to put these videos into for smooth operation.  The MP4 format works fine, but quality isnt good.  Also what is a recommended software to use to make the video files.?  Thanks!

[jayallan]

Look here

http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=7.0

and here

http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=133.0

and here

http://wdtvforum.com/main/index.php?topic=857.0

[DesiDude]

Try remuxing to m2ts with tsMuxeR.  m2ts stream extraction is handled totally in hardware whereas mkv requires some extra CPU cycles to read the container and extract the streams (info taken from Sigma SDK).  By using m2ts you should be able to get the few extra CPU cycles needed to display the Croatian subtitles successfully.

I have m2ts files that I extracted straight from my blu-ray media, none of these files plays without stutter!  The only file that plays maybe 5 minutes without stutter is a 13Gig movie file.  I also noticed that this problem happens only when the cache reaches its peak (when almost all of 128meg is used up). I telnet into wdtv and ran "free" at Linux prompt to check this info.  The movies play fine until that 128mb cache is used up.  I really don't think it's got anything particularly to do with subtitles, but rather this cache seems to be the problem.  (maybe using subtitles uses more cache which hits the limit and makes movies stutter).

Is there anyway to increase hardware cache on these units? If not, is there *ANY* fix for this? It is very frustrating that I cannot watch any of my HD movies (all in m2ts format).  Does anyone know a fix for this problem?  I am running WDLXTV based on version 1.02.10 (the latest on b-rad website as of July20).  I have also tried older version, none of them work without stutter. Please help..