No AAC Digital Audio Options

[XopherTaylor]

So I've had the WDTV Live for a while, but just (finally!) upgraded my sound system this past weekend with a 5.1 receiver. Of course, I'm anxious to get some 5.1 movies going, which I have plenty of, but when switching the audio settings from Stereo to Digital, sound is no longer playing on any file type that uses AAC Digital (5.1) audio. Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 audio seem to play fine.

Any suggestions?

I'm on the current firmware and passed on others' posts about missing out, I rolled back to several previous versions (both official and pre-release). 1.02.21 just remuxed surround sound to 2.0 when set to Digital in the audio settings.

[Trendecide]

Are you using an optical audio cable plugged into the back of the WDTV to your receiver? The HDMI/component cable will still go from the WDTV to your TV.

[WDUser]

Have you read these topics (among others) already?

http://wdtvhd.com/index.php?showtopic=11172

http://wdtvhd.com/index.php?showtopic=22364

[XopherTaylor]

Are you using an optical audio cable plugged into the back of the WDTV to your receiver? The HDMI/component cable will still go from the WDTV to your TV.

Based on the other threads included in the other poster's reply, can I assume that since I'm hooked up via HDMI that the Toslink cable won't yield any better results? I'd like to know before I drop $20 on one.

[Trendecide]

I read through the other threads in depth and it seems to me they're having the same problem, maybe I should respond to those as well.

Anyhow, there's an awesome chart on wikipedia that covers HDMI audio support. The WDTV supports HDMI 1.3, but doesn't support 1.4 unless you're using the Live Hub. So the bigger questions lie within... are the TV AND the HDMI cable both HDMI 1.3+ compliant to get the added DTS support? Even still is DTS in the container (mkv, mp4 are all containers) at all (when viewing a video, hit the options button on your remote and select the audio option which will let you know what you're using and let you cycle through multiple audio streams within the container if they are there)? So if you're using a TV that's over a few years old it probably does NOT do DTS over HDMI since HDMI 1.3 wasn't widely adopted until the latter part of 2007 (1.3 being released in mid-2006). I know you said DTS is playing fine, but there's method to my madness here.

Translate... that optical cable will make all the difference and will handle any audio you throw at it... whether the video has DTS or just 2.1 bundled in the container. I'm 99% sure an optical cable won't let you down. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Some other things you may want to check:

• Check your HDMI fittings
• Your receiver should be doing all the work... the TV's HDMI is going into the receiver and the WDTV's HDMI is going into the receiver right? The WDTV HDMI should not be directly into the TV's HDMI (that's the typical setup, yours may be different though).
• If you do go for the optical cable... the WDTV's HDMI will plug directly into the TV's HDMI... the optical cable will go into the receiver for the audio.

[XopherTaylor]

Thank you for the thorough answer. It's difficult to wade through all the other possible answers because everyone's setup is a little different.

The TV is a Samsung 650A which was made is 2008. The receiver is brand new (and in fact, 3D compliant) and the HDMI cable is 1.3. The HDMI goes to the receiver and then the receiver to the TV. So really, everything should check out if I understand all of this correctly.

I will try a toslink and report back. I'm also in the process of trying out the MediaCoder method, however, I'm on a mac, so there's some leg work to do first.

At any rate, I appreciate your thorough reply and I'll try to help others by updating my progress.

[Rev Drew]

My live and formerly the original wdtv used HDMI and optical cables and they play anything I threw at them, well until the header compression BS..

so yes, get an optical cable for the audio.

[WDUser]

I just think it's a long-standing problem with the Live's handling of 5.1 AAC audio streams. AC3/Dolby Digital/DTS seem to be fine, but it has issues with this codec, even when it comes to simple pass-through to a capable external receiver. Try with a TOSLink anyway and hopefully that'll do the trick for you, else you'll need to convert the audio after all.

[watchguys]

I have the wdtv live plus and the problem with the AAC 5.1 still persists even after the latest firmware upgrade. Hope WDTV are watching these forums and get the fix in new firmware update.
Does any know any alternatives that can play AAC 5.1 ?

[ms3brendan]

I'm having the exact same issue.. Pretty annoying since many of my movies are in AAC and I just got a new fancy receiver and speakers.. the AC3..DTS..Dolby Digital audio is working great just not AAC.. I have the optical cable plugged in but all that has done is going from no sound in AAC to downmixing to stereo.. I haven't tried yet to switch the audio from "digital" to "digital with optical" maybe that'll do it? I'll have to try that later..

[enderkonya]

Only way for listen AAC is the orginal version 1.01.00

[Thorgal]

Only way for listen AAC is the orginal version 1.01.00

That's nonsense. I have a lot files with AAC (of course 2ch) in mkv or mp4 container and all of them are working fine with every firmware conected with HDMI to my av receiver.

@ms3brendan
AAC Multichannel never worked and will never work because it's only possible if you pass through it to an external decoder. Of course you'll never find such a decoder but it's still possible to encode the stream to AC3 or DTS with BeLight.