A little disapointed

I bought the 2 Tb MPW and am generally happy with it however a couple of things are a bit disappointing. The first is that it seems that it’s not compatible with my WD Live Streaming Media player when connected with the USB cable. The reason I tried doing it that way is I found the other problem when using it via WIFI, when playing videos the subtitles won’t work and as my husband has a problem understanding what people are saying I go and find the subtitles when they are available.  I would have thought that they would have made them compatible with their other products.

I’ve looked at various versions of WD Media/TV players as I think they are a great idea. But once I look at the details of their capabilities and restrictions, I always decide they are not for me.

However, I would have thought both your issues would be solveable, or work straight off. You may wish to create a support ticket with WD to see what advice they can give.

While you a waiting for a response though:

The WD Live Streaming Media player may not be providing enough power to the MPW when you connect it via USB. If you have a powered USB hub you could try putting that between the WD LIve and the MPW, and see if it works.

Also, if you are using the MPW as a DLNA server to serve media to the WD Live, I don’t think that would work via USB. DLNA is intended to work over a network. However, you should be able to just browse the MPW as an attached drive from the WD Live. At least I would expect that to work, but I haven’t used one and forget what the WD Live interface is capable of. Or you could just get both the MPW and the WD Live on to your network, and see if it works that way, without the USB cable. (Plugging in the USB cable will turn off the MPW wireless capability.)

There may be a similar issue with subtitles. The MPW DLNA server may not provide subtitles, but if you can browse to the MPW drive to find the media, and the subtites files are in the same location and meet all other subtitle requirements for the WD Live, then subtitles should work.

I hope you can get it worked out. WD support via a Support Ticket should be able to give a decisive answer.

gepomagz wrote:

The first is that it seems that it’s not compatible with my WD Live Streaming Media player when connected with the USB cable.

That’s because the WDTV Live Streaming Media Player does not support  exFAT 

(My Passport Wireless is formatted to exFAT by default, to provide compatibility with Windows and Mac Apple users)

You’ll need to format the My Passport Wireless to either NTFS, FAT/FAT32 or HFS+  to use it via USB with the WDTV Live Streaming.

Page 7 in the WDTV Live Streaming User Manual   “USB Storage File System Support”

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/4779-705062.pdf

P.S. If you only use Windows, then i’d recommend NTFS  (I formatted my Passport Wireless to NTFS and works fine via USB in all my WDTV’s)

I have already reformated it to NTFS but that didn’t make any difference. 

Thanks for telling me that (could have saved myself some typing) :wink:

Have you tried both USB inputs on the WDTV ?  Front and Back ?

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Thanks for your reply.  I gave it another try after you confirming that they work with WD Media players and this time I had success.  I don’t know why it didn’t work the other times I tried but this time it did but it took a long time to compile the library but we got there in the end.  I had a hard time trying to log in otherwise I wold have replied sooner.  I am now a much happier chappy. Many thanks.

I have my ExFAT formatted MPW wirelessly connected to the home network (that my WDTV’s and 25+ other devices  are connected to), and access it just fine on the WDTV that is hard wired to the network.  The bonus here is that the WDTV sees the MPW as both a media server and a network share. 

The MPW is not intended to plug into the WDTV (notice that the MPW user guide doesn’t suggest doing this) – it is intended to be stand alone, used at a hotspot, OR wirelessly on the home network with all the other devices  – wired and wireless ones.  When the MPW is on the network EVERY device anywhere in my house (yard too) can access the MPW – and by using the 5G wireless signal on phones and tablets to connect to the network, thus making the MPW “faster” in a sense…  There is a big difference in video playback quality in connecting wireless devices to the network via 5G instead of slower 2.4G whenever possible.  Improvements to the MPW are no exception, even though IT connects at 2.4G.  The “trick” is 1) have MPW close to the router, and 2) plugged into its power adapter, 24.7.  If one wants to take the MPW with them, just unplug it and go!

mike27oct wrote:

The MPW is not intended to plug into the WDTV (notice that the MPW user guide doesn’t suggest doing this)

i think, if someone shells out up to $300 for a device … they’re entitled to use it however they darn well please,

whether it’s being used for Wireless Streaming, Portable Hotspot,  and/or USB attached storage for WDTV (which nowhere in the user manual does it advise against) … or in the field backup/transfer of digital photos.

I agree with Joey and if the original post was read properly the reason I was trying to use it attached via USB was that the subtitles wouldn’t work using wireless and when you have a hearing problem that’s quite important if you want to enjoy a video. 

OK, Joey, with that logic, I guess I could use the MPW as a barbie if I wanted to, and grill shrimp on it.  :wink:

My point was obviously missed, and that is the MPW works best in certain ways, and if I shelled out a lot of dough for a MPW, I darn well would not want to treat it as a regular drive (which cost much, much less) and hard wire it via USB to another device like a WDTV.  I already have filled both USB ports of the WDTVs with 2TB regular HDs. My MPW is easily detached from network and can be used away from home as a portable drive anytime – wirelessly.  Meanwhile, it sits happily on my network where I can easily copy more media files to it from PCs or any other hard drive on network.  Nevertheless, to each his own; I was only passing on other ideas and insights to folks.