It happily played the 1080i wmv, but I get “Unable to play the selected file” on the next one down (the shuttle launch one)
I also can’t play any downloaded trailers from Apple’s movie trailers plage either, sometimes I get smooth video, but no audio, and sometimes nothing at all.
The WDTV live has managed to play pretty much everything else I’ve thrown it’s way, and I was just wondering if it’s something I’m doing.
Unfortunately that video uses a codec not supported by the WDTV live, the Sorenson Video 3, you would need to reencode it to any other compatible format I guess.
You can check the codec used by most videos with media players like MPC-home cinema (in properties) or VLC (clicking ctrl-i to access file information).
As has been pointed out these videos use a proprietary codec, Sorenson Video 3 which the WDTV Live does not recognise. You could use the following (free) program to recode the videos to mp4.
MPEG Streamclip: video converter for Mac & Windows
MPEG Streamclip is a powerful free video converter, player, editor for Mac and Windows. It can play many movie files, not only MPEGs; it can convert MPEG files between muxed/demuxed formats for authoring; it can encode movies to many formats, including iPod; it can cut, trim and join movies.
I have re-coded the .mov videos using the program above and they play perfectly via network shares on a wireless network. As they are short it does not take too long.
Open MPEG Streamclip. File, Open Files, click on nasa .mov file. File, Export to MPEG-4, Click Make MP4 button at bottom right corner of the window that pops up. No need to touch anything on the screen. Wait for re-coding. Play new MP4 file.