I an new to this and confused by the hard-to-uncerstand instructions in the manual. The machine is hooked up to my TV and home network and seems to work as I can get YouTube through that connection. I am trying to stream internet video from my computer that is hooked up to the internet via cable. How do I do this? Do I need to somehow save it to my hard drive and then send it through my network to the TV? Do I need a separate hard drive to store it and then send it on?
I thought I could figure it out with these new hints, but just wasted another hour with no success. I this machine is useless without much more specific instructions how to use it. Or have a 15 year old in the house.
I an new to this and confused by the hard-to-uncerstand instructions in the manual. The machine is hooked up to my TV and home network and seems to work as I can get YouTube through that connection. I am trying to stream internet video from my computer that is hooked up to the internet via cable. How do I do this? Do I need to somehow save it to my hard drive and then send it through my network to the TV? Do I need a separate hard drive to store it and then send it on?
Very confusing.
The SMPs are good and straightforward for playing your own video files and displaying them on your TV (and hooking into your surround sound system). They are also good for using Netflix, HuluPlus, etc. on your TV. They are not designed to allow you to browse the Internet and (easily) play any available video. It sounds to me like you instead want functionality like with a Google Chromecast.
A lot of good suggestions so far. One other option you may want to look at is PlayOn.
PlayOn is a DLNA sever (like KAD79 wrote about) that provides a lot of internet channels which is great and I highly recomend. The thing that may make it work well for you is the “PlayCast” feature. When you are on a web page that has a video, you can send the video to your WD SMP with a browser extension that comes with the program. It works very well, and also lets you queue up videos so you can watch several in a row when you are ready.