Streaming From Computer

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.

probably confusing because there are about a billion variables

in short for accessing internet content

  1. use an app already provided in the firmware - no you can’t add new apps, only wd can

  2. save a file on your computer and share it (sharing has a lot of different options)

  3. use a dnla media server - this is a program that runs on your computer

grabs internet content, and send the content to the WD - examples playon, serviio, mezzmo, twonky

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.

well, maybe you should start by telling us specifically what you are trying to do

so far all we’ve got is you want to play content from the internet

and that your network is wired

that’s not much to go on

there’s thousands of users here with working set ups

but probably each set up has things are are specific to that individual’s network

so again, details please, we can’t help if we don’t have specifics to work with

DrDale wrote:

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.

Good Luck

-P