WD TV Live setup issues (MediaServer, NAS and library indexing)

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

I bought a WD TV Live yesterday for accessing and streaming my media instead of using my aging (and noisy) PS3.

Unfortunately i’m having some issues configuring the WD TV Live properly and I’m uncertain if it’s a wrong configuration on my part or a limitation of the device.

Setup:

Device: WD TV Live 3rd Gen with latest Firmware (2.01.86)
NAS: Shuttle XPC with 2x 3 TB WD Red – RAID1 running on FreeNAS 9.2.1
NAS Shares: MediaServer (MiniDLNA plugin) and Windows Share (CIFS) for Data and media management
Router: Linksys WRT54G
Switch: TP-Link 16-Port Gigabit Switch (unmanaged)
Wired network
About 500 GB worth of media

Note: With this setup, I can stream my media to my PS3 and iPad without any issue.

1- After booting up the device the first time and going through the setup process, I’ve instinctively selected my media server as a source. I could access and stream my media, but it was a very bare bone experience. No metadata, poster art, just my files and folders (even if the Library was on). Is this a normal behaviour?

2- Since I couldn’t add my media server to My Library, I switched to a Network Share (with read/write access) and added it to My Library.

Now things got interesting. The device started compiling the media library and getting content (creating WD and xml files on my NAS). The process took more than 1 hour. When it was completed, the device was sluggish and the thumbnails were taking forever to load when I browsed my media. I’ve rebooted the device and it started compiling the media library again.

The WD folder with the .cas files are present at the root of the media share on my NAS.

After letting it run overnight, I tried booting it this morning before leaving for work. It started to recompile the library again. After checking the share status in the system settings, the last scan was “NA” even if it was technically completed yesterday.

Am I missing something? Do not hesitate to tell mo to RTFM. I might have missed something :smiley:

Thanks

2

well the media library

there’s some people that swear by it,

and others like myself can’t stand it because of some of the things you’re already observing

as for moviesheets, etc …  I think most people around here use thumbgen to do that from a PC

3

Thanks for the reply KAD79.

The media library is probably working better with external HDDs than network shares.

So far i believe it will be less frustrating doing everything by hand. I’ll check it out and download thumbgen. Is there some guidelines i must follow generating movie posters and sheets? Respecting a certain size or use a specific theme for this to work properly?

As a side note, I’ve restored my unit to Factory defaults last night, cleared my NAS of every files generated by my unit including posters, movie sheets, backdrops, etc… Then added only one folder of my media library using CIFS share (about 30-40 movies).

It compiled the whole night and was still going this morning. I double checked the user and share privileges and everything is ok.

Checked my NAS system report (RAM, DISK I/O, NIC activity) and no bottleneck there.

I’ll run more tests this evening if i have the chance.

4

well there’s a lot of variable options for you to choose

the theme can make a difference to functionality

but in general SMP and HUB themes should work on both devices

some provide functionality for moviesheets and some for linksheets

the majority of the linksheets theme provide both sets of functionality

I’d recommend to start out with a standard moviesheet theme

and create images and xml files with thumbgen

I personally try to keep moviesheets to 200 - 300 kb

5

Well I’m using my DLNA Media Server as a source for now until I have more time to invest in troubleshooting the Media Library issue.

Thanks for the reply KAD79.

Out of curiosity, what theme(s) are you using on your device?

As recommended, I tried Thumbgen (with default settings) but ended up not having an xml file after export.

I’ve stumbled on Tinwarble Thumbgen user guide. Not sure if I should follow it to the letter since it’s written for the Mojo and Darklight theme, but I’ll give it a try.

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

6

SChico wrote:

…d
Setup:

Device: WD TV Live 3rd Gen with latest Firmware (2.01.86)
NAS: Shuttle XPC with 2x 3 TB WD Red – RAID1 running on FreeNAS 9.2.1
NAS Shares: MediaServer (MiniDLNA plugin) and Windows Share (CIFS) for Data and media management
Router: Linksys WRT54G
Switch: TP-Link 16-Port Gigabit Switch (unmanaged)
Wired network
About 500 GB worth of media
…
2- Since I couldn’t add my media server to My Library, I switched to a Network Share (with read/write access) and added it to My Library.

Now things got interesting. The device started compiling the media library and getting content (creating WD and xml files on my NAS). The process took more than 1 hour. When it was completed, the device was sluggish and the thumbnails were taking forever to load when I browsed my media. I’ve rebooted the device and it started compiling the media library again.

The WD folder with the .cas files are present at the root of the media share on my NAS.

After letting it run overnight, I tried booting it this morning before leaving for work. It started to recompile the library again. After checking the share status in the system settings, the last scan was “NA” even if it was technically completed yesterday.
…

The issue for compiling time is number of files rather than total media size.  I have around 600 movies/TV shows (many terabytes), and if I delete the WD files and start from scratch recompiling, it takes <1min.  However, there are people who claim to have problems with this.

Thumbs load over the network, so they do not display instantaneously.  I don’t find it unacceptably slow, but YMMV.  The speed will obviously be influenced by your share server’s speed.  I am using a Linux server running Samba, not a low power NAS.

You don’t say what firmware you are using, but the latest firmware definitely has a memory leak or problem with runaway processes so that it can get to be very, very slow paging through the Media Library.  I rolled back to the previous firmware on one of our two SMPs because of that.

7

I’m currently using titan live

which supportes moviesheets

but not linksheets (well unless you edit the theme, like I’ve done)

tinwarbles guide is one of the more details ones, certainly a good one to follow

8

Thanks for the reply ncarver.

Under 1 min!? Wow, i’m impressed.

My NAS (core 2 duo with 8 GB or ram) may not be as powerful as yours, but i do not experience any kind of latency anywhere else in my home network. Either accessing data or streaming to my PS3, iPad or over other PCs.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, i’ve only added one media folder containing about 30 files and it compiled the Media Library overnight and was still compiling in the morning. There’s definitively something wrong somewhere.

Also, i listed the firmware version in my first post. It’s 2.01.86.

The thumnails took about 5-10 seconds to load (each) and paging through the Media Library (the only time it compiled properly) was very slow indeed.

Is there a recommended version that I could use to test if its firmware related?

KAD79

I’ll follow tinwarbles guide and see how it goes.

When i get this sotred out, i’ll try changing the theme to Titan Live.

Thanks!

9

Ok I did some testing during the long week-end.

I’ve upgraded version on my NAS to FreeNAS 9.2.1.4. It contained improvements to CIFS shares and reset my WD TV Live to factory default.

Using my unit with the DLNA Media server installed on my NAS is lightning fast as usual. But severely limited in eye candy (no box art, metadata or backdrop).

I’ve tested using Windows Shares again with media library enabled. Instead of having 1 network connexion on the device for my whole media share I’ve used multiples (Movies, Movies Kids, TV Series, etc…). Added one after the other and waited until the compiling was done before adding the next.

Everything compiled in about 10 minutes. Got the content info on most of the files manually.

Now the main problem is browsing.

When I try to access the Video section on the main GUI, the device freezes for about 30-45 seconds before I can access the Media Library. Then, every time I browse in a sub folder, I get the spinning arrow for 15 to 30 seconds. Once I get into a folder (ie: TV Series), the icons load in a matter of seconds and the GUI is very responsive again.

If I go back to the main menu and access my media library again, there is no slow down. But if I put the unit in standby mode or let it run for a while without doing anything, the slow browsing comes back.

I tried using only Network Shares instead of the Media Library and the problem is the same.

Not sure if it’s the unit chocking on something or my NAS/Shares are the culprit. But everything is running fine everywhere else.

I’ve read in the forums that disabling Upnp on the router could solve the slow navigation issue. But, I’m not sure it would apply since everything in running inside my TP-Link Switch.

In short this is my home setup.
WRT54G Router – TP-Link Unmanaged Switch – Wired network all over the house where everything is plugged (PCs, NAS, game consoles, WD TV Live, etc…).

10

if these problems are with CIFS, why not try NFS

I know FreeNAS supports it natively

disabling upnp on the router, is likely to break DNLA functionality

11

I had to rollback to the previous firmware on one of my two SMPs because browsing the Media Library under 2.01.86 would get extremely slow.  So I am back to 1.16.??  (don’t recall exact version).  Another thing I do is change the view (yellow button) to more rapidly scroll through hundreds of movies.