What is the best method for streaming to the WD TV Live SMP on a Windows 7 PC?

I haven’t used my WD TV Live SMP in a while. I just built my first PC, put Windows 7 on it. I have a SSD and a HDD installed. I store my movies and other video files on the HDD, what is the best way to stream those movies/videos from my PC to the WD TV Live SMP that is connected to my LG plasma? It’s been a while so I don’t remember on how to accomplish this and what the best way method of streaming is for what I’m doing? Do I just right click on the folder that has the videos in it and click share? I want to set this up quickly for my 5 yr olds he can watch his flicks.

Thanks & Happy Holidays!

You should be able to do it like you said. You will want to set the workgroup name on the WD to match what is on your PC and I think you’ll have to use the same user profile / password (same as you use to log in to Windows), or create another user id on Windows just for the WD to use (I never had any luck with guest or Everyone access on Windows). That way you could limit access to read-only, for example, so 5-yo doesn’t delete everything.

When you go to watch on the WD, go to Videos, then select Content Source and choose Windows Share and hopefully your PC will show up. It may take a few minutes as I recall. You’ll probably have to input your user/pwd the first time.

Another way to go is to install a DLNA media server on your PC, such as Serviio (one that I have used but there are others) and then you will have a fancier way to do the same thing.

In any case you’ll want to get a current load of firmware on your WD box if yours has been sitting around for a while. 2.0.32 is the latest but some of us have had problems with that one and prefer the previous release, 2.01.86 (there are problems on that one too but, arguably, less for some people). I have one WD box on each and for doing what you’ve mentioned, just streaming videos from local network, both releases have been pretty stable for me.

Hope I haven’t forgotten anything important - it has been a while since I set one up.

The other option is the WD boxes Mexia Library and use its Manager to add shares (though they must be writeable and at most 10) to a library maintained by the box. It looks at all the media files within the share directories and presents various views of them, including pictures and descriptions if u get the metadata downloaded for films.