Added a MP4 on locally attached external drive, but it is not seen

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Using WD TV LIve Streaming version 2.03.20
I just added a MP4 to an external Seagate 2TB drive that is locally attached to the WD TV. The WD TV does not show the new movie. It still does show all the other mp4’s on the drive.
If I connect the Seagate external drive to a Windows version laptop I can play the movie just fine but when I attach this drive locally back to the WDTV it is not seen. I do have the “Get content” Info set on auto. I even cleared the Media library and made sure the Media library re-indexed.

I have never had this problem before. The only thing I can think of that may come into play is I bought the video on Amazon Prime and loaded it onto the external drive with Play-On. The movie was produced 2 years ago.

2

Your database needs to be refreshed. reboot the WDTV and drive and it will likely show up. By reboot, I mean unplug units and plug in after 30 seconds or so.

3

Hi Mike,
I tried your suggestion with no success.
I did some playing around by adding and subtracting mp4’s. It appears it is not a system limitation but just the actual mp4 itself. WD TV Live streaming sees the changes perfectly except for this one mp4.
My guess is there must be something in the codec on a permission level that is unique to this mp4. It will enable me to play it on a windows7 or 10 machines. I looked at the properties file and it did not show anything on the codec. This is where I am at.

4

OK Bill, the next suggestion is that you rebuild a hidden database folder found on each drive connected to the WDTV. Your Win PC must be able to see hidden folders and files, and this is made possible with an adjustment in the PC’s. settings. (You may have to google for " how to show hidden files")

The folder’s name is: .wd_tv (read as dot wd underscore tv) The dot at the beginning of the name denotes a hidden folder or file.

Any data on the drive is cataloged in this database, and any changes will be made any time you use the WDTV. It is OK to delete this folder, because if it is not ever present, the WDTV creates one from scratch like it did the first time it was used on WDTV… Sometimes it can get corrupted and have errors. Deleting the current .wd_tv to create a new folder is the way to fix the database. (If you search the forum for .wd_tv you will get a lot of hits.).

Since I had not done this for over a year, I decided to do it to both my 2TB drives connected to my WDTV right now. It is a good maintenance task I like to do annually even if I have no obvious antics from WDTV indicating any issues.

My drives are large and one has a lot of mp3 files, so it took the longest to complete. Just listen for all the disk activity, and once it is all silent again the job is done.

Since my WDTV drives are on my network, I could do all this from my PC, but if your drive(s) are not on network, you will need to remove the drives from WDTV and mount then on your PC to find and remove the folder.

Once folder is gone and drives are on WDTV, just unplug WDTV and in a moment or two re-apply power to boot the unit. Like I said, it could take 10-15 minutes to rebuild the database.

Hopefully, not seeing your new file added was an error that is now fixed. Let me know how it goes for you.

5

Hi Mike, I tried your suggestion without any luck. Thanks for giving me some ideas. I am pretty convinced there is some attribute unique to this .wp4 that is making WDTV not see it.

6

Weird. Well, at least you gave the database folder a good flushing out!

I have no idea why the file is not recognized. If you didn’t make it, I would just flush the mp4 as well and get another copy.

7

Hi Mike
I believe I know what was going on in this situation. When I connected the local drive to a laptop and directly downloaded the MP4 to this drive. I then moved the drive to be a local on WD it took. However when ever I used a HDMI connection to transfer the MP4 it would not work. It appears the reason is HDCP
Apps (MP4) which have “HDCP” video copyrights protection like Netflix, Amazon video, HBO go, HULU and Honda motor and other App which need to be paid fee. Because these App are encrypted and are not authorized for third-party software sharing.
I paid for the MP4 from Amazon Video. Because of the encryption WD does not see it. Here is a link that talks about HDCP.

There are many other HDCP links if you google it. There is a way around this by using a spliter. Let me know what you think

8

Thanks for an update, but I don’t get it. I never use an HDMI cable to transfer any file to any drive. HDMI is for connecting audio and video.
When i used to transfer movie and music files I created to the local drives on the WDTV I would send them from my PC (or a drive on it) via the home network which is wired via ethernet between PC and WDTV. (Does your HDMI cable also have an ethernet cable as part of it?) If I had a lot of movie files to add to drive on WDTV I would connect drive directly to the the PC and copy the file over USB. Are we on the same page here?

Are you also saying that if you directly copy an encrypted file from PC to WDTV drive that the WDTV ignores the copy protection, and therefore I have been removing the CP needlessly?

9

Hi Mike,
You are right in that I did not use HDMI when I transferred the MP4 file
from the lap top to the Local drive used by WD. It was through Ethernet
sharing windows work group. It is like what you described above.* I
apologize for my bad description.* Let me see if I can clarify. what I was
thinking. I came across the HDCP error issue when looking for a lightning
ipad adapter to display a Amazon Prime Video to a TV using HDMI . This
intrigued me and I researched HDCP.

My theory is when I transferred the Amazon Video through Ethernet the HDCP
encryption recognizes it is not on the laptop and something changes that
prevents WD from seeing the MP4. In the near future I will buy another
Amazon Prime Video and see if I get the same result as the first time. I
was just asking to see what you may know about HDCP and share my theory.

Thanks
Bill

10

Just to chime in … the WDTV does Not Support media with DRM Copy Protection (pretty sure Amazon Prime Videos contain DRM)

11

Hi Joey,
I looked DRM up and it makes sense with what I am seeing. Thanks -
Digital Restrictions Management is the practice of imposing technological restrictions that control what users can do with digital media. When a program is designed to prevent you from copying or sharing a song, reading an ebook on another device, or playing a single-player game without an Internet connection, you are being restricted by DRM. In other words, DRM creates a damaged good; it prevents you from doing what would be possible without it. This concentrates control over production and distribution of media, giving DRM peddlers the power to carry out massive digital book burnings and conduct large scale surveillance over people’s media viewing habits.
What is DRM? | Defective by Design

12

Bill, apparently you had not heard of DRM, aka copy protection , encryption and other similar terms. Prime examples are copy protections on commercial DVDs (and earlier, VHS tapes.) Apple was one of the first to use DRM on their iTunes music files.
There are ways to bypass CP on DVDs and is how many people can copy their DVD collections to a hard drive and watch their movies on a TV via WDTV or a phone or tablet.