Is there an AirPlay feature on the Wireless Passport? If not, where can I submit an official suggestion? Thanks.
Welcome to the Community. If you would like to present the suggestion as a feature for the WD My Passport Wireless itself:
If you would like to present it as an inclusion to the WD My Cloud app itself:
However, I would first search and make sure that there are no other active Feature Requests suggesting the same or similar improvements. If there is, then you could add your post and vote on it.
Although I am a PC user and not a Mac user, I do not have an Apple TV, but I have media players like Apple TV, along with iPhones and iPads, a MPW and also a Seagate Wireless drive, so I know that Seagate has this feature built-in to their version of a My Cloud app called Seagate Media
Airplay is a feature that has been part of their app for quite a while, and I was surprised that WD did not make Airplay a part of My Cloud when the MPW came out. It is so easy to do. This is another oversight by WD where they are scooped (and beaten) by Seagate. They need to add this feature right away. In fact, WD needs to thoroughly examine the Seagate Media app to see how My Cloud stacks up against Seagate’s, because I want WD’s app to be better than Seagate’s, and currently is isn’t.
OK, I have had my say about WD compared to Seagate on the app issue again, so now I will tell the poster of this thread how he can easily play media from his real cool MPW and onto his Apple TV and television.
The basic procedure is to have both the Apple TV and the MPW on the same home network, because if they are, they can communicate with one another. If the MPW is being used with its own wireless signal they cannot do this. So, the MPW full user guide explains how to connect the MPW to the home network using the browser UI interface on either a computer or iPad.
Once both drive and Apple TV are connected to same network, the Seagate app has a button in the app for Airplay, and the problem is solved; just select some media from th drive and play it to Apple TV. My Cloud app needs a button like this. In fact, the app needs a button to send it to WDTV, Roku, Chromecast and ANY other media player it can see on a home network!!!
Since the My Cloud app cannot do this, you need another app to use. You need an app that can see and access the MPW drive and the Apple TV, in other words a DLNA app for sending (“beaming”) from the MPW, to a media player, e.g. to an Apple TV, or a WDTV, Roku, etc. One app I use that is free, works well on iOS devices, and is relatively easy to figure out and use is called MediaPlay. It is a custom version of an app that was called Twonky Beam, but the company pulled the app off the market a while ago, yet they had also made a custom version of it for the Belkin Company that is stiil in the Apple app store: MediaPlay.
Download and install MediaPlay on your iOS phone and iPads; turn it on, read the Help, and just get familiar with it. if your MPW and Apple TV are both connected to your home network you should be able to see and use them.
When my MPW (and Seagate wireless drive) are at home, I keep both on my home network for convenience of accessing them, so both are sitting near my router, plugged into their power supplies and turned on 24/7. If I want to take one of them away with me, it is easy to turn it off and remove from network. When I reconnect the MPW to the network it automatically will connect to the network again when powered up. How easy is that!
Hope this helps you get it all going for you.
AirPlay used to be a part of WD’s app as well – I think it was removed in version 4.
I never noticed it prior because I didn’t have any AirPlay targets to play to – but now I do, and it’s no where to be found.
Thanks Tony, and why should this feature be restricted to just AirPlay? Make it available for WDTV, Roku, Chromecast and other like devices!
mike27oct wrote:
Thanks Tony, and why should this feature be restricted to just AirPlay? Make it available for WDTV, Roku, Chromecast and other like devices!
From what I gather, Apple refuses to license AirPlay Video reception to any third-party devices.
Apple does allow licensing Airplay for Photos & Music to other hardware manufacturers though. All of this is probably to protect their AppleTV products.
Lots of eZines talk of third-party products say they work for Video, but most of what I’m reading say they’re all based on XBMC core, and XBMC AirPlay broke after Apple pushed iOS 8 out.
My iPad 1 CAN send Airplay video to XBMC.
None of my iPhones, iPad 3, iPad Air 2, iPad mini can – theyr’e all iOS 8.
Good info, Tony, although I am not suggesting Airplay send video, etc, to other devices like to WDTV, Roku, etc. I am suggesting that My Cloud send via Airplay to Apple TV, and have an additional feature something like Twonky Beam/MediaPlay does by emedia servers and beaming video, etc from them to devices like WDTV, Roku, etc. But, be more robust like Infuse can do by seeing both servers and shares, and send media from them to the above devices.
And, get this: I saw the Airplay icon show up in My Cloud today, but determined it was a sort of mirage, because I had connected my iPad to my Jawbone mini jambox bluetooth speaker, and it has a built-in Airplay feature that got triggered by the connection. I tried same on my phone and same thing happened. I even tried same with my Seagate wireless drive and app; same thing.
For those who may want to follow this from the XBMC/Kodi side as well, there’s a thread in their forums on this very topic, with the warning about not updating to iOS 8 if you want airplay.
From what I can see in the Kodi release candidates this version (due out in a couple of weeks so the rumour goes) has some work done to fix it again from their side, but the current stable version (Gotham) may well have issues with iOS8 airplay.
mike27oct wrote:
I am suggesting that My Cloud … have an additional feature something like Twonky Beam/MediaPlay does by emedia servers and beaming video, etc from them to devices like WDTV, Roku, etc.
Actually, if the source stream is DLNA-based, AirPlay *is* just beaming the video the same way TwonkyBeam does via DLNA Control Point.
I noticed this the other day when I was playing a video from Safari on my iPad 1 (from my My Passport WiFi), hit the AirPlay icon, selected the XBMC node, and the video started playing on my TV with the iPad in control.
When I looked at the XBMC media info pop-up, it indicated it was streaming it direct from the My Passport via DLNA (Source was HTTP://(ip address of my passport):9000/LongURL/Twonky-permalink-name-of-video.m4v
So Airplay Video has some trickery involved behind the scenes…
And, of course, there’s also AirPlay MIRRORING, which is different again from AirPlay Video.
In iOS 7 or 8, the AirPlay icon is used both as Bluetooth destination selector, AirPlay target selector, and a few other things. So I guess Apple should call it something different than “AirPlay” icon, because it does things other than AirPlay.
Tony, I sort of understand your comments, but I do not use XBMC, Kodi, yet I have no issues streaming to and from because my WDTV and Roku are in my network, so WDTV sees servers and shares etc, and streaming works well for me; especially with my mobile devices. My sugggestions/comments were made to help others who do not have a functioning home network like you and I do. Anyway, thanks for the input again.
