Hi. I am recycling a response to a previous, but similar question. I hope it helps or gives context…
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The design engineers at WD (or whomever WD outsourced the design to) decided to give the end users two ways to regard their devices…
Perspective 1 - Media player. John Q. Public stores h/her files on the WDTVLH doesn’t attach to anything and could care less about seeing his media in a library view. In this scenario the Library funtion is disabled and JQP is fat and happy using local media files.
Perspective 2 - The Omnipotent Media Player Streamer Hub/Master of Time Space and Dimension. This is the scenario where the user wishes to see h/her comprehensive media collection regardless of where it is; PC, NAS, other media server. But since the media is residing on devices remote to the WDTVLH, the WDTVLH has to have some way of validating the content’s existence (is it still there?, is there a new version of the 2 hour video of my four year old giggling?, maybe the trees and shares have been reconfigured. Enter the dreaded Recompiling of the library.
Your question is germane to the second perspective. Yes, when you put a new file out there, the WDTVLH is going to see it, but not until either the Recompile happens (gouge my eyes out with a spoon kinda slow sometimes) or until after a sync has run between the two folder/locations you’ve specified. It’s really not that bad. Clearly a fan of satire here. In all seriousness, recompile time for me with about 2T of exposed shares can be an hour + sometimes. At first I thought, “This is unacceptable!” But the reality is the folder navigation is fully functional as a substitute until the recompile is done. I got over it, but wouldn’t fault another person with another perspective for thinking otherwise.
I will add this. I think the majority of owners of the WDTVLH are going to do a metric ton of stuff at the beginning of their relationship with the WDTVLH. They’re going to learn, swear, but then settle in with the satisfaction of having mastered the Soduku of Media Servers. Then they’ll enter maintenance mode, a couple of new movies here there and yon, and whatever the normal volume of new music and picture files are added per week/month what-have-you.
If overcoming modest technical challenges and mastering new gadgets turns you on - this thing is a no-brainer (take it from someone with no brain). If you’re easily frustrated and expect perfection as your OOBE (out of box experience), you might want to reconsider OR simply tweak your expectations.
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Cheers!!!
Jim
