Another "no media in current folder" problem

When I first connected the WD TV Live I was able to stream a 1080p mkv file from my Windows 7 x64 PC with no problems.  The next day, it didn’t work.  Then I changed some Windows settings and was able to view the movie again.  Worked fine for 2 days and now it’s not playing again.

This is wired BTW, nothing wireless.  Not sure if that matters.

I can give other details if need be but the bottom line is that, so far, thing device has been working intermittently.  I really don’t like that.  Tonight, when it stopped working, I got the “no media in current folder” error again.  

I never had to load the cd-rom that came with the WD when I first set it up.  Do I have to do that?  When I go to Discovery on the Setup. under the Network Drives Found, it shows WDTVLive. Under Things to do, if I click on Map network drive it says No network share available. if I click on Browse network shares it shows No network share available.

Would buying a simple NAS enclosure help/hurt my situation?  I would rather have something connected to the device so that if my PC were off I could still view movies.  But if it’s going to continue to be flakey I don’t want to invest any more $$.

I wonder if the issue is with Windows not maintaining the share - ie making it visible to the WDTV. Do you have another PC to test your Win share? Do you have a shared folder, and grant full permissions to all users? Or, create ID to login to share for WDTV to access.

You may want to define a static IP for the WDTV and maybe PC. Static IP for the device will help with paragraph below.

I had a problem streaming an AVI wirelessly from my laptop, so I decided to buy a 500 GB USB Passport and attached it directly to the WDTV. So far, it is good. I have 5,000 songs, 10,000 pics and 130 videos. I have noticed that it took a while when choosing pic/music/video, the unit waited as the drive was scanned - not sure if it will do it every time, or if it builds a library and gets faster.

The discover/share topic: The discover process tells your PC how to find the device and can create a shortcut to it. To map a network drive, you need to have storage connected to the WDTV. It creates a letter for the storage like Y for USB1 and Z for USB2 - on your PC. This allows you to save/manage media from PC to WDTV storage across the LAN. The reason you do not find a network share from PC, is that there is no storage attached to the WDTV.

NAS - this is another option - I think it is always on, so if PC or WDTV are off - it is still on. (there may be power saving feature, but generally, it is on). A NAS would allow you backup laptop, manage media on NAS via WDTV or Laptop. The WDTV has a means to scan network share, and show what is there.

I went cheap route with USB drive. Plus: cost and ease of setup on pc/WDTV. Con: the WDTV has to be on to power USB, so I can load videos. Not sure of speed of USB 2 vs LAN-NAS

NAS - independent from devices, but con: costs a little more. Plus: with right enclosure/drive, you can add disks.

I went with WDTV live to allow me to keep drive in cabinet and move files from PC via the LAN. The pandora/live365/youtube features are nice. If they expand to hulu/netflix - would be a big plus.

Alot of good info, Walter, Thanks.

I set up the sharing and permissions after I googled and found some instructions.   Here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVZ5Um8s8jo&feature=related

So the Discovery portion of the included cdrom is not applicable to me at this tme because I don’t have a usb drive attatched directly to the WD?

Are you sayig tht if I have an external hard drive and attach it to the WDLive and I have the WD Live wired via cat5 into my network, I can copy files from my main PC through the network to the connected external drive that is plugged into a USB port of the WDLive ?

I am interested in this comment you made "I went with WDTV live to allow me to keep drive in cabinet and move files from PC via the LAN. "

This is what I want to do.  I can buy an external USB enclosure (I already have a spare drive).  I don’t want to always rely on my main PC to stream the music/movies/etc.