Can access netflix and select a movie, it loads but won't play

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

I purchased this as a gift for my parents, solely as a Netflix streaming device. Unfortunately everything but Netflix works.

I can browse or search for movies without issue but when I click play, it loads to 100% then goes to a black screen (no audio either). No matter how long I give it, it never plays anything. Even more puzzling is that the WDTV box doesn’t freeze at this point. I can still get back to the Netflix menus but nothing will play.

My firmware is up to date. Flingo and Youtube work fine. 

I’m moments away from using this box as target practice for my new rifle. Can anyone please help.

Thanks

      - Overly frustrated guy

2

Tried rolling back the firmware to 1.05.04B 

That didn’t help either.

I need help fast. This device is in my parents home and I’d like to leave at some point soon!

3

Try hooking it up via the COMPONENT or COMPOSITE video.

If it works there, then the issue is most likely that the TV may not support the required HDCP content protection.

4

THANK YOU! That was the problem.

I hadn’t tried the composite cables because all of the composite inputs were full. At least now I know the box works and I just need a switch.

It’s pretty lame that their TV’s HDMI port doesn’t support HDCP. Oh well, netflix doesn’t really have any 1080p content anyway, composite should work fine.

5

HDCP is very annoying. I had to replace a TV last year as the HDMI port suddenly became HDCP non compliant one fine day, so stopped displaying content from any HDCP compliant source. But non-HDCP stuff worked fine on that TV. Samsung (it was a Samsung LCD) had no answer to it and after fighting them for months, they offered me an out-of-warranty replacement for $200…

However, I love the video and audio output via HDMI…

However, pardon my ignorance but I am little surprised that the HDMI output port of WDTV Live Plus can output both signals (HDCP and non-HDCP) depending on what is selected (Netflix vs. say YouTube). I was under the impression that generally a device’s HDMI port can send out signal in only one format: either HDCP compliant or not, but not in both.

6

HDCP isn’t a “Compliant” thing.

HDCP is Content Protection, or Encryption.  A/K/A  Copy Protection.

It’s just a switch that gets flipped in the CPU, and it does an Encryption Key Exchange with the display, and then starts sending encrypted data.

When HDCP isn’t being used, the data is non-encrypted.

Certain devices, like TiVo, use HDCP continuously (or did, not sure if it still does…), but it’s by no means a requirement…