CinemaNow activated but not working on WDTV Live

I have a CinemaNow account that works with my various computers and with my LG BluRay player. I have activated my WDTV Live with CinemaNow and the app opens without showing any error messages. However, no content is ever visible. Not the catalogue, nor anything I have rented.

I have read various posts here about problems with CinemaNow, but none seemed to be exactly this problem. 

I contacted CinemaNow and the best they could suggest was to uninstall and reinstall the app on the WDTV Live. How would one do that? The best I could do was deacivate the account and reactivate it, which didn’t help.

Any idea how to uninstall and reinstall the app? Or any other ideas on how to make this work. 

The device shows up in my CinemaNow account, as do my other active devices - all of which have no problem with the CinemaNow service.

The CinemaNow app is stored in your device’s firmware and there is no way for you to uninstall it. About the only thing you can try is to reset your device to factory specs (either by pressing the reset button, or by selecting restore to factory defaults in the System setup).

That’s what I thought the case may be. I’ll give that a try later on. Thanks.

I have exactly the same problem.

Have latest firmware for WD Live Plus, and just successfully activated CinemaNow.

(Went online and created an account and got PIN number to activate the WD)

However, when I click on “Movies” or “TV Shows” it goes to another page for a few seconds, and then returns to same page. So no way to see movie selection. Also “search” does not show anything.

By the way, I’m in Canada so my account is with CinemaNow Canada.

I’m in Canada too, so it might be a geographic issue. Maybe they are trying to hook us into the U.S. version of the service.

Hi macdojo,

Well, I tried a reset to factory settings which didn’t help.

I called CinemaNow which was of no help (they told me if the unit was purchased in the US it would not work in Canada !)

I called WD and spoke to a nice guy in India who told me that the WD TV Live Plus would not work with CinemaNow in US or Canada. He said I would have to buy a newer model. When I asked why CinemaNow is shown in the menu then, he said he didn’t know.

If you go to this page : http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330

and select the item “online services”, and then on the next page select country as Canada, it shows CinemaNow as one of the options. However if you click “More Information” under CinemaNow, it states “US only” ???

Hopefully someone from WD will read this thread and give us the real story.

Based on the fact you say your Blu-Ray player works with CinemaNow in Canada, I would think that there is a problem with the WD software. Maybe a future software update will help. For the moment I have given up on this.

I think you have the answer. CinemaNow is in some kind of limbo on the WDTV Live for we Canadians. (If anyone has a WDTV Live streaming CinemaNow in Canada, feel free to prove this theory wrong.)

These digital streaming solutions as a whole seem to be half-baked. I say this having bought a Boxee Box when they first came out and then recently selling it second-hand having given up on its flakiness. The WDTV Live is basically used as a Netflix streamer on a bedroom TV, so it’s no big thing if CinemaNow doesn’t work. But it would be nice.

In the meantime, I can say that CinemaNow works in Canada on the LG BluRay player I bought at Best Buy, and it works on my computers. 

Hello,

Guys Cinemanow does not work in Canada as stated on the wd website. As why the option has been added, we don’t know yet. Maybe they will make work soon, I’m just saying…

Yup, I see that on the website. Hopefully WD or CinemaNow - or whoever is responsible - will get their act together and activate it in Canada.

Meantime, they might better display the info. When the CinemaNow logo appears under the heading “Online Services: Canada”, my first conclusion would be that it works in Canada. It’s only after clicking on More Information that you find out it isn’t available.

Out of interest. What players do you all have? If you have the old WD live or the WD live plus, CinemaNow may not work in Canada. However it may work if you have a newer WD live streaming.

Hello richUK,

I have WD Live Plus.

I must admit that I am confused about the WD model designations.

Their website wdc.com seems to only show “WD TV Live” and “WD TV Live Hub” so I guess the Live Plus is obsolete ?

Is the “WD TV Live Streaming” yet another model ?

There was the WD Live, then the WD Live Plus for Netflix. The latest are the WD Live hub which has a built in hard drive and the Live Streaming. The real difference is that certain services / apps cannot be accessed by the old players but can by the new. For instance even though the live plus does Netflix it cannot access the Netflix UK service, only the latest live streaming can do that. The live hub is newer than yours but that also cannot be used with UK Netflix!

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330

The page above is for the new live streaming. Notice the different styling of this model to the old live / live plus.