You received a pretty good reply from Bennor; he is very knowledgeable and helpful, I agree that you should download the complete user manual for your model of WDTV, and will also add you need the complete manual for your model of My Cloud as well.
I will also say that in all likelihood, Bennor does not have a WDTV, based upon his reply. I have had one for years, and am an active member of that forum. So, I am going to have to differ with some of Bennor’s comments; especially when it comes to using the two menu options of Media Server (DLNA format) and Network shares.to access the My Cloud (which I also have). via WDTV.
Along the way, I also will comment about using/not using passwords and why, etc, because it is intertwined with the two options above. I will try to end with a suggested solution for you if I was in your shoes, meaning keeping kids out of certain media files.
At home kids are not a problem I have anymore; kids are grown and the grandkids know better than to mess with our entertainment center by themselves. So, I basically have no security on WDTV nor the My Cloud.
As Bennor said, Media Server is wide open anyway. Think of this option as a no-braner network you didn’t have to set up. it sets itself up just by hooking a Media server to your network. The My Cloud does this and so does a Windows PC. All you need to use DLNA is have DLNA receiving devices. A Smart TV is one, a WDTV is another. A DLNA receiving device can see media servers on the network. All one has to do is find what media they want to access with their receiving device. I like to affectionately call DLNA, “Networking for Dummies” since it sets itself up with basically no involvement of the user.
Using Network shares takes work – work to set up shared drives and such using Windows is harder than is should be, If you have ever done this, you know what I mean.
So, the reason I bring this up is that certain media cannot be streamed via DLNA; there is a limited set of files it can deal with. Network shares can deal with a larger variety of files. One very important one is a file with extension ISO, DLNA cannot handle this sort of file because, although an ISO file likely has a movie on it, it is not a “video” file – it is a (DVD) disk image file and media servers only can handle actual video files, like mp4 and MKV. I have a lot of ISO files and can only access these files as a Network share and the WDTV does the actual decoding of ISO and plays the movie therein. In fact, ISO files are not even visible to a Media server, But, if you have any of the videos you want to keep kids away from kids in ISO files, using Network shares is NOT the way, Media server view is, though.
Back to WDTV for a moment. I have a completely open system at home so no passwords are required, and that makes for faster access to my media. The WDTV doesn’t even have an option for password when accessed via Media server. It does for Network shares. Since the My Cloud is both a server and a share, If I used a password on WDTV it would just be something to slow access down for my family, so I do not use one.
The Password issue for a WDTV has caused more confusion for WDTV users than it should, so a few years ago I wrote up a “FAQ” about how to deal with it.
I recently updated that post, and I will leave the link to it at the end of this post.
Whew, now I can get to my suggested solution, because I think it will make more sense after what I wrote all above. If I was in your situation with kids of any age I would want to keep away from certain media content, I would attach a desktop version hard drive(s) to one or more of the USB inputs of the WDTV,put ONLY media files you allow the kids to access, and keep them totally out of the My Cloud. This way the kids access their content via “Local drives” option and not Media server or Network shares.
Then you can still use DLNA cloud access open for yourself.
( About the only thing I use Media server for is to play from music playlists since network shares do not have this capability.)
Finally, my “sticky” post here about Network shares issue:
