Doesn't recognize some media types, help please

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

I did a quick search but didn’t find a solution but I find it hard to believe I’m the only one to have this problem.

Brand new WDTV Live, updated the firmware but it will not recognize some media types. For instance it doesn’t

see MPEG-4 or MKV file types.

Media Server can find my PC and find my share folders and see .wmv or .dvr-rms files but not others.

Thoughts?

2

Start by placing one of the mkv/mp4 files on a usb drive and see if it will play when plugged in directly to the WDTV.

If it does, then the issue is likely that you are trying to play videos from Windows media server. By default, I don’t think windows media server supports these files so you won’t even see them.

I think there are ways to solve this but I’m not sure.

If you have sharing setup correctly on your Windows box, you should be able to play the videos using “network shares”  on the WDTV.

3

Thanks for the quick reply, I think you’re probably on to something with the Windows Media Server thing. I need to get a new USB drive which I’ll do shortly to test as you suggest.

I was hoping to not have to use a USB drive but it that is the only way to do it that’s disapointing but not the end of the world I guess…

I don’t recall setting anything up for Windows Media server, but your likely correct in that it is using it. Is there a way to not use that or to be able to choose what to use.Quicktime plays MP4 no problem. I more or less figured that the WDTV had it’s own media player and just accessed content on my laptop, but maybe not so.

I do believe I have sharing set up correctly but when I tried to set up network shares as that is how I thought it should be all it did was the spinning arrow until I aborted it after 5 minutes. It could not fine anything I guess so I must have done something wrong, but my shared folders are visible to another computer on my network.

Thanks for the info so far.

4

I now see where the Windows Media Server came from. I had to enable media sharing on my network, it then appears in the list of netwoek devices along with WDTV. If I turn off media sharing Windows Media Server goes away but the of course media servier on the WDTV can’t find anything. Network share still doesn’t find my computer or network… Is that how it should be or is that an issue?

Off to get a new USB drive now…

TIA

5

to get the media server to see MKV’s and Mp4’s … i have found installing Divx player + Codec seems to allow windows to consider these files Media. 

www.divx.com 

hope this helps! 

D

6

SilverD,

are you hard wired to the network or Wi-fi? 

can you use any of the services? Like Accuweather?  - checking for network connection here… 

if you can, then you are connected to the Router, but not necessarily the network.    if you are Running Windows home server 2011,  you should create a user for your WDTV to log into the network with, and then give it permissions to see your network shares. 

hope this helps!

d

7

I think I have this figured out, and as usual it was a setting.

The WDTC is hard wired to my router, and can access accuweather etc and get on the net, I upgraded the firmware that way.

Windows Media Server was activated as I had turned on media sharing.

The reason network share didn’t work was I had the wrong workgroup identifed in network options on the WDTV. I have changed that and now the WDTV sees my laptop and all the shared folders … whoopie

So I don’t feel there is a need to use windows media at all…

So does the about make sense to you experianced fella’s or have I created other yet to be discovered issues.

The reason I’m wondering that is that in talking to customer service about this last night they said that using media server was the proper way, and network share was not the proper way to access files…

They are supposed to email me back as to why I can’t see or play MP4…

8

SilverD wrote:

 

The reason I’m wondering that is that in talking to customer service about this last night they said that using media server was the proper way, and network share was not the proper way to access files…

 

They are supposed to email me back as to why I can’t see or play MP4…

They obviously don’t know what they are talking about. With network shares you should see all your files. With a media server it only serves the files its designed to serve. Are you saying that you can’t see your MP4 files via network shares?

9

You’re right, customer service didn’t know what he was talking about. could have saved me a lot of time if he did.

I can see everything via network shares and all is working as it should thanks to you folks here.

Main issue in not seeing anything via network shares was the default setting of workgroup name of “workgroup”, once I found and changed that to what my workgroup is called all was good…