I would like to know what I can do in order to stream my .mkv files using the built in DLNA server as I was supposed to do with this product.
I have just brought a WDH2NC40000 with the intention to have it as my main home NAS and use its DLNA capability to stream my videos (most of them are 1080p .mkv video files).
There seems to be a big problem with the built in DLNA server that prevents the .mkv files to be used on my Samsung TVs at home via DLNA which is really defeating the purpose of having this product.
I made sure my WDH2NC40000 has the latest firmware file which is Firmware Version 01.02.06 which has the following statement on its release notes:
“Updated TwonkyMediaTM Server version 5.1.9 to fix MKV compatibility issue”
Would someone help me on how to get my WDH2NC40000 to stream my .mkv correctly?
Hi there, I’d suggest you to check out this article.
On the other hand, was is the codec on the MKV file container? A Matroska (MKV) files can have multiple codecs that may not work with your TV when using a DLNA broadcast.
After watching the movie you are going to realize that, unfortunately, the following statement on the page you’ve provided me is not true:
“Playback from WD’s network storage drives to other media players, such as a WDTV Live HD Media Player or a gaming console that supports streaming MKV files, works properly”.
I am still hoping to find a solution otherwise I will have to return this device and look for another NAS (maybe a Synology one, it is expansive but it just works) that does support streaming .mkv movies over the DLNA.
I am sorry I expressed some of my current frustrations on the video but the fact is that since I got it 3 days ago it has been nothing but a lot of headache and reading in order to try o make it work
Yes I am. All movies I have here have Dts sound and all of them work when either connected to the tv using a USB drive or via DLNA - but only via MBP as you can see on the video
i have the un55b8500 samsung w/ mbw ii and its a no go there also. im going to try the tvmobilli you use as twonky isnt working for this. You should go to media recievers under advanced setup in twonky and adjust it from generic media reciever to something else. ex. wd hd tv live media player, etc.
Hey, just one thing: the TVMobili is running on my macbook pro, not on the NAS (I wish MBWE had it though.)
As you guys can see on the screen shot I have the correct Media Receiver for both my Samsung TVs. The one used on the video is the second one on the list.
i put the tvmobili on my other NAS and it works perfect for the mkvs now!! it is 10x better than this mbw ii nas and is called xtreamer etrayz. i think its discontinued now and would have to be picked up on ebay and isnt as expensive and require complex skills as the synology.
I’d definitely take this NAS into consideration in case WD does not come up with a solution t this problem soon. About this other NAS, have you tested streaming 1080p mkv? Is it also able to stream .srt and movies metadata like chapters and bundled sound tracks and subtitles? Thank you for the help
yes, 1080p streams fine to samsung tv. its a pleasant surprise as samsung makes everyone use dial up speed for their personal network. even my favorite mediatomb couldnt do mkv on this tv. im not sure about streaming .srt, etc. though.
After watching the movie you are going to realize that, unfortunately, the following statement on the page you’ve provided me is not true:
“Playback from WD’s network storage drives to other media players, such as a WDTV Live HD Media Player or a gaming console that supports streaming MKV files, works properly”.
I am still hoping to find a solution otherwise I will have to return this device and look for another NAS (maybe a Synology one, it is expansive but it just works) that does support streaming .mkv movies over the DLNA.
I am sorry I expressed some of my current frustrations on the video but the fact is that since I got it 3 days ago it has been nothing but a lot of headache and reading in order to try o make it work
I saw your video, and what you did is a typical response: it plays through shares, but it won’t play through the media server. But it doesn’t prove that it’s not your tv. so, before you blame everything on the my book world, I think you may want to make sure it’s not an issue with your tv.
you can test this very simply. on your mac, try accessing and playing those files from the twonky server through iTunes. You can also go to your browser, on your mac, type in : http://:9000, then click on PC Browser, go to the video folder and find the file to play it. If the mkv file plays when you do this, then it’s your tv that can’t play the file. The my book world is streaming fine. if the file doesn’t play correctly, then now you know it’s the my book world.
oh, and I would never buy anything with the hope that they’ll “fix” it. if the drive doesn’t do what you want now, take it back and get something that does.
I agree with what you said about testing the TV to make sure it works and that is exactly what I had done BEFORE saying the DLNA no the MBWE DOES NOT work. I know my TV works because if I get that same movie on a usb drive or stream the video which is hosted on MBWE (mapped to my MAC using the NAS Publish samba share) using the MBP dlna server (TVMOBiLi) it works just fine.
You are suggesting me to load the vide via http on my MAC which is a completed different thing of loading it via the NAS built in DLNA server, so that test would not prove anything as far as the NAS DLNA server, would you agree? I would need to access the .mkv on my MBP using a DLNA client, connected to the NAS DLNA to make this test valid. Not sure how it can be done.
I am pretty confident the problem is not my TV. As I wrote on the initial post, I have been loosing a LOT of time on forums etc and there are a huge number of ppl facing exactly the same issue as I am and they are either installing other DLNA server on the NAS (miniDLNA or TVMOBiLi) or buying other devices since WD seems to know the problem and has not updated the firmware for quite some time now.
I don’t want to go down on the path of installing another DLNA server on my machine since the manual of the product as well as the firmware document says it is supposed to support mkv so to me there must be a fix coming from the WD
Do you guys know if WD’s ppl look at this forum? I opened a question on the customer support and so far I got no reply.
You didn’t understand what I was asking you to do. you can use twonky to play the mkv file direct from the my book world drive. that is media server streaming. if it plays on your mac, then there’s nothing wrong with twonky or the my book world. so, it would be an issue with your tv not being able to handle the file being played via twonky. I’m not trying to argue with you, I’m just trying to get you to do some valid troubleshooting. right now you’re comparing apples and oranges: samba share vs. media server.
by the way, it’s doubtful wd is pouring over these forums. so, don’t wait around for a “fix” that will probably never come. If you’re not satisfied, take the drive back. end of story.
I am also not trying to argue with you but I believe you did not understand what I said: the test you suggested is valid but only if is done on my Mac using a DLNA client, not opening the video via http, right? If I do that, or using the shared folders that appear on my Mac I would be loading the movie file from the NAS without having it passing thru Twonky.
I will try to find a DLNA client for my Mac and perform that test.
Or maybe installing Twonky on my Mac to see if my TV works, would be the same thing, right?
actually, the way I was having you access the file is through Twonky, which is a dlna client. however, if you want to use another dlna client on your mac, be my guest. that’s why I also recommended using itunes. but, the key is whether twonky can’t play the mkv file, still, or whether the tv is not able to play the mkv file. that’s why I said to use the browser to access twonky. that will get you to the heart of the matter. when you access twonky through the browser, and drill down to the file, if twonky can play the file on the pc, then it is streaming the file as a dlna client. if it can’t, then we know that there’s something wrong with either twonky not being able to play mkv files still, or there’s something wrong with the mkv file. and I don’t necessarily mean wrong as in it’s bad (we know it’s not bad because it plays fine on samba). I mean wrong as in twonky isn’t handling the codecs. but at least you’ll know whether it’s the tv or not.
I did what you suggested. My browser can see the files and I can download them. My browser does not play mkv files though since the file is first downloaded to my machine before it is available for playing.
I cleared the log and tried to access some files using the TV. The TV says “format not supported”, which can be related to what you said regarding Twonky not streaming the .mkv as it was suppose to.
The log information that was generated during the testing can be found below
I would probably email it to wd’s support to see if they can help you with that. or, better yet, maybe someone on the forum could read it more effectively than I.
You are suggesting to install other DLNA on my MAC? The one I have on the MAC works just fine. I would like to NOT to use my mac and stream the mkv directly from the NAS to the TV.
I wrote to the WD guys and here is a new information: the details about the media I am trying to stream:
General
Unique ID : 200412800993985747373818438923234603973 (0x96C619F9C2892A07B56221312C5473C5)
Complete name : /Volumes/Public/Shared Videos/Movies/Convencionais/Avatar_1080p.BluRay.x264.DTS-WiKi/Avatar.2009.1080p.BluRay.x264.DTS-WiKi.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 16.8 GiB
Duration : 2h 41mn
Overall bit rate : 14.8 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-04-25 05:03:30
Writing application : mkvmerge v3.3.0 ('Language') 编译于 Mar 24 2010 14:59:24
Writing library : libebml v0.8.0 + libmatroska v0.9.0
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 41mn
Bit rate : 13.3 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.268
Stream size : 14.7 GiB (88%)
Writing library : x264 core 92 r1510 33d382a
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.90:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=24 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=5 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=13337 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:0.80
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2h 41mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.71 GiB (10%)
Language : English
Text #1
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title : eng
Language : English
Text #2
ID : 4
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title : chs
Language : Chinese
i know but i have an idea. see if itll play. on another note, it dont think that TVmobili auto refreshes the content so one has to always manually do it. i still will use mediatomb more because it knows better but on samsung tv ill use TVmobilli for that until i figure out something else.
even my favorite mediatomb couldnt do mkv on this tv. im not sure about streaming .srt, etc. though.
