New to WDTV Live. Couple questions

Which is what I do. If you DO insist on knowing (albeit not necessarily hearing) you’re listening to the best audio reproduction available, you need to buy another player.

lets face it, there’s always better out there

why not spend a grand on an HTPC, it will probably do everything and ever exceed 10% cpu load

but for what the WD SMP is - a sub $100 device

it’s a good value

it’s not perfect but for < $100 device that’s 2 maybe years old it does quite well

When I want to listen to a recording of mine in all it’s wonderful hi-fi glory, I listen to the CD.  But, if I want convenience and portability in a compact and universally playable format, I rip 'em to a 192bps VBR mp3, and listen to them off my WD player, or mobile devices.  The WD player and all the portable devices do not qualify as super hi-fi devices, so why bother with FLAC files and their gigantic file sizes?  I don’t need a roomful of hard drives to store them on.

To the FLAC fans out there: don’t bother to comment; I know all the pros and cons of FLAC, and I choose not to have FLAC files in my life.  Thanks.

I’m going to play around with it for a while, get the shares set up and see what’s what.   Thanks for all the help guys.

mike27oct wrote:

 

… To the FLAC fans out there: don’t bother to comment; I know all the pros and cons of FLAC, and I choose not to have FLAC files in my life.  Thanks.

Nice way to nip that one in the bud Mike. 

-P

PS: Flac rocks. :smileyvery-happy:

mike27oct wrote:
I know all the pros and cons of FLAC, and I choose not to have FLAC files in my life.  Thanks.


Cons like no support by major car manufacturers like BMW for their built-in car stereos? Or has this changed lately?

Soooooo, took about an hour for the windows shares to appear.  I even tried the Registry hack too.  I found out that every time I shared an item on my pc I had to power-cycle the smp for the shares to appear.  Took a while to figure that one out.

I have to admit, being able to use the menus and having that (movies along the bottom) layout is really nice!  All my movies are catagorized using “My Movies”, so the thumbnails all show up, nice!  

  1. I noticed that the info for the movies does not show up (director, runtime, actors, etc).  This info is all populated in the movie folder by MYMovies, in xml docs.  Anyway to have the SMP use this info?

  2.  I noticed a dip in wifi signal range.  Before, using Serviio I could stream .m2ts files over wifi no problem.  The WDTV also showed 3 bars on the wifi.

  3.  Now using windows shares, I couldn’t even stream dvds over wifi.  I noticed that the SMP was now showing 2 bars.  I can’t explain why the wifi is so low from yesterday.  I moved the SMP out of the cabinet and placed it on top and the range went back to 3 bars and I was able to stream dvds again.  Strange.  This thing is only about 15 over from my nighthawk router.  The nighthawk man!

there’s a big difference between a media server and network share

simplist way to describe it

the media server is actively pushing the data to the media player

network share, the media player must go retrieve the data

the nighthawk is suposed to be a pretty good router

so I’d guess your network is not configured correctly

even the best router if mis-configured will default back to G wireless speeds

here’s a good article, while not nighthawk specific

it talks about what is required for any router to operate an N speeds

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless-N_Configuration

as for xml’s I don’t use them, so somebody else can chime in

but if I remember correctly, xml’s don’t work for folders, only individual movie files

Thanks, I’ll have a look at that link.  I briefly noticed last night when in the Nighthawk’s setup page that the link speed for the SMP was 112mbps.

blanker wrote:

Thanks, I’ll have a look at that link.  I briefly noticed last night when in the Nighthawk’s setup page that the link speed for the SMP was 112mbps.

will 112mbps is much faster than G

but it’s still not 300 which 2x N is capable of

I’d guess you’re on a 20mhz band instead of 40mhz

possibly some other settings need to be adjusted as well

KAD79 wrote:


blanker wrote:

Thanks, I’ll have a look at that link.  I briefly noticed last night when in the Nighthawk’s setup page that the link speed for the SMP was 112mbps.


will 112mbps is much faster than G

but it’s still not 300 which 2x N is capable of

I’d guess you’re on a 20mhz band instead of 40mhz

possibly some other settings need to be adjusted as well

I looked at every setting in my router and could not find anything related to 20mhz or 40mhz.

The 2.4Ghz band is set at 600mbps, the highest rating, and the 5Ghz band at it’s highest.

I also enabled Qos for media streaming.

I have heard of some firmware hacks that change the display.  I wonder if any of those would utilize my xml docs.

firmware hacks … I was largely involved with those

they will not use xml’s

they do allow a moviesheet to be displayed for folders, so you could burn the xml data into the moviesheet .jpg

for SMP, you’ll need WDLXTV with is alpha, lots of bugs

one of the more important to note bugs, no wireless on WDLXTV for SMP, you have to run it wired

as for the nighthawk, might need to read the manual or visit a nighthawk forum

112mbps link speed something is not operating at optimum levels

a very basic calculation assume 60% for thruput

so 112 x 60% = 67mbps for throughput

and that’s assuming you have a very strong signal strength to your WD

oh and 600 mbps on 2.4ghz

not sure 2x mimo is 300

3x mimo is 450

so a guess 4x mimo = 600 maybe

or some sort of afterburner mode

my guess you set it to 600mbps

and since no other device in your network can run that

it falls back to whatever it’s able to match

which sounds like single band N on 20hz band

I disabled a “coexist” option in the nighthawk router and while having inSSIDer open i noticed my channels changed to 6+2 and my max rate went up to 450. Checked the link rate to the smp and it went from the 112 to over 250.

sounds like you’re all good then

max for the SMP is 300

so if your over 250, you should be running just fine

blanker wrote:
I disabled a “coexist” option in the nighthawk router and while having inSSIDer open i noticed my channels changed to 6+2 and my max rate went up to 450. Checked the link rate to the smp and it went from the 112 to over 250.

Just know that if you run inSSIDer or any program like it, they use up computer (and wireless card) resources.  So, if you run a program like speedtest.net you will get crazy and erroneous bandwidth results.  So, before running any speed test program, close down inSSIDer.

Hey guys, just got this today… It says it can stream from any ipad / tablet/  android device, but for the life of me I can’t get it o do it from any of those.

Only thing I can do is from my computer/laptop that has windows 7, that has joined the homegroup, and that’s the only way I can get it to stream/play movies / tv shows / pictures, but it won’t pick up my andriod devices / ipads? Any ideas? Am i missing something?

I’ve got a WDTV Live Hub (but this should work for SMP)

I just installed BubbleUPnP UPnP/DLNA from the App Store …

and can stream all the stuff on my Android Tablet to the Live Hub (via Media Server)

(Press the Red Button on the SMP Remote to Select the Source ie. Media Server)

Haven’t got around to playing with Network Shares on my Tablet though …:neutral_face:

Aussy wrote:

Hey guys, just got this today… It says it can stream from any ipad / tablet/  android device, but for the life of me I can’t get it o do it from any of those.

 

Only thing I can do is from my computer/laptop that has windows 7, that has joined the homegroup, and that’s the only way I can get it to stream/play movies / tv shows / pictures, but it won’t pick up my andriod devices / ipads? Any ideas? Am i missing something?

You need to install the #1 app for doing this called Twonky Beam.  Search these forums – a lot has been written about it.  Twonky Beam comes in flavors for iThings and Android things and Kindles.  I use it all the time.  Twonky is the same company that designed the media server in your new WD player.  The app also can stream things like YouTube to your media player, too.

What it does, is stream DLNA media TO your WD player (or Roku player) FROM the mobile device.  Actually, you can also stream from the mobile devices to  the Media players if Twonky Beam is running on your mobile device, but that’s sort of backwards from how it works.  In this case, your player would see Twonky Beam listed under it’s Media Servers section of the menu.  Since you just got your WD player, you probably might not know what I was talking about in the last sentence,  No matter, just install the app and have fun.

FYI: JOEY:  If you haven’t been using Twonky Beam, you have been missing out!

Thanks Mike, i may try it one day

The ratings are a bit low  :cry: … Google PlayStore 3.1 - itunes Store 2.5

Aussy wrote:

Hey guys, just got this today… It says it can stream from any ipad / tablet/  android device

Where are you seeing this info?   I need to see it in context to understand what that claim means.