I had the same issue as Theodor and the other posters, the WDTV random freezing and fast forwarding on everything I tried to watch when I was streaming the files from my Synology NAS. Playing the same files from a USB plugged into the WDTV worked perfectly.
The solution that worked for me was to improve my network at home. Originally all of my devices (computer, Synology NAS, WDTV and PVR) were plugged into my 4 port 10/100 ADSL router and I became convinced that the router was essentially ‘clogging up’ while trying to stream the data from the NAS box to the WDTV, causing the pausing.
Whilst 10/100 ethernet is more then capable of handling the streaming of media files, I believe my router was not capable of handling it the required throughput.
The solution was to buy a very good quality 8 port Gigabit Switch and plug everything into that, and then connect the switch to the router. So now, the router ONLY handles internet traffic and everything else avoids the router altogether and streams through the new switch. And guess what, 6 movies later (I had to watch that many to really test it, honest) and not a single pause and fast forward issue.
As a side bonus my PC to NAS box data transfer rate jumped from 9MBit to 24MBit, which is nice 
I believe the issue, in my case at least, comes down to the capability of the switch or router between the WDTV and the device containing the media files. The raw speed is not the important part, what is important is the ‘switching capacity’ of the router/switch being used.
The HP Procurve 1410-8G switch that I bought has a switching capacity of 16Gb/s, which means it can handle all 8 ports on full duplex (1GB/s a port, sending and receiving, across 8 ports). I do not know what the switching capacity of my router is but I suspect that it was low enough that if it had to handle any other traffic whilst streaming media it caused the media stream to halt for a moment and the WDTV went into a buffering mode waiting for the data (the freezing part) and then trying to catch up to were it should have been (the fast forwarding part).
I hope that makes sense… Its not the baud rate of the network that was causing a problem but the ability of the router to handle the data at the speed required. I’m fairly sure that a good quality 10/100 switch (as opposed to the gigabit switch that I got) would also have solved my problem, provided the 10/100 switch had a switching capacity to handle multiple ports running at full speed at the same time.
Hope that helps.
In the case of the original poster, where everything was working but now it isn’t… That all points to the wireless degrading and the pausing/fast forwarding points to a loss of throughput (which was the cause of my problem, just over a wired connection)
Here are some things to consider.
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Is there anything else in your house that is using the wireless connection (especially anything you have bought recently), such a a new iPhone? Android phone, laptop etc?
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Have you bought a recently bought large fridge or microwave? (some models can interfere with the wireless signal, mainly due to noise on the electricity cables, causing loss of throughput)
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Reaching a little here but… Have you had LED globes/downlights installed recently? (these too can cause interference with wireless signals if not properly shielded)
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Have you bought a new cordless handset? (same reason as above)
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Have you had any major electrical work done on your house since the issues started?
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Have your neighbours?
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Have you neighbours (or anyone within a few 100 metres of your house) bought a new wireless router, wireless access point etc… This might be impossible to answer obviously, but that is the most common cause of signal loss. If your neighbour has a more powerful wireless access point and is using the same channel as you, yours gets ‘drowned out’ as it were and you suffer reduced throughput
To sum it up: the pausing/fast forwarding issue is, I believe, due to a lack of throughput and it is just how the WDTV handles such a situation. Given that, because you are connecting via a wireless connection it follows that your wireless connection has suffered a drop in throughput. And given that, it follows that something is interfering with your wireless throughput. The trick is finding out what…
If you have an android phone/tablet then there are a few apps that will scan the wireless frequencies for you and show you a report on what channels are being used and what ones are free.
I used this one myself https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en
Okay, I have written far too much haven’t I
Time to stop.
