RFE: support for playlists that live on USB or network shares but include references to HTTP URLs

The WD’s playlist capability seems to confuse a lot of people.  When you get around to addressing the shortcomings they have identified, consider adding support for the following.

Imagine I have a USB drive with the a file called mit-linear-algebra.m3u with the following contents:

http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/01.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/02.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/03.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/04.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/05.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/06.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/08.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/09.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/10.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/11.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/12.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/13.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/14.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/15.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/16.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/17.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/18.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/19.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/20.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/21.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/22.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/23.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/24.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/25.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/26.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/27.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/28.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/29.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/30.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/31.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/32.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/33.mp4
http://www.archive.org/download/MIT18.06S05_MP4/34.mp4

When I select that file it should play those videos in sequence.

Um, you CAN do this – but use a playlist with the extension PLS.

I tried renaming the file.  It did not even appear on the list on the TVL+.

I looked up the .PLS format on wikipedia and discovered it is not compatible with the .M3U format.  I crafted a .PLS that specified the same list of URLs and tested it with mplayer (success).

The WD TVL+ complains “There is no media in the current folder”. 

If you can construct a .PLS file that works on your TVL+, maybe you can post it here and I can figure out what you’re doing right and I am doing wrong.

Are you attempting to use a playlist to stream video from the web. If so I don’t believe that the WDTV will do that.

Just use Playlist Creator (freeware) and it will create the PLS correctly for the Live.

Oops, didn’t see Rich’s reply (he’s too fast!) and he’s right, I think (although it never hurts to try and see what the Live would do).

If the WD TV Live Plus will not play items from a playlist that are URLs pointing to media elsewhere on the network, then I guess I have a valid RFE (request for enhancement) in my original post.

The TVL+ can clearly play video from URLs or its UPnP support would be broken.  I’m betting that functionality still needs to be ported to the USB and SMB modules.

I have a fair amount of content that does not exist as files, and only exists as the result of computations exposed via HTTP.

You can request things, but this forum is not the place for it.

Look at the Ideas tab above – visit, make a search (to make sure it hasn’t already been suggested – if so, vote for it) and then post your idea.  No one at WD will do anything about your post here.