Streaming over Internet

Hello there

How are your experiences by accessing your content while not on your home network? Especially for video. It works, but not very well, when using the wd2go apps.

It does not work at all for me when trying to stream something using my laptop.

Any tips on how to get it to work?

Thanks!

I use WD 2go to watch videos a LOT – it works great for me.

What’s your internet upload speed?  Mine is 40 megabits per second, which is ample for most videos, depending on where I am.  

If I’m at work, corporate QoS policies limit HTTP Video to < 1 megabit per second, so streaming “real time” doesn’t work at all, but I can download very fast via WD 2go and then watch them.

Oh wow. So it’s possibly my upload speed then. I have:

DownloadUpload

50'000 Kbit/s
5'000 Kbit/s

And this is the second fastest here in Switzerland. The fastest beeing 100’000 down and 7000 up. 

Sorry, you’re saying you CAN stream videos using WD2go if u’re not on your home network? On another string you said:

" “Streaming” is not supported via WD 2go on a PC/Mac.   You must copy the file and then play it, or just wait a long time after double-clicking the file before playback will begin."

Sure. Using the WD 2go apps (the OPs question) is very different than accessing it via a PC/Mac.

I’m a little puzzled as to why things are the way they are. We can stream via a WD 2go app to a mobile device OK but we cannot stream to a PC/MAC via WD 2go very well - apparent hang-up and long delay,s etc. But why can’t we do the same on a PC/MAC connected via WD 2go as we can on a mobile device running a WD 2go app? PCs and MACs presumably have more horsepower and often are connected by wire, not wireless, so why can these "lower powered’ wireless;y connected mobile devices do something that a more capable platform can’t.

Has WD somehow optimized the apps for streaming but not applied the same techniques to a PC/MAC web connection to WD 2go? Is it the JAVA that runs on the PC (and MAC?) that is causing this delay?

One of lifes big mysteries.

I have no experience with a MAC, but I can tell you why PC’s behave that way.

Microsoft does all kinds of junk when dealing with WebDAV connections.

If you have REALLY FAT internet speeds, *sometimes* streaming will work.   Meaning that you can double-click the file, launch Windows Media Player, and it will start playing before the download has completed in the background.

But Microsoft all but requires any open file to be transferred to the internal “cache” before it will do anything with the file.

When you do a Right-Click on a file, for example, Microsoft immediately begins transfering the ENTIRE file into its local cache on your PC before it can even open the menu.   The reason for that is that the Right-Click menu is context sensitive – the content of the menu will vary depending on the content of the file.

So, it has to *have* the file before it will open the context menu, thus the long wait and apparent seizure of Explorer when the transfer is taking place.

Once the file has been transferred to the local cache, things go much faster because it’s operating on a “local” copy of the file.

It’s not a WD thing, it’s a Microsoft thing.

Android and iOS obviously has no such requirement, even though it’s using the same WebDAV access method to connect to the MBLs as the PC is using.

And, no, Java has nothing to do with it.  Java is ONLY used as a “helper” to get the WebDAV connection established and only used in the web browser page itself.  Once the “share” connection is open and showing in Explorer, Java isn’t used at all. 

So, “Thank you, Microsoft.”

Thanks TonyPh12345,

That explains an issue that has been bugging me for weeks. That’s amazing that MS’s mucking about with WebDav has crippled PC performance compared to that of phones/tablets. No wonder those little devices are outselling desktops/laptops.

With all the blame in the Microsoft court, no wonder Bill Gates doesn’t seem very happy with the current state of affairs there. Perhaps Mr. Balmer should update his resume.

It might be interesting to hear from some Apple desktop/laptop users as to their experience on the WD 2go streaming  issue.