The WD TV Live box keeps forgetting where it is streaming from

I bought the WD TV Live  the day after my WD Mybook NAS drive arrived.  For the first day or so I was happy.  And unforytunately I threw the box it came in in the trash so there is no returning it.  I noticed that I would be right in the middle of a movie when it would stop playing and tell me the source had been removed.  I would go mthrough the process of showing it the source again and then everything would be fine- for awhile.  It also lost its Internet (wireless ) connection a cpouple of times until I hardwired it by installing an Ethernet cable.  Several times it has told me to refer to the manual concerning the types of files it can not play.  There was no manual included.  And just how out of date is this box when it can’t play MP4s.  How long has the MP4 format been around.  Its not something obscure.  Someday soon I’m going to unplug this box and take it out onto the driveway where I can adjust it with a hammer.

  1.  Wireless can have that problem if the WiFI network isn’t rock-solid.  Video streaming puts intense demand on a WiFi network.  Your best bet is to use Wired if your WiFi network isn’t up to the task.

  2.  There were instructions in the box that indicate that the manual is online.

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/?id=282&type=25

  1. The box can play MP4s quite well, as long as the MP4 is compliant and using supported codecs.

Keep in mind that MP4 is just a CONTAINER format.   You can put a text file into an MP4 file.  In order for the WDTV (or any other box for that matter) to play it, the codecs for both audio and video must also be supported.