Twonky, MBL and Samsung Smart TVs = FRUSTRATION!

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
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Twonky upgraded to v6.0.38

Samsung Smart TV model un55d6050

MBL firmware 02.10.09 - 124:Core F/W

Qwest DSL Q1000 modem/router

WD 2go iPad App

Laptop running Win 7

So I just got a MyBook Live over Christmas and set it up the other day. It has been a disappointing experience so far!

  1. The smart ware kept registering erroneous data…temp hot and usage of 900%. I read up on this and resolved it by changing my wireless adaptor DNS to that of google and rebooting my machine.

  2. The WD 2go app doesn’t play a lot of file types…AVIs, MKVs, etc. I doubt the pro app even plays these. The M4Vs worked as that is a default type to the iPad. I expected all types to work as that was the impression the WD advertising gives.

  3. Probably my biggest gripe has been streaming files to my Samsung Smart TV. Got “unsupported file type” for MKVs and even M4Vs. So I followed the advice of postings here and used jumper1’s clear instructions to update the Twonky server from v5.1.9 to 6.0.38. I also set the device to “Samsung Tv” in the “192.168.0.xx:9000 config” page. Hey presto! I was successfully able to stream MKVs, AVIs, M4Vs, etc.  I noticed the Twonky software said there was a 30 day trial to it.  Well a day and a half later I checked the config page again and it still said 30 days remaining. Later that evening I tried to stream a movie, but got a message on my tv that there were no files avail. I rechecked the Twonky server page and it said I had 0 days remaining and my trial period was over!! I was able to restart the server and it now shows 28 days left.

So I have a few questions here:

  1. Is there a known key to put in the Twonky server page because really I had the Twonky product and was just upgrading from 5.1.9? If not, how do I reset the number of days to 30?  I refuse to spend $20 on upgrading Twonky  because WD doesn’t supply the most up to date version of the server…that’s just BS! Will this be updated in upcoming firmware??

  2. Is there a way to run some other server software like Mezzmo or Allshare directly from MBL?

  3. Any way to get other file types than M4V to play on the WD 2go app? I mean I could use Air Server etc but that would mean I’d have to leave my PC running which kind of defeats the whole purpose of MBL being connected to the network directly.

Thanks.

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  1. No

  2. Unfortunately, no

  3. The streaming of the WD 2GO will only work with the codecs that your device supports.

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Strange because I had no problem streaming MKV and other file formats to my Panasonic TX-L32E30E ( http://panasonic.net/avc/viera/eu2011/product/e_lcd_spec.html) TV set. And they worked fine since the moment I first hooked tv set to the router.

And I’m using default Twonky provided by WD, also latest MBL firmware.

Maybe your Samsung tvset has a problem playing that files, you have to read the manual carefully? Have you checked for a firmware update on your tv set?

P.S. the only frustration I had was that I can’t load subtitles along with video files because of Twonky but I found a solution that and is ok: I’m including the subtitles directly in the movie files.