Anybody connecting their WD TV Live Plus to their Uverse set top box via Ethernet? Are you having trouble playing 1080p mkv files? I did and I am. Everything else works perfectly.
How do you mean? Is the UVerse Set Top box a Switch / Router?
Hello
I have uverse. exactly how did u connect it to the box? and what are the benefits of doing that? thanks.
Plug an ethernet cable from your uverse box to your wd live unit and you will be hooked up to your network. It works perfectly. The only problem I have is playing 1080p MKV files.
let me get this straight… you are connecting the ethernet port on your Uverse box to your WDTV Live Plus ethernet port? Is your Uverse connected to the router via coax line?
Yes I am connected ethernet on uverse to ethernet on wd live. The only input on the uverse is the one they set up on installation.
So it’s the coax line then and THAT is your problem. Coaxial cable can deal with compressed HD content but it can’t handle uncompressed 1080 HD content.
*EDIT*
I should have said that your coax won’t do it. Coax in general can more than handle the signal for HD content, but connected the way you have it, it isn’t meant to deal with it. It’s the Uverse box, not the cable itself.
I don’t doubt you, but If that is the case why can I play the same MKV on my PC from a usb drive attached to the WD Live? That goes through the same cables doesn’t it?
Sure, but it’s all in how the uverse box passes the signal. The fact is that the way you have it connected was never meant to actually work. The fact that it does is a bit strange. In order to pass the signal from the router to the box then to the WDTV, the ethernet port would have to switch from “receive” to “send” mode and I can’t figure out why they would have built that function into the box. Either that or you are using a crossover cable.
At any rate, what you have is a connection that isn’t meant to work. Trying to troubleshoot it will be a bit problematic as there is probably no information on how it works at all.
I’m running in to the same issue.
UVerse uses a modified version of the HomePNA protocol to extend network access over coax. This lets choose to use coax cable or ethernet cabling. When using the coax, the sync rate for this connection is 108Mbps, but since it’s a shared medium, actual throughput is considerably less. I have issues streaming all 1080p and even some high bit rate 720p MKV files.
For those of you wondering, the UVerse set top boxes act like a bridge between the coax/homepna interface and the ethernet interface.
I didn’t even think about using the uverse box like that. I bought a Netgear 5-port Gigabit switch on Ebay just to setup my wd tv live in one of my rooms. In any case, I am out of luck. My uverse box is connected via Ethernet (technician switch from coax to ethernet after I had reported some connectivity issues in my house).
I hope that continues to work out for you. The next Uverse software update could change all that. Thanks for your help.
My understanding is that it only works for the same reason the USB ports work, because Motorla put them in and AT&T bought the box configured as is. AT&T has no plans to support this type of connection (they will tell you to unplug it if you tell them about it and will assume that it is causing any problem you might be having if you call tech support) and from my understanding the connection will work, but I have been told (not tested personally though) that the ethernet port will drop bandwidth if the STB is in use. I suppose that normally this probably isn’t an issue but if the DVR starts recording something while you are streaming video to another device, I was told this does cause some problems.
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