OT Workgroup and networking and WDTVn

[Metspitzer]

I have a WDTV Live Plus. The thing is great when it works right. It
plays movies and music right of my network drive. Well this week is
has not worked right. It all started when my sister moved into the
basement. I was living here alone. Just me and my 3 computers. I
have an XP desktop, a Win7 laptop and a Win7 desktop. I use the XP as
my printer/file server. I have one folder that I share that has a few
videos and a few music files. The WDTV Live player has been playing
media regularly for several months.

When my sister moved in, this added her Win7 laptop, her XP desktop,
her daughter's XP desktop and her son's XP desktop. WDTV Player went
wild. It would no longer display my \\Winmx\BBC video folder. It did
show a shared drive on another XP machine, but not my shared folder.

I contacted WDTV Live. After trying to get the player to work he
agreed it was not working and they are going to send me a new player.
During the trouble shoot session I had with tech support, he had me
change the XP machine's workgroup from mshome to workgroup. This
didn't get the WDTV working but it still allowed me to see all the
other drives on the network.

I guess my real question is what does changing the workgroup do? I
assume that all my other computers are set to default (whatever that
is. I am guessing mshome.) My workgroup in the xp server machine is
workgroup. When all the computers don't have the same workgroup and
they still are able to access each other, why would changing the
workgroup do anything?

BTW I left my WDTV Live off all day today and it works fine now. They
have shipped my replacement anyway.

 

[Char Jackson]

I have a WDTV Live Plus. The thing is great when it works right. It
plays movies and music right of my network drive. Well this week is
has not worked right. It all started when my sister moved into the
basement. I was living here alone. Just me and my 3 computers. I
have an XP desktop, a Win7 laptop and a Win7 desktop. I use the XP as
my printer/file server. I have one folder that I share that has a few
videos and a few music files. The WDTV Live player has been playing
media regularly for several months.

When my sister moved in, this added her Win7 laptop, her XP desktop,
her daughter's XP desktop and her son's XP desktop. WDTV Player went
wild. It would no longer display my \\Winmx\BBC video folder. It did
show a shared drive on another XP machine, but not my shared folder.

I have a different brand and model of media player, but I've
experienced most of the things you described. In my case, the big
problem was that the media player was sometimes forgetting its login
credentials, so it suddenly wasn't able to access any media files on
the server.

I noticed a correlation between that problem and the times that a Win
7 laptop was getting fired up. Checking the event logs, there was
always an entry about the Master Browser being changed. The other
computers on the network would elect a Master Browser and everything
would be fine, but then the Win 7 laptop would come along and decide
to elect itself Master Browser without checking to see if an election
had already been made. One network can't have two Master Browsers, so
things like network access by the media player would quickly
deteriorate. For me, the fix was to disable the Browser service on the
laptop. I've had no more issues since doing that, and it's been at
least two months now.

Maybe there's a clue there, I'm not sure.

 

[Bob H]

I have a WDTV Live Plus. The thing is great when it works right. It
plays movies and music right of my network drive. Well this week is
has not worked right. It all started when my sister moved into the
basement. I was living here alone. Just me and my 3 computers. I
have an XP desktop, a Win7 laptop and a Win7 desktop. I use the XP as
my printer/file server. I have one folder that I share that has a few
videos and a few music files. The WDTV Live player has been playing
media regularly for several months.

When my sister moved in, this added her Win7 laptop, her XP desktop,
her daughter's XP desktop and her son's XP desktop. WDTV Player went
wild. It would no longer display my \\Winmx\BBC video folder. It did
show a shared drive on another XP machine, but not my shared folder.

I contacted WDTV Live. After trying to get the player to work he
agreed it was not working and they are going to send me a new player.
During the trouble shoot session I had with tech support, he had me
change the XP machine's workgroup from mshome to workgroup. This
didn't get the WDTV working but it still allowed me to see all the
other drives on the network.

I guess my real question is what does changing the workgroup do? I
assume that all my other computers are set to default (whatever that
is. I am guessing mshome.) My workgroup in the xp server machine is
workgroup. When all the computers don't have the same workgroup and
they still are able to access each other, why would changing the
workgroup do anything?

BTW I left my WDTV Live off all day today and it works fine now. They
have shipped my replacement anyway.

I have one of those, and also had a problem with it a few months ago.
I have 2 desktops with win7, 1 laptop with win7, and 1 laptop with winxp
on, besides my home server which has all my media files on.

When I first received the WDTV player, I set it up and it found or could
see all my PCs as well as the home server.

I started playing media files and everything was great for a few weeks.
Then one day the WDTV player could not see or find my home server nor
one of the laptops.

After a few days, and also contacting WD support, I, for no reason at
all, disconnected my Win7 laptop from the network. I then tried the WDTV
player to see if or what it could see or find.

Viola! It found/saw my home server and everything is back to how it was
initially.

I have no idea why that happened, just that it did.

 

[Mortimer]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but you might be able to answer my questions
about WDTV Live Plus since you use it.

Can WDTV play WTV or DVR-MS file formats as generated by Windows Media
Centre? I know that these are wrappers for MPEG2 (in SD) or H264 (in HD).
MPEG2/H264 are listed as being compatible but the Media Centre formats are
not.

If WDTV cannot play these formats, is there a device that *can* play them
from a network drive?

What I'm looking for is very simple: the ability to record to WTV on a
Windows PC, then edit out commercials using VideoReDo and save to a folder
which is shared. Have a separate device, in another room and connected by
HDMI or composite to the TV and also connected by Ethernet to the
recorder/server, which can select and play programmes from the shared drive.

One stipulation is that the playing device should control the playing: it
should "pull" the files from the server rather than the server "pushing" the
files, otherwise you have to go to the server to start/stop playback.

This seems so blindingly obvious that I'm surprised that most video playback
solutions use the "push" model where Media Centre/Player on the server sends
out the programme to a dumb terminal media extender that is connected to the
TV, rather than the TV being the master which selects and controls what it
pulls from the server.


OK, so I could convert everything to MPEG and then anything could play it,
but doing that you lose all the metadata such as subtitles, programme
summary and episode title.

 

[Metspitzer]

I have a different brand and model of media player, but I've
experienced most of the things you described. In my case, the big
problem was that the media player was sometimes forgetting its login
credentials, so it suddenly wasn't able to access any media files on
the server.

I noticed a correlation between that problem and the times that a Win
7 laptop was getting fired up. Checking the event logs, there was
always an entry about the Master Browser being changed. The other
computers on the network would elect a Master Browser and everything
would be fine, but then the Win 7 laptop would come along and decide
to elect itself Master Browser without checking to see if an election
had already been made. One network can't have two Master Browsers, so
things like network access by the media player would quickly
deteriorate. For me, the fix was to disable the Browser service on the
laptop. I've had no more issues since doing that, and it's been at
least two months now.

Maybe there's a clue there, I'm not sure.

The WDTV player is just quirky. It is working now. The only thing I
did was to leave it off for an extended period of time. I started
leaving it on because it would not find the network drive at startup.
The warranty ran out 5 weeks ago, but WD is going to send me the next
model up from the WDTV Live Plus.

Thanks

 

[Metspitzer]

I have one of those, and also had a problem with it a few months ago.
I have 2 desktops with win7, 1 laptop with win7, and 1 laptop with winxp
on, besides my home server which has all my media files on.

When I first received the WDTV player, I set it up and it found or could
see all my PCs as well as the home server.

I started playing media files and everything was great for a few weeks.
Then one day the WDTV player could not see or find my home server nor
one of the laptops.

After a few days, and also contacting WD support, I, for no reason at
all, disconnected my Win7 laptop from the network. I then tried the WDTV
player to see if or what it could see or find.

Viola! It found/saw my home server and everything is back to how it was
initially.

I have no idea why that happened, just that it did.

That sounds like that could have been it. It is quirky

Thanks

 

[Metspitzer]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but you might be able to answer my questions
about WDTV Live Plus since you use it.

Can WDTV play WTV or DVR-MS file formats as generated by Windows Media
Centre? I know that these are wrappers for MPEG2 (in SD) or H264 (in HD).
MPEG2/H264 are listed as being compatible but the Media Centre formats are
not.

If WDTV cannot play these formats, is there a device that *can* play them
from a network drive?

What I'm looking for is very simple: the ability to record to WTV on a
Windows PC, then edit out commercials using VideoReDo and save to a folder
which is shared. Have a separate device, in another room and connected by
HDMI or composite to the TV and also connected by Ethernet to the
recorder/server, which can select and play programmes from the shared drive.

One stipulation is that the playing device should control the playing: it
should "pull" the files from the server rather than the server "pushing" the
files, otherwise you have to go to the server to start/stop playback.

This seems so blindingly obvious that I'm surprised that most video playback
solutions use the "push" model where Media Centre/Player on the server sends
out the programme to a dumb terminal media extender that is connected to the
TV, rather than the TV being the master which selects and controls what it
pulls from the server.


OK, so I could convert everything to MPEG and then anything could play it,
but doing that you lose all the metadata such as subtitles, programme
summary and episode title.

I don't know the answer to that. I do know that for playing avi files
it does so pretty well most of the time.

 

[Metspitzer]

I don't know the answer to that. I do know that for playing avi files
it does so pretty well most of the time.

If you have a small test file, send it to me and I can give it a try.

http://minus.com/

This is a random file sharing site for sending a test file. I used to
use Mediashare, but they now require you to furnish your email
address.

 

[Mortimer]

If you have a small test file, send it to me and I can give it a try.

Thanks. Here are a DVR-MS file and a WTV file http://min.us/mbfeXORduF/1.
Both are about 3 MB in size and last a few seconds.

 

[Metspitzer]

Thanks. Here are a DVR-MS file and a WTV file http://min.us/mbfeXORduF/1.
Both are about 3 MB in size and last a few seconds.

It played the .dvr-ms file (11 sec), but not the other one.
I tried giving the second file an avi extention, but it didn't work.

WDTV won't play mov files, but if you rename them mpg they play.

 

[Metspitzer]

Thanks. Here are a DVR-MS file and a WTV file http://min.us/mbfeXORduF/1.
Both are about 3 MB in size and last a few seconds.

BTW one feature I like is you can add Youtube video to your youtube
account favorites and can stream them to the TV. The WDTV doesn't
have a keyboard. It has a very annoying move one cursor at a time
keyboard. If you assign favorites to youtube you can program the
content on your computer and then watch from the player.

If you like BBC this feature can be great.

For some reason music videos are blocked content. A mild annoyance.

 

[DJT]

I have one of those, and also had a problem with it a few months ago.
I have 2 desktops with win7, 1 laptop with win7, and 1 laptop with winxp
on, besides my home server which has all my media files on.

When I first received the WDTV player, I set it up and it found or could
see all my PCs as well as the home server.

I started playing media files and everything was great for a few weeks.
Then one day the WDTV player could not see or find my home server nor
one of the laptops.

After a few days, and also contacting WD support, I, for no reason at
all, disconnected my Win7 laptop from the network. I then tried the WDTV
player to see if or what it could see or find.

Viola! It found/saw my home server and everything is back to how it was
initially.

I have no idea why that happened, just that it did.

You are not getting into the problem with the Home editions of Win 7,
where Win 7 can only see max 5 devices on the network

DJT