WDTV Live + Airport Extreme, What is the best way to set this up? Options

[mfubib]

Hi,

I am looking at getting a WDTV Live and was wondering if the below set up would work?

WDTV in lounge room, connected via wireless to Airport Extreme.

A 1TB WD HDD plugged into the Airport Extreme's USB port . . . . could I access the contents of this drive via WDTV independently of my MBP? If so, are there any downsides of this method?

Thanks in advance,

Matt

[neverlift]

Hi Matt, This is what I run in my house without a glitch...

I run 3 WDTV Live's connected the Airport Extreme (all wired).
-Basement WDTV Live has a 1TB MyBook connected to it as well as wired to the Airport Extreme
-Bedroom WDTV Live has a 1TB MyBook connected to it as well as wired to the Airport Extreme
-Family Room WDTV Live is connected direct to the Airport Extreme

All share/stream with each other beautifully. As you can see I run all wired which in my opinion is more stable then trying to fiddle with a wireless adapter. Don't be afraid to run some cable its all worth it in the end. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As for your question, the setup you mention will work but not sure how solid your wireless will work. Your macbook will see any drive connected to the Airport via finder as will the WDTV Live.

Cheers!

[mfubib]

Thanks for the quick reply neverlift

Your set up sounds great and it is reassuring to get feedback that my planned implementation will work.

I get your point re a wired connection, however as I have a spare wireless adapter I will try that first and if it is not solid enough then I will lay some cable (which may be a bit tricky as I am in rental house which rules out laying cables in wall cavities (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) ).

After considering your setup perhaps it would be better to have the external drive plugged directly into the WDTV . . . as is the way when researching a new set up . . . each answer brings more things to consider (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Cheers,

Matt

[BoxDog]

Actually, Matt, you were suggesting you'd like to connect your USB HD to your Airport Extreme and stream from that. That particular scenario has been no end of drama for me so much so that I simply plugged the HD into the WDTV Live. Pretty pathetic firmware.

[mfubib]

I tried streaming from the Airport Extreme and quickly reached the same conclusion . . . pathetic!

Now I have the external HDD plugged into the WDTV and use the wireless connection to add new content to the HDD from my Mac and access YouTube etc.

All in all I am very pleased with the setup however the inability to stream from the Airport Extreme is disappointing.

[grandpatzer]

I'm also interested in being able to access a harddrive in another room.

can this be don with anykind of device connecter to the WD Live?

if not is there possibility to make it happen with custom firmware?

[Avon B7]

I tried streaming from the Airport Extreme and quickly reached the same conclusion . . . pathetic!

Now I have the external HDD plugged into the WDTV and use the wireless connection to add new content to the HDD from my Mac and access YouTube etc.

All in all I am very pleased with the setup however the inability to stream from the Airport Extreme is disappointing.

Same here although I have the WD TV Live connected to a Time Capsule which includes the AE hardware.

I never really planned on streaming but it would have been nice. However, as you say, the wireless connection is handy for transferring content from my mac to the HD connected to the WD TV.

[phaelin]

I also have an airport extreme connected to my powerpc.
I don't want to stream anything, just want the wd tv hd live player to connect to the internet to see if I can watch youtube etc...

Wifi is working, my windows laptop and iPhone connect to it without problems. Do I really need to get an usb wifi dongle for the player or can I connect with wifi from the box itsself? If so, what are the settings? Apparently I have to give a workgroup name, but I don't have one on the OSX machine.

So in short, I'm looking for the correct settings on the airport and on the wd tv hd live box. I'm a complete noob where it comes to connecting stuff via wifi but I want to learn because I refuse to string out another utp cable through the living room. I joined this forum just to ask this question, but it looks like there's other interesting stuff on here so...

info:
I'm using osx 10.6.8, firmware on the WD box is 1.06.15

If need be I'll have to get a wifi dongle, but that would mean I couldn't use one of the ports and I usually have drives connected to both.

Thanks in advance.

[WDUser]

phaelin, the older Live and 2nd Gen. Live Plus lack in-built WiFi, unlike the latest 3rd Gen. Live SMP.

As far as connecting to your Airport Extreme goes, here are a couple of WD KB articles that might help:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5358
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3788

Hopefully other Airport owners can chip in with additional advice.

[phaelin]

Thanks, I'll check out the links. I guess it's either get newer generation wd box which is more expensive then a wifi dongle, but I'll want to upgrade eventually anyway.

Thanks!