WDTV Live and uShare Media Server

i recently acquired a WDTV Live media player as i wanted to play bluray format movies

especially kiddie movies for my 2 yo son Athrun Karl. i got it from Challenger in SG and it comes with a free HDMI cable. i used it for a couple of days and then i brought to the Philippines for my wife and son to use.

i've been waiting for WDTV Live as i've wanted builtin network support compared to the old WDTV (although you can load a custom firmware and plug a USB Lan device - checkout http://b-rad.cc/ so i can access files from my old desktop cum server.

the WDTV Live is pretty neat and plays almost all media format. and it has support for DTS

(users of old WDTV still needs to convert to AC-3/Dolby Digital format to enjoy media with DTS).

more about DTS here

and youtube videos - wdtv live can access youtube. :D

anyway, for playing media over the network, i use uShare on a heavily battered CentOs 5 x86 machine. Before, i only use it with my xbox 360 to view images and play Divx media.

when i got the wdtv live, i just modified my ushare.conf file, restarted the service
and the share can then be accessed from the Main menu > Videos > Network servers and my ushare "share" named uMedia is accessible. from here, i can play DivX movies - with both my xbox 360 and wdtv live.


NOTE: i only tried playing bluray movies via USB HDD plugged directly to the
wdtv live player due to space constraints with my Centos Box (these bluray movies
do eat lots of disk space).

here's my ushare configuration (xbox 360 and wdtv live compatible):

OS: CentOS 5.2 x86
eth1 is my internal LAN interface

ushare package downloaded from DAG's repo http://dag.wieers.com/.

network layout - might go out of whack in your browser:

+------------+          +-----------------+
internet<- eth0 -> + centos_box +<- eth1 ->+ wlan/lan router +--> wdtv live
                   +------------+          +--------+--------+
                                                    |
                                                    +-------> xbox 360

$ rpm -qa | grep ushare ushare-1.1a-2.el5.rf
$ rpm -qi ushare

Name        : ushare                       Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 1.1a                              Vendor: Dag Apt Repository, http://dag.wieers.com/apt/
Release     : 2.el5.rf                      Build Date: Tue 18 Dec 2007 02:10:55 AM SGT
Install Date: Sat 27 Sep 2008 10:12:10 AM SGT      Build Host: lisse.leuven.wieers.com
Group       : Applications/Multimedia       Source RPM: ushare-1.1a-2.el5.rf.src.rpm
Size        : 126519                           License: GPL
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Tue 18 Dec 2007 10:42:08 AM SGT, Key ID a20e52146b8d79e6
Packager    : Dag Wieers
URL         : http://ushare.geexbox.org/
Summary     : Universal Plug'nPlay (uPNP) Media Server
Description :

uShare is a UPnP (TM) A/V Media Server. It implements the server component that provides UPnP media devices with information on available multimedia files. uShare uses the built-in http server of libupnp to stream the files to clients.

main configuration file /etc/ushare.conf:

#START of config file:

# /etc/ushare.conf
# Configuration file for uShare

# uShare UPnP Friendly Name (default is 'uShare').
USHARE_NAME=uMedia

# Interface to listen to (default is eth0).
# Ex : USHARE_IFACE=eth1
USHARE_IFACE=eth1

# Port to listen to (default is random from IANA Dynamic Ports range)
# Ex : USHARE_PORT=49200
USHARE_PORT=49200

# Port to listen for Telnet connections
# Ex : USHARE_TELNET_PORT=1337
USHARE_TELNET_PORT=

# Directories to be shared (space or CSV list).
# Ex: USHARE_DIR=/dir1,/dir2

USHARE_DIR=/home/media

# Use to override what happens when iconv fails to parse a file name.
# The default uShare behaviour is to not add the entry in the media list
# This option overrides that behaviour and adds the non-iconv'ed string into
# the media list, with the assumption that the renderer will be able to
# handle it. Devices like Noxon 2 have no problem with strings being passed
# as is. (Umlauts for all!)
#
# Options are TRUE/YES/1 for override and anything else for default behaviour
USHARE_OVERRIDE_ICONV_ERR=

# Enable Web interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_WEB=

# Enable Telnet control interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_TELNET=no

# Use XboX 360 compatibility mode (yes/no)
ENABLE_XBOX=yes

# Use DLNA profile (yes/no)
# This is needed for PlayStation3 to work (among other devices)
ENABLE_DLNA=yes

#END of config file 

then run:
$ sudo /sbin/service ushare restart

to check

$ sudo netstat -patun | grep ushare
Password:

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:49200               0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      15777/ushare
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:1337                0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      15777/ushare
udp        0      0 127.0.0.1:55830             0.0.0.0:*                               15777/ushare
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:1900                0.0.0.0:*                               15777/ushare

Things to watch out:
1. iptables ruleset
2. your cabling - if you need to direcly connect wdtv live to your PC (no router or switch)
use a crossover cable
3. SELinux policies


hth.