WD TV Live SMP won't display MP3 info

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Just bought a new WD TV Live Streaming Media Player – having a hard time getting it to use media over the network/media shares. I’ve shared the Music folder from my Mac (via SMB), but the WD SMP seems to be having trouble using. I’ve gotten it to see the folder full of MP3s, and it can play any of them, but the player does not show any MP3 tags/info whatsoever. No Artist Name, Album Title, Song Title, Album Cover artwork, etc. is shown on the player (including in the “ticker” when playing a song), even though all the mp3s are properly tagged, etc. I’ve tried this with different MP3 files.

Does the player need to index all the mp3s in the same way it tried to generate/read meta content for video files via the “Get Content Info” (auto or manual) function?

Appreciate any help/info.

2

I also observed this behaviour. But I noticed, if the media library feature is turned on and the files are compiled, then the SMP shows this information. But I don’t use the media library. So it still would be great, if the player shows the tag information from the song currently played. Also it would be nice, if a content from a folder could be sorted by other than just the filename if media library is turned of, e.g. by date.

3

Well I’ve already tried resetting and re-adding the network share (folder) with mp3s – the WD TV Live SMP even “scans” the folder via the content manager (set to auto), but the mp3s still do not show anything but file names with no meta/tag info. Don’t really understand why the WD scans the music folder – it didn’t generate any xml files like it does for video. (Which also don’t work well from my media share NAS connection, but I’ll start a new thread about that.)

Any ideas why the WD TV Live SMP can’t display MP3 tags/info properly?

4

Do you have selected as source (red button) the Media Library? Or Network share?

5

Hinkel wrote:

Do you have selected as source (red button) the Media Library? Or Network share?

I am having the same problem and have tryed both Media and Network share.   Neither will show anything under Album or Artist in the banner and the titles are all displayed as their file names, not titles.

BTW these files are all properly tagged and the info shows when files are played on any other mp3 player I’ve come accross.

I would think it evident that it is not supposed to work this way, because under Setup/Music Settings there is listed a choice- “Audio Track Display”, and you can choose “By Title” or “By File Name”.  But when you choose “By Title” everything is still displayed by file name.

-Rick

6

Don’t confuse a media server with the built in media library. To see tags you must compile your media files in a media library on the wd tv live smp. Then you have to select “my media library” as source with the red button. Then you can see the tags and also can search for albums, interpreters, titels and so on.

7

Hinkel wrote:

Don’t confuse a media server with the built in media library. To see tags you must compile your media files in a media library on the wd tv live smp. Then you have to select “my media library” as source with the red button. Then you can see the tags and also can search for albums, interpreters, titels and so on.

I wish this were true but it isn’t, at least for me.  Do I have a defective unit, or am I doing something wrong?  I compiled the files and then, as you say, select media LIBRARY as the source with the red button- but it still behaves as I described, no tags, no titles, interpreters, or albums.

I really am not just trying to slam this product.  It’s just that about everything I try to do won’t work properly, and I see a lot of other people having the same problems.  I hate having to return things, repack, hassles, & then find a replacement product that will undoubtably have it’s own problems.  If you can help me figure this out it would be great.

Thanks,

Rick

8

You might want to download a program called “mp3tag” and verify that the tags are in the correct format.

I realize that you say other MP3 players are displaying the correct info, but maybe they’re OK with the format and the WD isn’t.

For reference, all of my MP3s tagged in ID3v2.3 tags.

The SMP has no problems reading these tags and displaying the correct info, coverart included.

Here’s what I see when navigating by folder…

A couple of albums in the CHICAGO folder…

and when selecting the album:

9

My tags are all in ID3V2 as well.  They work with at least a half dozen other media players, including other WD products like the original WD TV Live.

-Rick

10

Hi all,

I was fighting the same issue. Finally, I changed the tags to v2.3 in non unicode format (ISO-8859-1).

Hope that helps

Chris

11

TonyPh12345 wrote:

You might want to download a program called “mp3tag” and verify that the tags are in the correct format.

 

I realize that you say other MP3 players are displaying the correct info, but maybe they’re OK with the format and the WD isn’t.

 

For reference, all of my MP3s tagged in ID3v2.3 tags.

 

The SMP has no problems reading these tags and displaying the correct info, coverart included.

 

Here’s what I see when navigating by folder…

 

A couple of albums in the CHICAGO folder…

 

 

and when selecting the album:

 

Your answer narrowed the problem considerably but unfortunately it didn’t fix my particular problem.  Perhaps you might try the experiment yourself.

I couldn’t understand why you were getting tag info and I wasn’t so I experimented with the Sort & Filter button and found that if I just filter for albums and play them I DO get tag info (and album art ).  The problem is I use playlists.  Dozens of them.  So I need to filter by playlists, which is the only way I can get them to show on the screen and pick from them.  When I select a playlist it plays the selection, but unfortunately by file name only and no tag info (Album, Artist) shows in bottom of screen banner.  Crazier and crazier.

Thanks again for your help so far and please forgive my first disappointed reply.

-Rick

12

cbram wrote:

Hi all,

 

I was fighting the same issue. Finally, I changed the tags to v2.3 in non unicode format (ISO-8859-1).

 

Hope that helps

Chris

 

Thanks, but unfortunately no, I wasn’t using unicode but you have saved me from bothering to try it.

Regards,

Rick

13

rick91 wrote:

When I select a playlist it plays the selection, but unfortunately by file name only and no tag info (Album, Artist) shows in bottom of screen banner.  Crazier and crazier.

 

Indeed.  The WD won’t use the tag info when using a Playlist.   Same holds true with Video.

14

TonyPh12345 wrote:

rick91 wrote:

When I select a playlist it plays the selection, but unfortunately by file name only and no tag info (Album, Artist) shows in bottom of screen banner.  Crazier and crazier.

 

Indeed.  The WD won’t use the tag info when using a Playlist.   Same holds true with Video.

 

 

Thanks much.   You saved me much time trying to find what I was doing wrong.

Is this something they are going to fix, do you know?  It is sub-standard, even by their own standards.  The old TV Live showed tag info when using playlists even with Network Shares.

-Rick

15

rick91 wrote:

TonyPh12345 wrote:

rick91 wrote:

When I select a playlist it plays the selection, but unfortunately by file name only and no tag info (Album, Artist) shows in bottom of screen banner.  Crazier and crazier.

 

Indeed.  The WD won’t use the tag info when using a Playlist.   Same holds true with Video.

 

 

Thanks much.   You saved me much time trying to find what I was doing wrong.

 

Is this something they are going to fix, do you know?  It is sub-standard, even by their own standards.  The old TV Live showed tag info when using playlists even with Network Shares.

 

-Rick

Out of interest is there any particular reason why you want to see this info when using play lists. My Mp3’s are named with the artist - track name so therefore the only thing missing is the album info. I understand that it should be there but how important is it really.

16

richUK wrote:

…

 

Out of interest is there any particular reason why you want to see this info when using play lists. My Mp3’s are named with the artist - track name so therefore the only thing missing is the album info. I understand that it should be there but how important is it really.

I listen to classical music where this is extremely complicated.  One album may contain a number of pieces, some of the pieces with more than one movement (file) and different artists for each piece.

My library of MP3 files consists of 186 GB with just over 40,000 files in 6,814 subfolders.  The transfer of all these files from CDs took place in the main over a period of about a year.  Even at the time they were made it would have been insane to try to rename each file from the default.  Impossible now.  And in many cases the file names would have been huge.

Most of my playlists are types and periods of music, say, Avant Garde music of the 70s (about 100 files) the next pl Avant Garde of the 80s, etc.  The music within sorted more or less by date of composition.  I confess with that much music I cannot always put together in my memory the title with the composer, and need the Album to give me a hint.

Different people have different needs.  Enough people need or want title, album, and artist displayed so that every other media player I’ve come accross has them- including the previous WD models.

I bought the SMP because when I was shopping for a 2nd  WD TV Live there was a box on the Amazon item page saying “There’s and updated version of this product…”  Which I went to, bought (it was even less expensive and now I see why.)

More and more, not just with my problems, it’s beginning to look as though this is a stripped down version of the original with a little Netflix app added on as a compensation.

This machine has 3 different ways it is supposed to be able to do what I need done.  (Play mp3 playlists with title, album, and artist showing.)  Neither the Network shares or Music Library will do it, and the Media Server drops out every 2-20 minutes, as many various posters have pointed out.  And we have no intention shown of fixing the last problem.  Strike three.

Different people have different needs.  What is a minor annoyance to you may be a deal breaker for someone else.  “Most people” don’t need what I need.  Unless you are a very vanilla person, I’m sure there are things very important to you that “most people” couldn’t care less about.

Regards,

Rick

17

I understand your problem now. However this is a reasonably cheap all purpose media player and it cannot fulfill everybody’s needs. I believe that it was primarily designed for HD video and when it comes to audio it caters to the average user with a bunch of Mp3’s. You could post a suggestion in the ideas section, you never know WD may update the playlist function so that it shows the required album info.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Ideas/idb-p/streaming_ideas