As my title says, my new WDTVL+ isn’t recognizing any of my MKV files on my network connection. I have a Win7 64 bit PC connected by cable to a Belkin router and my Live plus connected to it as well. It recognizes and plays every other file format I’ve thrown at it, even the 1080p stuff no problem. But any MKV files give me an “Unknown” file format, and the corresponding error. This isn’t a header compression error or something related, because if I copy the files to a USB hard drive it will play them fine, it’s only when I want to play them from network that I have the error. Any suggestions about what settings I might have wrong on Win7? I suspect that’s the root cause, but am open to all ideas:smiley:
You’re using NETWORK SHARES, not MEDIA SERVER, right? If the latter, then your media server must support MKV playback.
I do not actuall see my win7 desktop on network shares. It is only showing up on media server list. I feel very foolish asking, but how should I be making my computer show up on the network list instead of media servers?
Update: this is indeed my issue, as Win7 uses WMP to stream media, and it does not recognize mkv files. My problem now becomes how do I get my Live+ to recognize Win7 network share.
Read the KB article here.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3787
Unfortunately I had already tried the things mentioned in the article linked, with no sucess. I ended up downloading the TVersity media server, which I’ve had success with in the past (streaming to an xbox), and it worked great! Never could get Win7 to share its folders with the WDTVL+ 
Thanks for your time and expertise, Tony!
Ya, the other option (besides getting Network Shares working) would have been to get one of the .mkv directshow filter packs.
They essentially add .mkv support to any directshow-capable player.
I just got my Live hooked up today and had a few teething problems getting both Network Shares and Media Shares to work, but once I got the wrinkles smoothed out, WMP has no issues serving .mkvs over to my Live (because I’ve had the filters installed for quite some time).
For me, it looks like Network Shares wasn’t working because Windows, in its brilliance, removed the “Share with Everyone” from the folders when I clicked “Add to Library”.
They had been shared, and working on the network just nicely before I added the WDTV, and then when I tried to add them to the “Music” and “Videos” libraries to try and get Media Shares working, Windoze turned the shares off without me noticing.
Since all my other settings had been right, that one little glitch from Windows is all it took for the Network Shares to not work. But once I re-shared them with “Everyone” they showed up on my Live just fine.
