DLNA server as media source

[swhitmore 781]

Just to add my 2c. I spent a significant amount of time trying to recruit a developer to implement 2 DLNA solutions, the first being MBS as a DLNA server, the second adding the option for MBS to push content to a DMR. Over the course of a few weeks, I would have contacted over 40 developers. I received 3 replies. All 3 expressed interest, but left us hanging after we tried to get them involved.

 

We now have someone working on the DMR solution, and I think you will really like it. Yesterday I was able to use the Windows 8 app to navigate to an item and tell it to play on my TV using DLNA. The TV didn't need any other software or hardware other then it being a DMR. It was a fantastic solution.

 

The downside is that you can't navigate or browse on the TV, but I wouldn't be too worried about that. Most DLNA clients have horrific UIs. Using the MB3 clients to navigate and control the TV is a lot nicer.

[gcoupe 63]

The "Play to" function is built into Windows 8 (and 7). In theory, any media-based App or Desktop application should be able to hook into it and use it. In practice, things don't always run smoothly, but that's DLNA for you.

 

A couple of things to note about the Windows 8 implementation of Play to:

 

1. Microsoft's implementation of Play To for Modern UI Apps requires that you have a track playing before any DMR will show up in the Play section. Non-intuitive and bizarre, but's that's the way Microsoft have done it. This is different to the behaviour of Windows Media Player, where a DMR will be listed as a Play To device whether a track is playing or not.
    
2. Currently, (and again different to the behaviour for Windows 7/8 Desktop applications), Microsoft requires DMRs to be "Microsoft Certified" before they can be used by Modern UI Apps such as MM8 or Xbox Music. There's a registry fix that be applied to get non-certified devices to be made available to Modern UI Apps. There's been a lot of pushback to Microsoft about this certification process, and it will be dropped as a requirement later this year. At that point, this registry fix should no longer be required.

[swhitmore 781]

The MB3 implementation won't have those limitations. 

[gcoupe 63]

I await it with interest

[Pine 8]

Actually, I think there are at least 3 permutations here

 

1) MB as a DLNA server providing data to other DLNA clients - this is the one I think we are least likely to implement any time soon because the benefits don't outweigh the difficulty and there are better ways to achieve the same goal (our content on other devices).

 

ebr:

I assume you refer to solutions like for example Roku here? Any other that you recommend?

 

The "problem" with these type of solutions are inter alia that there is an added cost and even more negative that you need to use two remotes (ie device and TV). In the scenario of using a DLNA TV as client there is no added cost and one can use the same remote for everything. I do not want to compare products here and in any case feel that MB3 is a superior product to Plex. The latter however supports DLNA which gives the advantages mentioned here. If MB3 has no intention of implementing DLNA it would really be sad to make a choice between better software (MB3) or practicality (support for DLNA).

[ebr 14948]

Actually, I was saying the effort would be better spent building native apps for the smart TVs rather than the dumbed down and very difficult to code-to "spec" of DLNA. 

 

But, I think the ability to Play To just about any DMR will cover a lot of ground as well.