Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices

General discussion about the media server. Feature requests. Hints, tips and tricks.
Twonky_Rick
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Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices

Post by Twonky_Rick » Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:17 pm

Connected Home Best Practices

Note: An updated version of this article has been posted here: http://mostlytech2012.wordpress.com/201 ... practices/
I made all of the edits in my new tech blog because the formatting is much more flexible there.


Choosing the Right Digital Media Player

There is no single digital media player that is good at everything. Each connected device has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some are much better than others, so make sure to do your homework before purchasing one. This document should help to steer you in the right direction.

1. Try to purchase products that have been DLNA-certified, because they undergo a higher level of testing than other connected devices. You can search for DLNA-certified products here: http://www.dlna.org/products/

2. Not all DLNA-certified devices can be externally controlled using your PC or mobile device. Try to buy products that can accept media that you push or beam from a PC or mobile device, or pull from a media server. You can find a list of devices that meet this requirement here:http://www.tinyurl.com/twonkydmrs

3. Try to purchase devices that have both wired and wireless connections. This gives you the flexibility to switch from wireless to wired if you have problems. Make sure your device can support advanced encryption like WPA or WPA2 because it’s more secure.

4. Keep current with firmware updates. These updates can fix problems you are experiencing.

5. A good media server can stream almost all media formats. Unfortunately most game consoles, connected TVs and Blu-ray players only play a limited number of media formats. Because of this, you're sometimes better off purchasing a low-cost digital media player which supports a much wider range of formats.

6. Before purchasing a game console over a dedicated digital media player, you should be aware of their limitations:
  • - You cannot beam media to the Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii from your PC or mobile device.
  • - Xbox 360 can accept pushed media, but only when it’s in Media Center Extender mode and you have a Windows 7, Vista or XP Media Center Edition PC running on your network.
  • - Game consoles do not support as many formats as other digital media players.
  • - Xbox 360 does not display all of the items in the Twonky navigation tree. As a result, you won’t see things like By Folder, Artist Index, Artist Album, Genre Index, Genre/Artist or Internet feeds like SHOUTcast, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa Web or PhotoBucket.
7. What to look for in a digital photo player:
  • - Ideally, you should have a digital media player that supports photos and video everywhere you have a television. If your TV doesn’t do this, try to find a digital media player that has an HDMI output.
  • - Make sure your digital media player can automatically scale your photos so they appear full-screen. Not all DLNA-certified TVs or digital media players do this.
  • - The best photo players have nice transitions in-between photos and let you play music in the background if desired (e.g. Sony PS3, Xbox 360). Xbox 360 has a nice zoom transition effect on photos.
  • - At this time, there are no digital media players other than Apple TV, that can display a continuous slideshow of photos pushed from a PC or mobile device. In most cases, a black or blue screen appears in-between each photo. For this reason, you’ll want to pull your photos from a media server and start all slideshows using the remote that came with your digital media player.
  • - If you want a digital photo frame, try to find a networked one that has both wired and wireless support. This will allow you to place it anywhere in your home and easily move it from room to room. Make sure your networked digital photo frame works with media servers like TwonkyServer.
8. What to look for in a digital video player:
  • - Don’t assume that all digital media players can stream true 1080 high definition video. Some cannot do this without stuttering problems.
  • - Do not assume your connected TV can play all media formats. Most DLNA-certified TVs can only play MPEG-2, AVCHD and a few others. Many connected TVs and digital media players can’t play 3GP, QuickTime, DivX, MKV and YouTube videos. Devices that play most of these formats include Samsung TVs, Xbox 360 (in Media Center Extender mode), WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub.
9. What to look for in a digital music player:
  • - Ideally, you should have a digital media player that supports music everywhere you have a stereo.
  • - Don’t assume that all digital media players can accept music playlists that are beamed from PCs or mobile devices. Some only allow one song to be sent at a time.
  • - Don’t assume all connected devices can have their volume changed externally. Most stereo receivers disable this feature (e.g. Denon, Onkyo, etc).
  • - Look for audio digital media players that can be grouped -- so you can have the same music playing in different rooms of your home. Examples of players that can do this: Linksys Wireless music players, Linn multi-room music systems, Philips Streamium networked media players, Sonos ZonePlayers, etc.
  • - If you subscribe to a music service like Rhapsody, make sure your digital music players work directly with your service, so you don’t have to use Rhapsody’s PC software. Examples of devices that include Rhapsody support include: Denon AVR receivers, Linksys wireless music players, Philips Streamium NP Series networked media players, Sonos ZonePlayers, etc.
  • - If you have a great stereo and speaker system, you may want to get an audio-only device with good converters and connect to your receiver digitally (e.g. Linn products, Sonos Zone Players).
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Network-related Tips

1. Wired networking tips:
  • - Connect your media players to your network using a wired connection whenever you have a choice. Wired networks are easier to setup and capable of much higher throughput. This means they are less likely to have stuttering problems when streaming high-definition video. They also don't "drop" and have range problems like wireless connections sometimes do.
  • - Use Cat 5e or Cat 6 network patch cords and cabling if possible. They cost about the same as regular Cat 5 cable and may enable faster data transfer over a Gigabit Ethernet network.
  • - Do not connect any of your PCs or connected devices to the "Internet" or "Uplink" ports on your router or switch.
  • - If you want to stream HD video over the Internet, check your Internet connection speeds to make sure your connection is fast enough. Most HD Internet movie streaming sites recommend your download speed is at least 3.0 Mbps. You can check this using your computer’s browser and websites like http://www.speedtest.net.
  • - Don’t back up your PCs or download large files while you’re trying to stream HD video on your network. This can cause the frame rate to drop or the video to buffer.
2. Wireless-related networking tips:
  • - If you have problems with wireless devices on your network, consider power-line networking alternatives like HomePlug or Powerline AV (e.g. Western Digital WD Livewire Powerline AV Network Kit). These devices are more reliable than most wireless routers and are also capable of higher data rates. However, they are not without problems. They sometimes have their own issues with split-phase wiring and surge protectors. If you're using HomePlug, avoid using an AC power strip and plug the unit directly into the wall, since the power strip’s surge protection circuit can cause problems.
  • - If you must use wireless, make sure your wireless access point is password-protected and you’re using the most advanced security your devices will support (e.g. WPA-PSK or WPA2).
  • - Try to place your wireless router in a location where it is as close to your media players as possible. Even time the signal has to pass through a wall it drops in strength.
  • - Be aware that cordless phones, baby monitors, wireless security cameras and microwave ovens can all interfere with wireless networks. If possible, purchase devices that don’t use the same band(s) as your wireless router.
3. Router-related networking tips:
  • - Having devices connected to both wired and wireless networks at the same time can cause problems. If you can’t see your media server or some media players on your network, this could be the cause.
  • - Allow your router or switch to use DHCP; it makes setup easier. Don’t use fancy network setups with multiple subnets and hubs. Doing so can introduce latencies that cause problems with DLNA.
  • - If you want to be able to stream multiple high-def videos at once, make sure there are no 10Mbps routers or switches on your LAN. Use 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet switches instead. They are now surprisingly affordable.
  • - If you want to access your media remotely, consider buying a router than supports UPnP configuration.
  • - Some routers and switches work better than others for media streaming. Problems with media playback stopping or stuttering sometimes go away when a new router or switch is used.
  • - Changing router settings can also sometimes improve media streaming performance. This is only recommended for advanced users. Before changing any router setting, make sure to write down the old setting, in case you need to go back to it.
    • a. If you have a busy network, collisions can occur that reduce your throughput. Lowering the fragmentation threshold can improve performance by reducing re-transmissions. Try setting the fragmentation threshold to 1,000 bytes and see if that improves media streaming. Be aware that using smaller packet adds extra overhead, so you shouldn’t set this value too low. Setting the threshold to the largest value (2,346 bytes) effectively disables fragmentation. Do not change this setting if you are not having media streaming problems.
    • b. Another parameter that some users experiment with is the UPnP Advertisement Period. Some claim lowering this parameter can cause devices to appear faster on the network.
Media Server & Storage Suggestions

1. If possible, you should store your media on a low-power, always-on device like a network-attached storage device (NAS) with an embedded media server (e.g. Buffalo, QNAP, Thecus, WD, etc.). Some routers and set top boxes can also be used with a USB memory stick or external hard disk drive. Beware of older or inexpensive NAS devices. Some of these have memory limitations or CPUs that don't have enough power to handle very large media collections. It's also much harder to set up a NAS to perform transcoding than a computer.

2. Avoid using media servers like Windows Media Player 11, iTunes or Rhapsody. Make sure your media server is a DLNA 1.5-certified reference server like TwonkyServer. It is faster, more reliable and supports more formats and devices than other media servers.

3. If you’re using a Mac or PC as a media server, make sure your virus scanner is not a CPU hog. This can cause problems like skipping during playback of high-definition video.

4. Avoid running a software firewall like ZoneAlarm, unless you understand how to configure it so it won't cause problems. In order to configure software like this, you sometimes need to know which ports need to be open.
  • - TwonkyServer uses UDP ports 1030, 1900, 9080 and TCP port 9000. If port 9000 is already in use, it selects the first available free port after 9000.
  • - The local TwonkyManager player uses port 9020.
  • - The TwonkyManager controller uses port 9021
5. Avoid storing media on a network share. It’s better to share content from a hard drive in the same device where the media server resides. Network shares increase the traffic on your network and can be unreliable when they are not always online.

6. Don’t nest your media too deeply under many levels of folders. Doing so can slow down media scanning and increase the size of your media database.

7. Be careful which folder you select as your watched folder. Do not select a folder the operating system constantly updates, like a Temp folder, bit-torrent download folder, or the Windows System folder. A watched folder with lots of changes can slow down your media server.

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Media-related Tips

1. Perform regular backups of all of your media or make sure it's copied to another hard drive.

2. Avoid buying copy-protected media when the same content exists in a legal, unprotected form. Unprotected media is superior, because any device can play it and you’ll never have to worry about losing your licenses.

3. As you create your digital media library, try to use the formats that are supported by all DLNA-certified devices. This includes JPEG photos, LPCM audio and MPEG-2 video. MP3 audio, WMV video and MPEG4 video are not guaranteed to work, but are supported by most DLNA-certified devices as well.

4. When ripping audio CDs, choose high-bit rate MP3 or linear audio (WAV) over AAC and FLAC, because not every device can play these formats. If you want to use lossless audio, consider linear WAV files over other lossless formats because almost every device supports it.

5. It is essential that all of your music files have accurate ID3 tags. Your media server uses these tags to create its navigation trees. If any of your music files are missing artist, genre or album tags, those artists/genres/albums won’t appear in the navigation tree. You can still access that media from the song list, but it’s more time consuming.

Tip: Software is available, like “Tag & Rename,” which can use your music file names to add ID3 tags for you.

6. Avoid entering or editing metadata using media management software like iTunes or Windows Media Player. Some of these programs only add the metadata and album art to their local database and not the file itself. It’s much better to enter metadata directly into an ID3 or EXIF tag, so it can be imported by software on any Mac or PC.

7. Although it is not essential, it's a good idea to create separate folders for each artist in your music library. Each artist folder should have separate folders for each album. Each album folder should contain a JPEG file for the album cover. Normally this file is called "folder.jpg". Your media server will use this file to display album art. You can also embed album art in each music file in the ID3 tag.

8. It's a good idea to create separate folders for each year in your My Photos folder. Inside each year folder, you should have subfolders for different photo albums (e.g. Hawaii Trip). Your media server will use these folders to make it easier to locate your photos.

9. It's also a good idea to use software like Windows Live Photo Gallery to add tags to your photos. Although it's time consuming, you should try to rename your individual photos from their camera issued names (e.g. DSC04945).

10. Pre-rotate your pictures before you copy them to your shared folder. The easiest way to do this is to view them by thumbnails and right-click on the photos that need to be rotated.

This article contains the opinions of the author(s) that do not necessarily reflect those of PacketVideo. Thanks to Rick Schwartz, Christian Gran, Jim Pfeifer, Angela Scheller, Cindy Vivoli, Ken Clapp and pcfe for contributing to this article.

Copyright 2009-2012 by Rick Schwartz and PacketVideo. All rights reserved. Please do not publish this list elsewhere without permission.
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fja
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What software-players do You recommend ??

Post by fja » Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:41 am

Hi,

thx for a great article. I have another question... It seems to me that my media player downloads entire music file (mp3) before playing it - I guess it should actually play while downloading (== streaming?), but that is not the case.

Also - if I try to connect to my Twonky server I do not get any way to navigate the music - or maybe I just don't see how to do it.

Locally I have a Denon 3808, and using this everything works fine....

???

best wishes
Frank

Twonky_Rick
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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by Twonky_Rick » Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:37 pm

TwonkyMedia manager should be able to push or pull music to your Denon 3808 as a stream -- without downloading it first. Normally the TwonkyMedia server should be visible in the list of servers on the Denon. You should see our navigation tree and use your Denon remote to navigate and play music. You should also see an icon labelled 'Network Audio' in the Play Here section of TwonkyMedia manager. Just drag and drop a song or playlist on top of that icon. If you go to Browse view, you can also drag and drop a genre or artist or album as well.

You can go to the Settings page today and change the 'Network Audio' label to read "Denon 3808". We're also planning to add icons for the 3808 to TMM v1.1, so you can change your icon as well.

Although I don't own a Denon yet, there are several TMM users on this forum that do, so they should be able to give you even better advice.

- Rick
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fja
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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by fja » Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:06 pm

sorry if I was not clear... I have no problems using my Denon 3808.

My questions are related to software mediaplayers... I have problems getting stream and navigation to work, and I would like to know which software players are recommended..

Best wishes
Frank

staun
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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by staun » Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:48 am

Excellent post. Please include details on how to use thumbnails for folders.

Twonky_Rick
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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by Twonky_Rick » Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:05 pm

I'll be happy to do so if you let me know what you're trying to do. I can't find anything about using thumbnails for folders in the article above.

- Rick
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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by Twonky_Rick » Mon May 04, 2009 5:04 pm

Here are some more details about games consoles that you should be aware of:
- The XBox 360 suppresses all files with MPG extensions and won’t play MPEG-2 video. Although it will play some MPEG-4 files, it won’t play MPEG-4 video with an .AVI extension.
- The Sony PS3 has buffering issues with some Internet video and radio streams.
- The Sony PS3 won’t play QuickTime video files. WMV playback is possible but needs to be enabled in the System Settings.
- The Xbox 360 can take 5-25 seconds to load some photos and a minute or longer to display albums.
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crudolphy
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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by crudolphy » Mon May 11, 2009 2:18 am

Good article, thanks for writing it. I notice you spent some time giving specfic information about gaming consoles and this is understandable. I was wondering if you could provide some info regarding the Samsung LCD TV's that now offer their "WiseLink Pro" DLNA (750 series and up)? I have one and have problems with video (not sure what encodings to use, youtube flash streams), internet radio streams, and it dropping the connection and acquiring the connection to Twonk (5.061 on Ubuntu 9.04 AMD 64) over my home network. I don't think it is a network issue as they also have their "infolink" which hooks up with USA Today streams over the internet and this works beautifully.
Thanks in advance for your comments!

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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by Twonky_Rick » Mon May 11, 2009 5:05 pm

crudolphy wrote:Good article, thanks for writing it. I notice you spent some time giving specfic information about gaming consoles and this is understandable. I was wondering if you could provide some info regarding the Samsung LCD TV's that now offer their "WiseLink Pro" DLNA (750 series and up)? I have one and have problems with video (not sure what encodings to use, youtube flash streams), internet radio streams, and it dropping the connection and acquiring the connection to Twonk (5.061 on Ubuntu 9.04 AMD 64) over my home network. I don't think it is a network issue as they also have their "infolink" which hooks up with USA Today streams over the internet and this works beautifully.
Thanks in advance for your comments!
Although I don't know anything about the Samsung DLNA TVs, I do know that the idea of using a TV with an integrated digital media adapter is new, and some of these products still have issues. I would expect they will improve in the future however. The safest video format to use is MPEG-2, because every DLNA renderer must play that back. WMV is also played by most devices. Many devices have a problem playing FLV or YouTube flash streams. Dropped connections are normally a result of your wireless access point. I'll talk to the Forum Administrator about adding a section for DLNA TVs, so users can share their findings.

- Rick
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chaoszone
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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by chaoszone » Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:25 pm

Hi,

i own a Samsung with this new media features and was able to connect it to my Twonky Server which is running on a standard pc. All the files were shown and could also be selected and played. However, the playspeed seems to be wrong.
It seems that it plays the files twice as fast as it is supposed to be. My PS3 however does not have any problems like that. Is there any setting within Twonky that i could tweak in order to avoid such problems?

thanks for helping,

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Re: DLNA Best Practices

Post by Twonky_Rick » Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:14 pm

If the files are playing faster than normal, it's probably an issue with the embedded player in the Samsung TV.

Please let me know what formats this is occurring with and the model number of your TV.

I recently met some people who work at Samsung in the TV group, and might be able to help get this issue resolved. Thanks.

- Rick
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garryweil
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated June 2009)

Post by garryweil » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:17 am

Rick,
Great post but I am wondering about one thing you mentioned; using a router with UPnP configuration. I believe this is irrelevant to DLNA.The UPnP setting on most routers is to enable the UPnP IGD; this is the Internet Gateway Device and all it does is allow IGD control points to automatically open and close ports on the firewall of the router e.g. ports for XBox or DirectX games.

Twonky_Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated June 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:20 pm

garryweil wrote:Rick,
Great post but I am wondering about one thing you mentioned; using a router with UPnP configuration. I believe this is irrelevant to DLNA.The UPnP setting on most routers is to enable the UPnP IGD; this is the Internet Gateway Device and all it does is allow IGD control points to automatically open and close ports on the firewall of the router e.g. ports for XBox or DirectX games.
First off, thanks for the feedback. You're correct. This isn't really related to DLNA, that's why I mention it's only relevant to remote access. I also recently changed the title of this to show this list is intended to go beyond DLNA only.

Does anyone else have an opinion on this? I'm happy to remove this if others feel it doesn't belong here as well.

- Rick
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Mils
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated June 2009)

Post by Mils » Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:12 am

Hi,

I have a Samsung 32LE32B651 conected by LAN to a QNAP TS-239 Pro with Twonky Media V.4.4.17 installed.
By the moment, I can see all pictures, music and videos/movies by the TV-DLNA conection, as same as, TV-USB conection.
But I found one difference, the subtitles. With USB conection, I can see the movies with subtitles (*.srt),
but with DLNA, I can´t see it... Is there any option to activate the subtitles and send the video/movie with subtitle included?

Thanks

Daniel

Streki
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated June 2009)

Post by Streki » Sat Jul 04, 2009 7:09 am

Or which format of subtitles are supported? /sub,srt etc./? I try srt and sub and nothing.

Twonky_Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated June 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:21 pm

According to Christian, subtitle support is not standardized in the UPnP AV spec. Therefore there is no subtitle support in TMS 4.x.

TMS 5.0 has limited subtitle support, but this only works on a Toshiba TV that is sold in Japan. Sorry I don't have better news for you.

- Rick
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vhenninot
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated June 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Fri Jul 10, 2009 9:15 am

Hello,
I have a samsung lcd TV DLNA certified and i can't pause a video !
Is it a server or a player problem ?
I use TMS 4.4 on my NAS, but same problem with TMS5 installed on my ubuntu.
Is it related with the media receiver type ?
Or with DLNA version certification ? (1 or 1.5) ?

Thanks for your answer,
Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated June 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:03 pm

vhenninot wrote:Hello,
I have a samsung lcd TV DLNA certified and i can't pause a video !
Is it a server or a player problem ?
I use TMS 4.4 on my NAS, but same problem with TMS5 installed on my ubuntu.
Is it related with the media receiver type ?
Or with DLNA version certification ? (1 or 1.5) ?

Thanks for your answer,
Vincent
TMS 4.4 works fine with videos on other DMAs and most DLNA-enabled TVs. It's most likely a problem that is related to the emdedded player software in the TV -- or it's format-related. Some video formats/players don't support seeking.

- Rick
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Checkout my blog: http://mostly-tech.com/

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Tue Jul 28, 2009 11:41 pm

thnaks for your answer,
but I'm sure that the embeded samsung lcd tv player is play/resume capable because it works with the samsung Windows software and the linux Fuppes software.
I also try on different video file !

I ask your support team for that problem and at first they sais that i could modify the client.db and later they send me email with :
This ticket is internally followed with the ID TMCORE-539. Please reference
this when asking for updates/status.
Could you check this ID ?

Thanks,
Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Wed Jul 29, 2009 7:19 pm

I ask your support team for that problem and at first they sais that i could modify the client.db and later they send me email with :
This ticket is internally followed with the ID TMCORE-539. Please reference
this when asking for updates/status.

Could you check this ID ?
Sure. The ticket is still open. It has been assigned to an engineer to review. It sounds like we're waiting to get a Samsung TV in our Berlin office to test this.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Mon Aug 24, 2009 11:48 am

Hello,
Any news regarding this problem ?
Since my last message i found a lot of people in différent forum having the same problem with their Samsung TV !
We wonder why it is ONLY with Twonky...

That's too bad for me because my Qbap NAS cames with Twonky embeded... :(

Could you please check The ticket status ?
Best regards,
Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:28 pm

Hi Vincent,

Here's an update:

We have made some good progress on this issue. We now have a Samsung DLNA TV in San Diego (and I think Berlin as well) . The Samsung works fine with our latest build of TMS 5.1 and the Pause/Resume function works great with music. But as you discovered, the Samsung TV cannot Pause or Resume any video streaming from TMS 5.1.

There is a lot technical data attached to the ticket, and it appears that they've isolated the cause of the issue. I will ask them if they have an estimate when this will be fixed and post the answer here when I get it.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:59 am

Hello and THANKS for this GREAT UPDATE !!!
:D

I will link this good news in Qnap and Samsung TV forum !

Best regards,
Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Thu Aug 27, 2009 8:19 pm

Thanks Vincent.
Follow me on Twitter! mostlytech1
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Fri Aug 28, 2009 5:44 pm

I got some more details about this from our Berlin office. According to them, the TV has some serious issues with their DLNA implementation. The good news is that we've identified the problems, and plan to change TwonkyMedia, so we can work better with these devices. I don't have an ETA on the fixes yet. Post here again in a week and I'll give you an update.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by hermann4711 » Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:57 pm

I have tms (trial-version) installed on my buffalo nas and try to view my videos on my pc with tmm (trial-version) installed. Most of my video cannot be viewed (some do: only the ones I recorded with my sony digital photocamera).
Before I buy tms/tmm I must know:
How can I expand tmm with codecs to show my mp4, mpg and avi videos?

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by dynamax » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:09 pm

TMM_Product_Manager wrote:Hi Vincent,

Here's an update:

We have made some good progress on this issue. We now have a Samsung DLNA TV in San Diego (and I think Berlin as well) . The Samsung works fine with our latest build of TMS 5.1 and the Pause/Resume function works great with music. But as you discovered, the Samsung TV cannot Pause or Resume any video streaming from TMS 5.1.

There is a lot technical data attaced to the ticket, and it appears that they've isolated the cause of the issue. I will ask them if they have an estimate when this will be fixed and post the answer here when I get it.

- Rick

Hi Rick!

Do you have any news about Samsung DLNA TV?

Thanks Max

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Flipflop » Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:13 pm

dynamax wrote:
TMM_Product_Manager wrote:Hi Vincent,

Here's an update:

We have made some good progress on this issue. We now have a Samsung DLNA TV in San Diego (and I think Berlin as well) . The Samsung works fine with our latest build of TMS 5.1 and the Pause/Resume function works great with music. But as you discovered, the Samsung TV cannot Pause or Resume any video streaming from TMS 5.1.

There is a lot technical data attaced to the ticket, and it appears that they've isolated the cause of the issue. I will ask them if they have an estimate when this will be fixed and post the answer here when I get it.

- Rick

Hi Rick!

Do you have any news about Samsung DLNA TV?

Thanks Max
I've been lurking and would to like any news and possible fix to the issue of video streaming to Samsung TV's.

TIA

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by TTGSS » Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:43 pm

Hi,

I have the problem too. :?
Please ... find the solution quickly. :wink:

Bruno

Samsung LCD UE40B7020 LED TV /
Samsung HT-BD7200 Blu-ray Home Theater /
WD My Book World Edition 2 To Gigabit Ethernet

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by bboudreaux » Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:47 pm

Great post! I too, would also like to see anyone's advice on proper tag formats for Album Art, etc. With my LG390 I have no problems viewing the photo thumbnails, but for some reason I had zero luck with album art in my music folders. I have tried ID3 tags and folder.jpg without success.

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Max7761 » Wed Sep 16, 2009 7:49 pm

Hello Rick,

Under MAdia realted Tips you mention:
"3. As you create your digital media library, try to use the formats which are required for DLNA certification: JPEG (photos), LPCM (audio) and MPEG2 (video). Although they are optional for home devices, MP3 (audio), WMV (video) and MPEG4 (video) are almost always supported by DLNA-certified devices as well."

I looked at the list of supported Render devices, but None seem to list MPEG4 support. (Who stores files in MPEG2 these days - too large and slow over network...?) Can you tell me any TVs that will Render MPEG4 ?

Thanks Max

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by girofle72 » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:39 pm

hi could you help me please.

j just downloaded twonkymedia on my imac. the server is ok and i can see all folders on my tv samsung dlna.

the problem is i can't open them: the tv tells me it's impossible. would you have any advise to give me?

girofle
france

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Mr.Shaky » Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:58 pm

I'm really new at the whole DLNA thing, but thought I was all set when I got this Samsung LN46B650 TV that sported a big "DNLA Certified" logo because I already had a Buffalo Linkstation Live V2 that also sported the DLNA certified logo.

My main interest is watching DivX movies off the NAS, but all I get is the "file format not supported" message. The TV will play DivX movies off a USB memory stick just fine. I read that the PCast server on my Linkstation stinks, and I should put Twonky on it. But I can't determine whether Twonky will support DivX.

Also, I'm reading a lot of posts about the newer version not working on NAS. Will the older version work on my NAS?

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:25 pm

TwonkyMedia server streams DivX video to devices which can play it. I don't believe that DivX is on the list of supported formats for the Samsung TVs, but I could be wrong.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:26 pm

girofle72 wrote:hi could you help me please.

j just downloaded twonkymedia on my imac. the server is ok and i can see all folders on my tv samsung dlna.

the problem is i can't open them: the tv tells me it's impossible. would you have any advise to give me?

girofle
france
Can you let me know what model of Samsung TV you're using? Thanks.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:34 pm

Max7761 wrote:Hello Rick,

I looked at the list of supported Render devices, but None seem to list MPEG4 support. (Who stores files in MPEG2 these days - too large and slow over network...?) Can you tell me any TVs that will Render MPEG4 ?

Thanks Max
Samsung TVs can play some, but not all, YouTubeâ„¢ and MP4 videos. You can find a list of Samsung TVs that should do this above. There are probably other TVs as well.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:11 pm

Hello Rick,

Have you some news about the Samsung TV pause/resume issue ?
Does TMS 5.1 include some enhancement about that ?

Regards,
Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Max7761 » Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:21 am

Thanks for your previous reply Rick,

You mention above that some Samsung TVs will render youTube, MP4, and a list exists.

I have reviewed your list of DMRs with Samsung TVs included, but none indicate MP4 support. Is there another list somewhere that shows whihc Samsung TVs will render MP4 ?

Thanks for your help. Max

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:50 pm

We try to be very conservative and only list formats we're sure are going to work. Because of that, our list of formats is not always comprehensive. In some cases devices support more formats than we list. I don't know if all Samsung TVs support FLV and MP4, but am pretty confident the 650 and 750 series do. I would expect the higher-end models would as well.

I suggest you bring a laptop with TMM (and some saved FLV or MP4 files) or TwonkyBeam installed to a store in your area and test for yourself before purchasing however.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Thu Oct 01, 2009 6:56 pm

I've been lurking and would to like any news and possible fix to the issue of video streaming to Samsung TV's.
Sorry for the long delay. I have some more info on this problem. First the good news. I just got an e-mail from someone who says you CAN pause and forward .WMV files. The issue only seems be with .AVI files. He has a Samsung LE46B750 and Twonky 4.4.8 on a Buffalo Live NAS.

Now for the not so good news. We originally thought we could program around the pause issue, but that does not appear to be the case. The Samsung TV we looked at uses proprietary streaming for enhanced functions like pause and there is nothing we can do about this for now. I'll forward this info on to my contact at Samsung, but don't expect any changes in the near future.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Thu Oct 01, 2009 7:10 pm

:roll:

I can confirm that today, i tried a lot a different video files : only a few mpg could pause/resume...
It make sense...

What could users do to make Samsung move to inprove their DLNA compliance ?

But now, i don't understand How fuppes could make the pause work ??
I'm going to try...

Vincent
Last edited by vhenninot on Fri Oct 02, 2009 12:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Flipflop » Thu Oct 01, 2009 10:34 pm

TMM_Product_Manager wrote:
I've been lurking and would to like any news and possible fix to the issue of video streaming to Samsung TV's.
Sorry for the long delay. I have some more info on this problem. First the good news. I just got an e-mail from someone who says you CAN pause and forward .WMV files. The issue only seems be with .AVI files. He has a Samsung LE46B750 and Twonky 4.4.8 on a Buffalo Live NAS.

Now for the not so good news. We originally thought we could program around the pause issue, but that does not appear to be the case. The Samsung TV we looked at uses proprietary streaming for enhanced functions like pause and there is nothing we can do about this for now. I'll forward this info on to my contact at Samsung, but don't expect any changes in the near future.

- Rick
The email you received (via the request on Facebook) was actually from me.

Thanks for looking into this, it's a pity there is no easy/quick fix for this.

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:14 pm

Hello !
:shock:

I'm coming back here with a wired news :
I just try to change video file extensions .avi to .mpg and PAUSE WORK !!!????
:o

So i think it IS possible to do something for us !
Twonky Developper, please help !

:)

Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:15 pm

I'll pass this on to the developers are see what they say. Thanks for reporting this.

- Rick
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by Twonky_Rick » Wed Oct 14, 2009 10:04 pm

Here is their initial response:

AVI is a container format, MPEG is not. I would asume that playback would then fail on every AVI file that does not contain MPEG codecs. But we can give it a try....
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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Thu Oct 15, 2009 10:47 am

I agree...
I have done the following tests :
The fact is that playback and pause/resume work with .avi containing DivX and Xvid renamed to .mpg !
but MS MPG4 with .mpg is not working - as expected - although it work with correct .avi extension.

If we could make divX and Xvid working... it would be so GREAT !!!!
:D

Regards,
Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by san » Thu Oct 15, 2009 4:18 pm

it s not clear for me. the mpg renamed file works if it containts mpeg codec or xvid/divx codec?
well, this evening i'll try some test also for mkv (mpeg codec 1080p) and avi (xvid,divx) between twonky on WD Mybook NAS and samsung le46b750;
asap i'll give you some feedback
Sante

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by san » Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:51 pm

nothing work

renamed all my video library to .mpg
setting tv samsung in twonky conf. as 'generic dlna 1.0' client

tested codec :
dx50 Divx video (also in 720p hd) (avi container renamed .mpg)
Xvid mpeg4@video (avi container renamed .mpg)
H264 hd (matroska container renamed .mpg)

i tested also an mpeg (mpeg1@video codec) real .mpg file....
nothing
start/pause not work

what i wrong? the generic dlna 1.0 set it s not the set used by Vincent?

Sante
Vincent can you give me your Twonky client settings for the samsung tv?

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by vhenninot » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:15 pm

Hello San,

I use Generic DLNA 1.5 (autodetected by Twonky)
My Twonky Version is 4.4.17 on a QNAP TS109pro (NAS)

Vincent

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Re: Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009)

Post by san » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:40 pm

that's incredible, set to dlna 1.5 nothing;
my version is 5.1 !?!?!
i bought also a license for version 5 cause in my wd mybook the preinstalled version was 4.9

at this point, i'll try to downgrade to 4.4.17 e retest

Locked