DLNA At Work (At Home)
DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance (http://www.dlna.org/). They are a collection of companies with an aim to make home networking and multimedia entertainment interoperable and hassle - free. Among the members are giants like Microsoft and Sony and around 250 others. And I am happy to report this alliance seems to be working. During my so-called "free time" I keep on putting together a home entertainment network. Wrote a bit on that on my Tech Bulletins blog (http://tech.slupik.com/2007/11/digital-home.html). This project is still a work in progress, but from what I have assembled now it looks like the DLNA - compliant devices are really interoperable.So far I have been able to put together two main components of the system:
- The Infrant ReadyNAS file / streaming server. Depending how you look at it, you may consider the ReadyNAS as a heart of the system. Currently I have it equipped with four 500GB drives, yielding capacity of around 1,5TB (the fourth drive is for redundancy RAID configuration). Infrant also runs two streaming services - a SlimServer to feed music to the Squeezeboxes and an UPnP AV streaming service (this is essentially DLNA- compliant streaming service) to feed videos to various devices and pictures to digital photo frames.
I have been pretty happy with the ReadyNAS so far. It is simple to set up, the only thing I may complain about is the speed, as it is not the fastest file server I have seen... But just good enough for the home storage. - The Sony Playstation 3 console. PS3 handles a number of scenarios. Of course it is a game console. It is also by far the best Blue-Ray disc player on the Planet (and one of the cheapest ones), so I use it to play the high - definition movies. And it is DLNA - compliant, so it magically connects using its built-in WiFi to the ReadyNAS server, able to play any movie, picture slideshow or music stored there. With the latest 2.10 firmware from Sony, the PS3 can play movies of any format. MPEG-2 (DVD dumps), MPEG-4, VC-1 (Windows Media) and DivX. With such a broad format support Sony is really delivering what is needed to keep the Playstation 3 as a heart of the living room entertainment system. Just connect it over HDMI to a FullHD TV set and to a sound amlifier and you do not need anything else. People around the world were questioning Sony leadership on the game console market. But I am sure it will outlive the competitors. Nintendo Wii does not have enough processing power to drive a high definition TV set, so its longevity is what should be questioned in fact. And Microsoft bet on the wrong horse, equipping the XBOX 360 with a HD-DVD drive, the format that has just lost the battle for good this month. I agree XBOX has more games and Nintendo is more gaming fun. But if you want to have the best multimedia device for the living room, Sony PS3 has no competition: ultra - performance games, Blue-Ray and a DLNA wireless multimedia hub supporting any file format available. And - I wrote it before, but it is worth repeating - the PS3 is the most standard - compliant device I have ever seen. In terms of ports (CF, SD, USB), in terms of accessories (just about any USB or Bluetooth accessory works - keyboards, trackballs, controllers...) and in terms of file format support (any DVD disc, Blue-Ray, plus MPEG2/4/VC-1/DivX/MP3/WMA media).
The last comment today will be about the Denon AVR-4308. It is a monster... Has everything you can dream of... from iPod connectivity to WiFi to DLNA certification (as a music player) to remote operation via Web Browser... Most probably I will not be buying the AVR-4308 for two reasons - it does not fit in my current AV component shelf and I still prefer my audio being powered by Squeezeboxes (the new Duets are sweet...). But it would be really interesting if someone could comment here on the DLNA experience with the Denon receiver. May be when I decide to buy a new furniture for the living room, I will get back to Denon :)
Don't you know how different operating systems handle dlna? I'm interested in out-of-the-box functionality and especially in linux :)
ReplyDeleteHi, DLNA is an application - level feature. In Windows it is implemented in the Media Player. In Linux it needs a kind of a streaming DLNA service as well. The ReadyNAS (it is based on Debian) comes with one preloaded. And you may also have a look at the Twonky Vision DLNA server - it runs on just about anything.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI have a similar setup at home, with a few differences.
Storage server: Old laptop with Ubuntu. The linux box has 2 external 500 gig hdds connected, and since it is linux, it easily runs all the needed media server applications.
On the storage server I am running Slimserver+MusicIP, MediaTomb for DLNA streaming of music, video, and SAMBA for easy file access from other laptops. Of course, there's also bittorrent running on the storage box at nights.
Video: PS3 takes the video via DLNA from the storage server and feeds the video to overhead projector. Audio output goes to stereo system.
Audio: Squeezebox connected to high end audio system.
Good to I can see the PS3, thanks to the DLNA support is going to many open environments, essentially being a bridge between storage devices and displays.
ReplyDeleteBTW there a many nice features coming up in the new Raidiator (the customized OS for the ReadyNAS). One of them is BitTorrent support. Here is the thread: http://www.infrant.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16117
Just a curious question - does the Nokia tablet have good software to support DLNA video streaming? And if yes, what codecs does it support well, say Divx/Xvid? In my setup it would be used as an additional screen for viewing different video than the main projector is showing, lets say cartoons for kids.
ReplyDeleteWell... unfortunately there is no simple answer to that question...
ReplyDeleteGenerally N800 has a good level of compatibility. Out of the box it can play music and picture slideshows from DLNA server. With movies there is MPEG4/DivX support, but the processing power seems to be not enough, so the frame rate you get from a standard content is very poor. Encoding the source to match the smaller screen helps as does installing some 3rd party applications. Unfortunately N800 still has some serious problems with memory leaks so this way or the other you may end up with a frozen screen after some time... Shame, as otherwise this would be quite a capable device...
HI Headworx,
ReplyDeleteI am looking at adding a qnap NAS DLNA server. Denon ASD3W wifi DLNA for streaming audio to PRIMARE I21.
Now I was thinking if I can just plug a LCD screen for OSD as well as stream slide show while playing Audio? what do you think will be the way to do this? so taht I have a digital picture frame receiving slide show as well as music? do I need two such units? Other question is about using some of these DLNA compliant portable devices to scroll and choose music to play without having to go to the screen OSD? I don't want to have a TV in audio room, but a digital picture frame will be nice though. Any suggestions how to create that remote without buying SONOS system?
Thanks,
Jayesh
Jayesh,
ReplyDeleteInteresting questions you ask... I am afraid I do not have a definite answer for you. But let's try some comments:
I do not know the Denon system you mention, but from my experience all the "legacy" players lack good navigation software to browse the content.
Personally I opted for the Squeezebox / Logitech solution. The latest Duet is really what I like (http://headworx.slupik.com/2008/04/squeezebox-duet.html)
and the quality is very good.
For movies (and pictures!) I use Sony PS3. Nothing better has yet emerged.
HTH