Strange DLNA Issues

[fatherjack]

I’m considering upgrading from a Stora to another device but that’s a different story. I have a problem that maybe you can help me with?

I use my Stora to serve files to my sony blu-ray player (S590).
After the Sony updated its firmware yesterday, I’m no longer able to play files that i used to from the Stora.

I would say that the new firmware has caused compatibility issues with the file codes or something but the strange part is that the file will play from a usb stick and if I create a DLNA server on my PC (vuze) the video plays fine also. I don’t quite understand why the video will play from my pc and a usb stick but not the stora as it always used to.

Any ideas? Its got me boggled?

I’ve tried re flashing the stora and updating everything.

[Southkil]

hi,

try to disable dma share on the stora and then reselect dma share.

[fatherjack]

Originally Posted by Southkil

hi,

try to disable dma share on the stora and then reselect dma share.

thanks for the idea, but nothing has changed.

[ossienet]

Originally Posted by fatherjack

Any ideas? Its got me boggled?

I’ve tried re flashing the stora and updating everything.

Try restoring the firmware on the Sony Blu-Ray to the previous version. Maybe they have crippled network playback of certain filetypes in the latest firmware?

I have a Panasonic BluRay and found the differences in which files will play back over the network vs USB. Different firmware produced different results.

[fatherjack]

Originally Posted by ossienet

Try restoring the firmware on the Sony Blu-Ray to the previous version. Maybe they have crippled network playback of certain filetypes in the latest firmware?

I have a Panasonic BluRay and found the differences in which files will play back over the network vs USB. Different firmware produced different results.

Thanks ossienet but as far as i'm aware there is no way to roll back the firmware on the bluray.

Also it will play the file via DLNA on my computer but not the nas.how did you roll back the firmware on your panny? Mayne I could try the same trick.

[ossienet]

Originally Posted by fatherjack

Thanks ossienet but as far as i'm aware there is no way to roll back the firmware on the bluray.

Also it will play the file via DLNA on my computer but not the nas.how did you roll back the firmware on your panny? Mayne I could try the same trick.

Sorry I don't know how to roll back the Pana firmware. I just noticed different behaviour after I UPGRADED the firmware in mine. I was just pointing out that this seems to be a problem with the BluRay / firmware rather than the Stora itself.

As a sidenote it was frustrating working with the Pana BluRay which had the ability to stream files from the Stora in some scenarios but not others. And it seems that Panasonic crippled or at least changed these capabilities in different firmware versions. So maybe there's a custom firmware out there somewhere which reinstates this capability? I don't know - I gave up working with the Pana - stuck it in my kids room, and bought a Samsung which does what I want.

[craigchambers]

Hopefully I can help clarify some of the issues here...

DLNA specification is a barebones affair that only includes a few stream types as mandatory in order to achieve 'certification'. The result of this is that the only guaranteed to work formats on an audio/image/video 'certified' renderer are PCM (i.e. WAV), MP3, JPG and some forms of MPEG2.

The way that these formats are described in DLNA is using something called a DLNA_PN, it's a bit like a MIME type, but also tries to describe the content streams as well as the container.
So when Sony or Panasonic or Samsung (et al) decides that on *this* BD player, they do support mp4 with h.264 video and AAC audio, they look for a standard DLNA_PN for that media type, and often depending on how hard they look, they may find one, or they just make one up that looks OK to them - and works on their own DLNA server (Windows only of course).

The mess that this leaves when Joe public fires up a DLNA server is that pretty much everything outside of those certified types does not work, even if the renderer and server actually supports them.

Now into this, you have some hard working devs for DLNA servers, which invariably come from small companies or open source teams getting a ton of complaints about how the server they paid for/got for free/had included for free in a device that they bought (e.g. miniDLNA in the Stora - believe me, neither Hipserv nor Netgear paid for it) won't play their videos on their TV/Blu-ray player - you get the picture.

These devs seem to spend quite a lot of time working through the many ways in which the large CE companies manage to describe the same format media and trying to get their server to tell the renderer that this media is in fact supported. This is why your media used to work.

So now we have a company like Sony that has clearly made changes to the DLNA_PN for media types that it supports, and this may actually be something rational, possibly even done in conjunction with other CE device manufacturers (though I doubt it), and suddenly DLNA servers running on low power devices (i.e. those that do not have the muscle to do a format conversion) suddenly stop working... Nice one Sony.

To cover some of your other points, any server that you run on your PC is probably receiving information of supported formats, and converting the unsupported ones on the fly to a supported format. This makes for a smooth user experience, but is not much use if you like your media to look at its best... Imagine if every picture on a wall you wanted to look at *had* to be viewed via a video camera, instead of using your eyes directly... this is the same principle. Your TV is capable of rendering the format if it gets tan accepted DLNA_PN, but is forced instead to receive something that the server has transcoded, reducing quality, reducing your control over the stream and consuming much more power at the server end (transcoding is power hungry).

Finally, do not assume that the renderer that your device uses to play back media via USB is the same as that used for media received via DLNA. Sony have supported many formats via USB that would not play via DLNA at all.

Phew... Essay over. Hope this helps explain the situation. Basically DLNA certification is a joke, and for any content you might actually want to use, the sticker on your device is irrelevant. This is pretty much the fault of the big consumer electronics companies, not the DLNA server people :-).

/Craig

[craigchambers]

Originally Posted by craigchambers

miniDLNA in the Stora - believe me, neither Hipserv nor Netgear paid for it

I should clarify here and state that miniDLNA is developed by a Netgear employee called Justin Maggard (and a good job he does too), but that it is based on prior work called miniUPnP, which is not developed by Netgear.
It is possibly incidental that it ended up in the Hipserv Stora OS, given that this OS is not a Netgear product.

/Craig

[inteller]

yeah Stora uses miniDLNA. I think it is using 1.0.20 so we are quite a bit behind.

[craigchambers]

Originally Posted by inteller

yeah Stora uses miniDLNA. I think it is using 1.0.20 so we are quite a bit behind.

There are fully guided steps on the Open Stora forums to update to a later version using root access if you are having problems.
http://www.openstora.com/wiki/index....Stora/Updating