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[nichilds]

I'm running JRiver MC20 on a cheap HP Stream laptop, with the music files residing on a USB hard drive connected to a Netgear router, which gives me NAS functionality.  The drive shows up as a DLNA device using Netgear's branded variant of DLNA (Readyshare).  The HP Stream does not have an ethernet port, so the connection to the router is wireless.

Recently, I've started experimenting with DLNA renderers in other rooms to play my library, controlled by either Webgizmo on a Chromebook or JRemote on a Samsung smart phone.  The two renderers I'm using are a Samsung Smart TV and a Sony Blu-ray player.  The Samsung has a wireless connection to the router.  The Sony Blu-ray has a wired connection.  (As an aside, the Sony is a particularly good renderer because it works with the 24-bit Audiophile DLNA server in JRiver and sounds great with an outboard DAC.)  I can also use both the Samsung and Sony as simple DLNA players, too, but the user interface and functionality is far inferior to JRiver, so I prefer to use them as renderers.

My question has to do with data flow of the music files, as I have concerns about saturating my wireless bandwidth.  I understand that when using the devices as DLNA players, JRiver is not involved and they pull the music files directly from the Readyshare NAS on the router.  What I'm not clear about is how the data flows to a DLNA renderer.  Does the renderer pull the files directly from the NAS at the direction of JRiver or does JRiver first pull the files from the NAS and then push them out to the renderer?  If it's the latter (pull-push), then I'm increasing my network traffic by adding the round trip to the server.  And since the server (the HP Stream laptop) only has a wireless connection to the router, I could see how that might saturate my wireless bandwidth, particularly when using the Samsung TV as a renderer, which is also wireless.  I'm not currently having problems, but if I start playing video through JRiver and add additional DLNA clients in other rooms playing media simultaneously, I could see how this could really become an issue.  Understanding this data flow will help me better balance my network traffic by effective utilization of wired, 2.4 Ghz wireless, and 5 Ghz wireless connections to the different components in my network of DLNA devices.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[JimH]

What I'm not clear about is how the data flows to a DLNA renderer.  Does the renderer pull the files directly from the NAS at the direction of JRiver or does JRiver first pull the files from the NAS and then push them out to the renderer? 

I believe that MC gives the Renderer a list of files to play and the Renderer gets them from the NAS.  You might be able to test this by unplugging the network cable from the computer running MC after you begin playback.

[AndrewFG]

^

MC does not give the full playlist to the renderer, but rather it gives one by one the urls of tracks in its playlist; but otherwise it works as Jim says.

Turning off MC means the current track will play to the end, but obviously subsequent tracks in MC's playlist will not be played.

[nichilds]

Sounds like there will be less impact to my wireless traffic than anticipated, especially if I have an ethernet connection to the renderer.  Appreciate the quick feedback!