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[Sternwart]

John or anybody else,

could you please explain, what functionality we can expect from MC11 UPnP server in the near future? I tried the current version with Buffalo LinkTheater and experienced it to be slow and unable to handle a large MC11 library. Design and navigation on the TV screen needs to be enhanced (from my point of view).

I love MC11    - it's my central application for managing music and image files and I want them to be streamed directly from MC11 to the living room by UPnP.

Currently I'm forced to use a second application for streaming (www.swisscenter.co.uk) which is able to serve my large library with very good performance and a simple navigation...

thanks in advance

Sternwart

[goldy]

hello... I too am quite curious about this question. I like MC11 to manage my mp3 collection... but i'm a little disapointed by the upnp support.  I must say that I went the same route by using swisscenter as upnp server.  Any possibilities for the future?
thanks a lot

--Goldy

[John Gateley]

There's lot of possibilities, but I can't talk much about the future.

If you could be more explicit about what disappoints you, or what is slow, that gives me a little more to work with.

j

[goldy]

hello John,  i'm sorry about that... sometime I must think that you can read my mind.    I must say that from my point of view all the basic in in place and does work very well (Upnp). 

Howevever, I really think that having a nice UPNP user interface that interact with MC database would be a major plus. Don't underestimate the "look and Feel"... it does matter after all the basis are covered. A folder structure are nice for computer, not for end-user that simply want to play an archived movie or mp3. I call this the "wow" effect. However, Don't get me wrong I'm not taking about a graphic-heavy interface... a well design "tabular-oriented" (text/html-like) is likely to be better for speed.  Here are some of the feature that would be nice:

Navigation:
- introduction page: modules selection: movies, MP3, pictures, other
- each module could offer two features: a context-oriented sidebar and a main page beside for listing.  The sidebar would allow to select "preference" for the list: browse by artist, album, song name or a combinaison.  The listing should be based on ID3 tag information setup by MC-pc interface.
- option available for lists: multiple columns (user preference), sorting (user preference).  For example: you could browse album list sort by artist, showing both album name and artist in a tabular format.
- option to play group of songs: albums, artist, ect... (sequential or shuffle mode)
- display album (jpg store in ID3 tag) and song/artist while playing
- screensaver available after few minute of play (user preference)
- everything should be database-driven for speed and flexibility. Such DB are already available from MC-PC I think.
- playlist generation on the fly... a difficult one to design with the limited screen interface.
- DON'T forget users with HDTV... we can read smaller font well and maximized list display: I currently can list 15-18 lines of information easily, including >30 characters/line.  So customizable option: font type, font size, number lines, ect...

I know that the design of an user interface is a big deal, and I'm not expecting anything tomorrow... but it would be nice to see progress in that direction.
bye,  Goldy

[John Gateley]

I keep bumping into this: I think of using Media Center to organize your music, and using UPnP to play it back once it's organized. But you and many others want a different approach - allow the organization on the UPnP device too. How important is this to you?

j

[goldy]

Hello John,  thanks again for the follow up.  Indeed, I must say that the possibility to fully control lists from the home entertainement system (remote upnp) is quite important (at least to me...  maybe others should comments too).  It simply offer much more flexibility.

So far, I saw no professional or open source application that would allow such full control while offering a solid UI.  Maybe MC would be such application.   

sincerely,

[Dutch Peter]

Goldy,
are you looking for a theater view with uPnP behind it?
What device would support this? a PC?
This is available by the library server functionality already.

I do not see how MC would be able to design the interface of a third party uPnP device supplier??
Or MC should work together with one of the suppliers ...

Please let me know if I am missing something.

(b.t.w. I do not have the urge to maintain my library through the uPnP device)

[goldy]

hello Peter,   I don't think that the theater view is available with upnp, at least not the GUI.  Unless i'm missing something, with UPNP I only get a flat folder structure for navigation.  A true theater view with Upnp would be great... althrough I spend little time with it so far, and only on the PC side.

Finally, I'm looking at MC as a server side application (pc-side) to stream data to upnp device. I used it already to organized MP3s but would love to use it as a better streaming application.
Bye

--Goldy

[Myron]

IMO, increasing the functionality of UPnP media players is a good idea, but I wouldn't say it's a must-have. 

One feature that really appeals to me is the ability to create playlists from the media player.  The user could browse the library and select files to add or remove from a temporary playlist.  Basically, a remote "Playing Now" function.

Many of the functions goldy proposed sound interesting, but I don't see how MC could implement a lot of them.  I have a Streamium, and as far as I can tell its UI is pretty much fixed.  All that I could change using MC is the folder structure used for browsing.  Perhaps I'm wrong on this?

In any case, I'd much rather see the basic UPnP functionality expanded before adding any of the functions mentioned in this thread.  See http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=28841.0 for my short list...

[Dutch Peter]

Goldy:

hello Peter,   I don't think that the theater view is available with upnp, at least not the GUI.

You are right. It is not. I think that it is what you are ultimately looking for. Or not?

Unless i'm missing something, with UPNP I only get a flat folder structure for navigation.

Where do you get this flat folder. On the uPnP device? Which one is it? With my Netgear MP101 I am ble to browse and search the library and playlistst as defined in the central library.

Finally, I'm looking at MC as a server side application (pc-side) to stream data to upnp device. I used it already to organized MP3s but would love to use it as a better streaming application.

Did you ever check the possibilty of streaming from a MC-library server to another Client (on a different PC). This is not based on uPnP but it works perfectly. Doing this i stream music from home to work. On the client side you have all MC features in readonly mode. So also here you will not be able to remote change the central library. I know that more people have been asking for this to be enhanced.

[dasymington]

One feature that really appeals to me is the ability to create playlists from the media player.  The user could browse the library and select files to add or remove from a temporary playlist.  Basically, a remote "Playing Now" function.

Perhaps that depends a lot on the UPnP client: I couldn't do it with my MP101, but the Roku Soundbridge allows you to add tracks to Playing Now; you can't remove tracks and you can't save as a playlist, though.

[Dutch Peter]

What I do is that I make interesting play- or smartlists which can be selected on the MP101.
You can also easily browse to a certain album by a certain artist.
Works for me ..

[Sternwart]

If you could be more explicit about what disappoints you, or what is slow, that gives me a little more to work with.

Sorry, I was away for a while...
I use the following environment:
- PC with 400 GB Diskspace, 1GB Memory, 2,8GHz CPU, Gigabit-Ethernet
- Buffalo LinkTheater Device with FW 8.32
- Wired connection between both

My MC11 library contains about 50.000 music files, about 10.000 images and some videos.
All music files are ordered in albums with lots of tagging information.

Performance issues:
When accessing MC11 from LinkTheater using UPnP server, it takes about one minute to show up the main menu. When jumping to the music or photo sub-menu it need several minutes to come back with the message like "there is no content on this server"  . This behaviour changes when I dramatically reduce the number of files (to several hundreds).
I compare it with SwissCenter application, which has no problems streaming a large number of files to LinkTheater with very short responce times.

Design issues:
I do not want to organize my files using UpnP, like mentioned in one of the posts here, just play them back. Organizing is my job on the PC, playback should be used by the family too. 
I would prefer a flat menu structure: Main menu->music submenu->Artists alphabetically ordered->Albums of a specific artist->track of a specific album. Maybe this could be done using playlists and I'm unable to do that 

An intelligent search and navigation algorithm is needed, when dealing with a large number of files (for example to look for artists beginning with letter P). Have a look on Swisscenter, they have one). On each menu level a button like "Play all" should be present.
Will UPnP server have screen design skins? Currently the menu outfit is very "basic".
While playing MP3 it should be possible to show cover art (if present) and some meta information about Artist, Album, Year, Genre,Track name, playing time and so on. 

Thank you

Sternwart

[John Gateley]

Performance issues:
When accessing MC11 from LinkTheater using UPnP server, it takes about one minute to show up the main menu.

Give this a try.

In the UPnP Server options:

Click on Buffalo Link Theater in the Receiver list.
Then Click on  Advanced (this gives you the default Buffalo options to start with).
Without changing any other option, select Skip Child Count.

Let us know if this helps...

j

[Sternwart]

Give this a try.

In the UPnP Server options:
Click on Buffalo Link Theater in the Receiver list.
Then Click on  Advanced (this gives you the default Buffalo options to start with).
Without changing any other option, select Skip Child Count.
Let us know if this helps...

John, I tried your suggestion - unfortunately without any effect...
But I played around a while... I removed all subentries from "Audio"  View Scheme. Now I have a flat structure on the TV screen for Audio (albums, sorted by artist name, without having to step through menu hierarchy).
But what I still miss is:
- performance and stability (for example, when I try to enter "Audio", the error message is like "there is no content on this server". When this message appeares once,  the UPnP server needs to be restarted, before it takes further commands.  I'm under the impression, that UPnP server is unable to handle large libraries.)
- search function (I only can step forward and backward)
- screen design - there are no graphics, no skins and so on.

I only have the LinkTheater available as a UPnP client - are there differences to other devices?

Sternwart

[John Gateley]

I looked a little further into this. When I click on my server from the Buffalo home page, it is taking 4 seconds to display. This is much too long. But the actual communication time is less than .4 seconds. The Buffalo is taking too long with the data, I'm not sure why.

I don't recognize your firmware number, have you tried updating the firmware?

The "No content" message probably means that the Buffalo timed out on a request.

All UPnP devices pretty much behave differently. Almost everyone has their own implementation of the protocol, and different devices have different strengths and quirks.

Comparing Media Center to other streamers is usually an apples and oranges comparison. Media Center is based on a powerful database engine, other streamers use the directory tree structure. Instead of calls to figure out how many files are in a folder (which is quick), MC has to query the database. This is slower, but of course gives more flexibility in organizing your collection.

j

[Sternwart]

I looked a little further into this. When I click on my server from the Buffalo home page, it is taking 4 seconds to display. This is much too long. But the actual communication time is less than .4 seconds. The Buffalo is taking too long with the data, I'm not sure why.

I don't recognize your firmware number, have you tried updating the firmware?

The "No content" message probably means that the Buffalo timed out on a request.

I use Buffalo with the newest (european) firmware available (8-32) and the LTI-03 user interface.

How many files music, image and video files do you have within your MC library, when achieving the menu to display in 4 secs? I would be very happy with 4 secs!!!!

I will try to set up an empty MC with only a few hundred files. Maybe this will be much more performant. I will report it here.

When I got the "no content" message once (after waiting very long) then I get it very quick again when trying to connect the UPnP server without restarting it. I think this is a misbehaviour of UPnP server, not of BLT.

Sternwart

[John Gateley]

The number of files is irrelevant. The amount of info sent for the first screen is very small - it's just the first 4 categories (audio, images, video and playlists). The UPnP server generates this info in 4 tenths of a second. I'm not sure why the Buffalo is taking 3.6 seconds to process this info (and longer in your case).

j

[Sternwart]

John,

I tried to log some typical operations (sorry, if this is boring for other readers). The behaviour of the UPnP server is very unpredictible from my point of view. When you repeat the same steps several times (without changing anything meanwhile), you will get completely different results. Sometimes it works (with large delays), sometimes it doesn't.

I do not agree with you concerning the number of files. The very large delay happens, when the corresponding submenu contains a large number of entries. Is there a way to show up much more logging or debug information?

You said comparing this server to something like SwissCenter is comparing apples to oranges. I'm not sure about that. SwissCenter works on a HTTP- and PHP/MySQL basis. I think, they have to query the database too. There it takes me maximum 5 to 8 secs to find an entry.

Hope this helps for further investigations. Thank you for your support.

Sternwart

                 
09/16/05 17:50:14 - JRiver UPnP Server Version 1.0.33 starting...
09/16/05 17:50:15 - Server running on address 192.168.0.5, port 3408
09/16/05 17:50:15 - Running   

 Server not visible on BLT login page  manually stopped and restarted server
09/16/05 17:59:50 - Server Stopped
09/16/05 17:59:58 - JRiver UPnP Server Version 1.0.33 starting...
09/16/05 17:59:59 - Server running on address 192.168.0.5, port 3655
09/16/05 17:59:59 - Running
09/16/05 18:00:10 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:00:10 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:00:10 - Received request for service description
   
 choosing Media Server on  BLT login page  ca.6 secs to the menu
 choosing Audio on menu  ca. 3 sec “no content found on this server”

09/16/05 18:01:17 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:01:17 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:01:17 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:04:57 - Received GENA message
09/16/05 18:04:57 - GENA Subscribe message
09/16/05 18:04:57 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 0()
09/16/05 18:04:57 - Browse BrowseMetadata 0()

 server connection failed on BLT login screen (no content found on this server)
Server is not responding anymore  Restart server manually

09/16/05 18:11:19 - Server Stopped
09/16/05 18:12:25 - JRiver UPnP Server Version 1.0.33 starting...
09/16/05 18:12:26 - Server running on address 192.168.0.5, port 4639
09/16/05 18:12:26 - Running
09/16/05 18:12:26 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:12:26 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:12:26 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:12:26 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:12:27 - Received request for service description

 choosing Media Server on  BLT login page  ca.6 secs to the menu
 choosing Audio on menu  showing audio content after 1:03 min.
1.   ALL (779)
2.   (Multiple Artists)
3.   4 Non Blondes
4.   5th Dimension
5.   10.000 Maniacs
6.   …
 choosing 10.000 Maniacs  showing Album content after 10 secs.
 choosing album “Our time in Eden”  showing tracks after 5 secs.
 going back to 10.000 Maniacs albums  4 secs.
 going back to Audio  message “no content found on this server” after 30 secs.

09/16/05 18:12:27 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:12:27 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:13:06 - Received GENA message
09/16/05 18:13:06 - GENA Subscribe message
09/16/05 18:13:07 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 0()
09/16/05 18:13:07 - Browse BrowseMetadata 0()
09/16/05 18:13:23 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 0()
09/16/05 18:13:23 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 1()
09/16/05 18:14:37 - Received GENA message
09/16/05 18:14:37 - GENA Renew message
09/16/05 18:15:54 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 1(Audio)
09/16/05 18:15:56 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 9(Audio\10,000 Maniacs)
09/16/05 18:16:10 - Received GENA message
09/16/05 18:16:10 - GENA Renew message
09/16/05 18:16:30 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 9(Audio\10,000 Maniacs)
09/16/05 18:16:31 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 787(Audio\10,000 Maniacs\Our Time In Eden)
09/16/05 18:16:59 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 9(Audio\10,000 Maniacs)
09/16/05 18:17:11 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 1(Audio)

 server connection failed on BLT login screen (no content found on this server)
Server is not responding anymore  Restart server manually

09/16/05 18:33:07 - Server Stopped
09/16/05 18:33:16 - JRiver UPnP Server Version 1.0.33 starting...
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Server running on address 192.168.0.5, port 1464
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Running
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:33:17 - Received request for service description

 choosing Media Server on  BLT login page  showing menu after 6 secs.
 choosing Video on menu  ca. 3 sec “no content found on this server”

09/16/05 18:35:46 - Received GENA message
09/16/05 18:35:46 - GENA Subscribe message
09/16/05 18:35:47 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 0()
09/16/05 18:35:47 - Browse BrowseMetadata 0()

 server connection failed on BLT login screen (no content found on this server)
Server is not responding anymore  Restart server manually


09/16/05 18:39:24 - Server Stopped
09/16/05 18:39:30 - JRiver UPnP Server Version 1.0.33 starting...
09/16/05 18:39:31 - Server running on address 192.168.0.5, port 2011
09/16/05 18:39:31 - Running
09/16/05 18:39:32 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:39:32 - Received request for device description
09/16/05 18:39:32 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:39:32 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:39:32 - Received request for service description
09/16/05 18:39:32 - Received request for service description

 choosing Media Server on  BLT login page  showing menu after 6 secs.
 choosing Video on menu  showing video content after 8 secs
 choosing one of the videos (“John Butler Trio – Zebra.avi”)
 displaying message “no content found” after 5 secs.


09/16/05 18:40:56 - Received GENA message
09/16/05 18:40:56 - GENA Subscribe message
09/16/05 18:40:56 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 0()
09/16/05 18:40:57 - Browse BrowseMetadata 0()
09/16/05 18:41:17 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 0()
09/16/05 18:41:17 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 3(Video)
09/16/05 18:41:45 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 3(Video)
09/16/05 18:41:46 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 793(Video\John Butler Trio - Zebra)
09/16/05 18:42:06 - Browse BrowseDirectChildren 3(Video)
09/16/05 18:42:30 - Received GENA message
09/16/05 18:42:30 - GENA Renew message
                                         

[John Gateley]

I'm confused: in your first post you said it takes 1 minute to show the main menu. In the last post you said 6 seconds (mine took 4). The main menu is not dependent on number of files. Submenus may be dependent on the number of files.

Please confirm: sometimes it takes 1 minute to show the main menu (the one with Audio, Images, Video, Playlists).

In your transcript above, you are showing the server saying no content 3 seconds after choosing audio. This is ONLY 3 seconds, right?

Have you tried turning off all other servers - I'm wondering if something is interfering...

j

[Sternwart]

Sorry for confusing you. My problem is indeed: it is not predictable, what the system will do next. This may be o.k. for me, but not for the rest of the family!

When after 3 secs. the server says "no content", then it's a failure, because there IS content.
Do you see my problem?
I don't need the 3 secs. interval. I can accept 10 secs. But a system, that responds somtetimes immediately and the next time after a minute or never  is difficult to explain.

Sternwart

[John Gateley]

I still need to know - does it (ever) take a minute to reach the initial page? How often?

Thanks,

j

[JimH]

That's like a DNS failure -- it isn't, I know, but some kind of timeout.

[Pug]

If you could be more explicit about what disappoints you, or what is slow, that gives me a little more to work with.

j

Alphanumeric search fails using MC and Netgear MP101 sometimes, the error is reproducable.

Any chance to fix this?
Thx
Pug