I could only use tv remote to move through my library and this might be a bottleneck for biger library.
Do yuo want to browse alphabetically? You can set up the menu structure in a very flexible way using MC and its DLNA server. Taking the example of an alphabetical list by Artist (or Album Artist), your first step in you custom view might be Artist and "group by" 1. This means that you will get an initial alphabetical selection of 26 items A to Z rather than a complete list of Artists, and provided your second step is Artist without any grouping, you can drill down into just the Artists beginning with the letter you select. For remote-control access via a TV, I actually have 3 Artist steps at the beginning of my view:
Album Artist, group by 4
Album Artist, group by 1
Album Artist
This gives me an initial menu of:
A-D
E-H
I-L
M-P
Q-T
U-X
Y-Z
Then selecting, say the E-H item, will give me a menu of:
E
F
G
H
Then selecting, say, F will give me al ist of all artists beginnign with F. This is a much quicker way of filtering down by artist via a remote-control.
Ideal for me would be to set up so that I turn media player on TV, which connects by default to MC15 library, but then I use my phone or pc to control library: selecting artist, album, controling volume, etc. Do you guys know if it is possible? That would enable me to skip one device in my set up.
This is what UPnp/DLNA was designed for! By using a remote control on the playing device (the TV) you are using that device as both a browser (controller) and a player (renderer) for content residing on a server. But I realised a long time ago (yes, even before the fashion for Touch came about!) that the 10ft user interface with a remote-control was very awkward and indirect and the natural way of doing it would be a touch device in the hand which is where you do your browsing and controlling, adn the playing device simply plays what you have selected.
The three elements (server, controller, renderer) can be separated and dedicated to devices that are best doing that particular job. Most media centres, JRiver included, act as all three, where your content resides on a PC and you use a program on that PC to browse and select your music, adn the PC then plays your music. However, JRiver goes that step further and allows each function to be separated. It can act as a standalone server for other controllers and renderers to use, it can be a server and a controller whereby it can control another device, or it can be a renderer and accepts isntructions for other devices to play media.
What I'm currently setting up is a JRiver server, a network of renderers around the house (small WD TV Live boxes), and a controller running on an iPad. Yes, you can indeed get controller software on an iPhone, iPod, IPad - I'm looking at PlugPlayer at the moment. It should be possible to browse my collection on the iPad and send any piece of media to any of the renderers around the house. We'll see how it all works!
The big sticking point is that it's sometimes difficult to find hardware and software that will work together, even though DLNA is meant to be a standard. Some DLNA TVs for example might not allow you to control them from another device. Have a look round these forums for compatible devices.
Author
Topic: DLNA TV's (Read 41110 times)