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[M3Mike]

I've had MC for about 6 weeks now and initailly had no problems utilizing MC to stream my music to either my Denon AVP-A1HDCi network input or my PS Audio PerfectWave DAC (both are DLNA compliant). I've also used the MC server to access my music files via an iPad using either the PlugPlayer or TagNplay apps. About a week ago, I upgraded my MC to the newest version (15.0.159). Ever since then I've noticed the following very annoying problems: MC either takes several minutes or never recognizes any of my DLNA compliant devices or my SoundCard for that matter. Once recognized, it may just drop the device, even while playing. Even now, as I listen to music through my PS Audio DAC, the MC just dropped the Denon AVP as a recognized device. I've rebooted, reinstalled MC, all to no avail. Has anyone elso noticed this problem? Any fix to keep these devices locked in?   

[Matt]

Welcome to Interact.

Please try this testing build and let us know if the DLNA detection problem persists:
http://files.jriver.com/mediacenter/MediaCenter150163.exe

Thanks.

[M3Mike]

Thanks Matt, I try it out and let you, hopefully soon!

[horse]

Although not quite in the same league as M3Mike's Denon, I was running MC 15.159 and did not have any issue controlling my Denon 4806CI via MC's Webremote and DLNA.
Then upgraded to 15.161 to overcome the problem on a WD TV and noticed the Denon would play a song then drop from the Playing Now Zone. After playing the second song it would stop. Using the Denon to request an Albumn worked fine and no drops. It was only when another DLNA control point was sending tracks to the Denon did it droput.
For me MC 15.163 has resolved that problem, no more dropouts.

Thanks

[Vocalpoint]

I am on .163 and have been playing around with the DLNA all weekend and my take is that MC needs work. I have 5 PC's on the network - all wired, all running at one GB and I have experienced a number of glitches, "stuck" songs....where they will play fine for a few minutes and then go into a nasty loop....most frustrating of all tho - is how LONG it takes to reconnect to a DLNA library....

I have one new PC in the kitchen that I ma testing against a DNLA library located on my desktop PC downstairs. It took some 5 minutes to "align" itself with the library this morning before I could actual see anything on screen? Is this normal?

Also - and this could be the reason for the delay - my "main" library - that is exposed via DLNA to other PC's round the house - is NOT local to my machine. On my desktop - I have a lossless library and a lossy library - that point to the physical files that actually sit on the server. Could this be a potential cause for the delays and other issues? Is it more beneficial to either:

A) Have each PC hold the physical files so the DLNA references are actually hitting real files
B) Install Media Center on the server and have it serve up the physical files as it's own DNLA node.

With respect to B - I am running Windows Home Server and have so far resisted all suggestions to actually run a copy of Media Center out there...many issues with running MC as a service and so on - but maybe the Media Service component takes care of this now?

Appreciate some insight....

Cheers!

VP

[bob]

Our DLNA control as it stands now really isn't happy with sharing control point duties with something else. From what I can see, most control points assume they are the only control point and that leads to trouble when one thinks that things are supposed to repeat (for example) and another doesn't. Also, transitioning from one track to the next is pretty flakey with many DLNA devices so there are all kinds of fallback things we try to do when a DLNA device fails to do what it's supposed to do. As you might expect, more than one control point doing this is a recipe for trouble.

When you "connect to a library" with MC and DLNA, it reads all of the data from the DLNA server into a local database copy. This is because of the way our database is structured. That can take a while if the server has a big library. The local database copy is good unless something on the server changes. I wouldn't reconnect to the DLNA server unless it's updated with new material. The URLS for the music items shouldn't change on the server unless it's updated. When you are connected to a library and use the MC control point (playing now zones) to a renderer, the URL from the server is passed to the renderer so one would expect that renderer to start playing right away. It could be that dueling control points are preventing that from working properly.

[Vocalpoint]

The local database copy is good unless something on the server changes. I wouldn't reconnect to the DLNA server unless it's updated with new material.

Well - this is where this is going to break down for me. I update my main libraries almost daily - and having to wait while MC build a new database copy upon every connect is going to get old...real fast.

I guess that concludes my testing. The only real surefire way to get a relevant up-to-date library instantly is to connect directly to the library - which in my case - have the actual "library files" directory stored on the server.

On a closing note: I find it very interesting that my WDTV Live can connect to any of the MC PC's on the network, read their libraries as a "media server" and size doesn't seem to matter. For my main lossless library (which is 450GB) - an MC client takes literally minutes to update while the WDTV parses the same library in 20 seconds. Granted it's display is not as fancy - but it connects quickly and I am ready to play in very little time.

Cheers!

VP

[bob]

Hi VP,
The WDTV doesn't parse the library. It just browses it as you navigate from place to place within the library so it's only looking at the little chunk you are currently viewing.

[Vocalpoint]

Hi VP,
The WDTV doesn't parse the library. It just browses it as you navigate from place to place within the library so it's only looking at the little chunk you are currently viewing.

Ah. I see. Well - it's a lot faster perception-wise than waiting for several minutes as the hourglass spins when MC attempts to load a DLNA library connection.

It's too bad too - I spent all this time prepping my wife on how to switch between the different connection options and when she tried to hit my main library and then got into this several minutes of waiting (or whatever it's doing)...she basically said "screw it" and returned MC to her local library.

Another sore point once this process starts - is trying to get it to stop. Once you make that connection - the bloody app will not let go unless I blast it out of memory. Your really need to look at adding something to that dialog that says "Stop".

Overall - whilst I understand the "standards" and so on to make DLNA work...without a fast load - not too many people are going to have the patience to deal with this at all...even me.

I am however liking the WDTV method...it's fast and it works. So far so good. But using MC client to MC client - it's a no dice situation here...I am going to move these 5 PC's back to direct connect on the main libraries.

Thanks for the commentary.

Cheers!

VP

[bob]

Ah. I see. Well - it's a lot faster perception-wise than waiting for several minutes as the hourglass spins when MC attempts to load a DLNA library connection.

Especially one your size!

It's too bad too - I spent all this time prepping my wife on how to switch between the different connection options and when she tried to hit my main library and then got into this several minutes of waiting (or whatever it's doing)...she basically said "screw it" and returned MC to her local library.

Another sore point once this process starts - is trying to get it to stop. Once you make that connection - the bloody app will not let go unless I blast it out of memory. Your really need to look at adding something to that dialog that says "Stop".

Good point, it loads in groups of 1000 so it should be straightforward to do something there...

Overall - whilst I understand the "standards" and so on to make DLNA work...without a fast load - not too many people are going to have the patience to deal with this at all...even me.

I am however liking the WDTV method...it's fast and it works. So far so good. But using MC client to MC client - it's a no dice situation here...I am going to move these 5 PC's back to direct connect on the main libraries.

Thanks for the commentary.

Cheers!

VP

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions!

[M3Mike]

I've used the MC 15.0.163 for about a week and all is working fine. No dropouts and all my DLNA devices load up within a few seconds of activating MC. In the prior trouble-prone version I recall reiving an error message saying you could not have MC and media server active at the same time (weird). As a consequence, I created a short cut for the stand alone media server program in the MC folder and left MC off when I desired to access my music via my iPad remote. In this newer version of MC I noticed there is no stand alone media server program listed in the MC folder. 

I have noticed another annoying quirk. Virtually everytime I turn on my iPad to access my music files remotely, the following error mesage pops up when I try to lock my music folder: "Read error - Receiver error 116 - while reading directories entries." The sam eerror message will occur when I try and lock my target device such. Without fail, if I close the app and the immediatley reopen the app, my target music folder and device would be locked in and ready to go. To be fair, I've had this issue with all versions of MC and suspect it may be something unrelated to MC per say, but I'd appreciate and ideas on how to alleviate this problem.

[JimH]

That might just be the network being unavailable for a few seconds.  Try counting to ten or so before trying to connect.

[Vocalpoint]

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions!

Bob,

I just wanted to mention that I made a grave error in my process on this end. After more messing around last night - I found that if I connect to a "Library" and choose Library Server - instead of DLNA Server - I get almost instant load time. Prior to this - and related directly to my comments in this thread - I was choosing Connect To Library->DLNA Server - which was resulting in the super slow load times.

Problem solved now.

Next step - I may really get crazy and  install Media Center on the server

Cheers,

VP

[horse]

VocalPoint,

From your descriptions it sounds like you have a somewhat similar setup to myself.
I have many PC's in the house, mainly Win 7 x64 and also Mac OS X that are Gig or N wireless for the laptops.
In addition to the Denon in the living room and the WD TV in the garage. I run MC on a server that also contains my music, video and photo library.
My main library is WAV as that is the Lossless format supported by the vast majority of devices, especially my 4806CI.

Some observations from my testing and use by others of the Media system

1/ MC as your library manager is second to none from those I have tried. It ability to present menu's how you want to find media is very flexible.

[Vocalpoint]

VocalPoint,

From your descriptions it sounds like you have a somewhat similar setup to myself.
I have many PC's in the house, mainly Win 7 x64 and also Mac OS X that are Gig or N wireless for the laptops.
In addition to the Denon in the living room and the WD TV in the garage. I run MC on a server that also contains my music, video and photo library.
My main library is WAV as that is the Lossless format supported by the vast majority of devices, especially my 4806CI.

Some observations from my testing and use by others of the Media system

1/ MC as your library manager is second to none from those I have tried. It ability to present menu's how you want to find media is very flexible.

Well - as powerful as it is (and will be for my system)...I am still finding the lines between Library Server and DLNA Server to be very blurry and confusing (as you can already surmise). I am now straight on which is which. My next move (most likely over the Xmas break) will be to consolidate my main lossless library on my WHS server, install Media Center/Media Server on it and then use library clients to enjoy it.

Not sure what I will do with my lossless library that is current on the server - but the logical move is to divvy up the files across different PC's (this library is basically a hodgepodge of my wife's stuff mixed in with lossy copies of albums from my main library - for use on my iPod ONLY). So I think I may move all of my wife's MP3 files back to her PC, make an local MC library from that and serve it out to the network so she can enjoy that stuff wherever she happens to be. Same with my lossy stuff for my iPod - move them all to my machine and since they are all simply copies of the lossless version on the WHS library - I may not share it out at all.

Then of course - we have the WDTV Live in the listening room and it can dial into any library that's served out via DLNA and play - so it's all good.

Cheers!

VP

[horse]

VP,

sorry for the half post, I got interuppted and didn't realize it had posted.
I was part way through saying the power of MC is how it can serve up DLNA menu's via view schemes.
I have very different taste in music to the significant other and hence have created a custom view scheme that allow her to select music and then only see her music and I have one for mine. It is all servered from a common library stored on a 2008 server that also runs MC server for the rest of the house and has some USB sound cardsfor some hardwired audio zones.

What I was meaning to mention is I am still working through an issue with the WD TV and WAV music files. My Lossless library is all WAV and I enabled the RIFF INFO tag support in MC a while back and everything in the house plays just fine (Win 7, OS X, Denon reciever) however, the WD TV via DLNA or Shared folders has a burst of static between tracks. Using DLNA with Convert to MP3 always on MC and problem is gone.
If I play a re ripped CD without the RIFF INFO tag, also it is fine. The WD TV is a new addition, so still figuring all its quirks out.

By default MC does not enable RIFF INFO tag support for WAV, if you do enable it, you may have the same problem due to this issue with WD TV not ignoring the INFO header and trying to "play" it :-)  just an FYI

Like you I have ended up with two libraries, LossLess in the house and another MP3 one (created via MC from WAV) and then imported into iTunes (yuck!) but for the iPad, iPod and iPhone and the changes Apple made to lock everyone out, it is the easiest, just more of a pain than it used to be.

Enjoy your media experience, it certainly beats having CD's all over the house like we had to do a decade ago!!


 

[Vocalpoint]

What I was meaning to mention is I am still working through an issue with the WD TV and WAV music files. My Lossless library is all WAV and I enabled the RIFF INFO tag support in MC a while back and everything in the house plays just fine (Win 7, OS X, Denon reciever) however, the WD TV via DLNA or Shared folders has a burst of static between tracks. Using DLNA with Convert to MP3 always on MC and problem is gone. If I play a re ripped CD without the RIFF INFO tag, also it is fine. The WD TV is a new addition, so still figuring all its quirks out.

I stopped using wav for anything years back - and found that building my entire lossless library using FLAC format takes care of any metadata issues and I have not lost a single tag in over 4 years of constant use. Tagging wavs is a crapshoot and while MC generally handles it okay - quirky hardware like the WDTV Live does not. It does however handle FLAC perfectly. I have quite enjoyed the ability to server up my entire lossless library in my new media room.

I have spent an extraordinary amount of time getting my library just right...so I needed a file format (FLAC) that handles all my bizarre tagging experiments with ease.

I would like to know how you are using your view schemes and what you mean by "menus" in the WDTV Live. I see some of my views in there but not all...maybe I have to experiment a bit more...

Cheers!

VP

[horse]

The only reason I stick with WAV (actually 2) is because MC handles WAV so well and keeps all my "tagging" in it's own system. I was less concerned with it actually being stored in thefile itself.
the other and main reason I've not just bulk converted the library to FLAC is my Denon AVR which I made on investment in and it does not support flac and converting on teh fly from flac to WAV when browsing is a horrible user experience.

OK, menu's. Due to differing music tastes and each not wanting to scroll through each others music, I have tagged all the music with names using the "usage" tag.
i.e. Bob, Jane, kid's

Then under the Music root library item I have a user library item with a display filter for the name

i.e.

Music > All
        > Bob
        > Jane
        > kid's

After that I have the typical library items for browing the music my Album Artist, Album Name, Song title, Genre etc. after each user.

i.e Music > Bob > Album by Name
                     > Album by Artist
                     > Song by Name
                     > Song by Artist

etc.

As MC is really the Library manager and backend to the house system, I have this view scheme setup for the Web Remote and also under the DLNA server.

This way all the music (and photos and video/movies) is contained and managed in a single library, but each user is not exposed to content they don't like as they each have there own

Maybe not the most elegent, but passes the usabilty test and doesn't cause me a masiive operational overhead.
Anything I want to appear in multiple vies, I just comma delimit in the usage tag and voila, the few artists we have in common, appear in both

This customization of the menu's (view schemes) that are presented to the users via DLNA and Web Remote, along with MC's library management, is why i have invested so much time organizing and tagging the entire music and video collection. One day I'll get to the photo library (but that is a VERY different problem)

[Vocalpoint]

The only reason I stick with WAV (actually 2) is because MC handles WAV so well and keeps all my "tagging" in it's own system. I was less concerned with it actually being stored in the file itself. The other and main reason I've not just bulk converted the library to FLAC is my Denon AVR which I made on investment in and it does not support flac and converting on the fly from flac to WAV when browsing is a horrible user experience.

Well - tread carefully my friend. The day will come when your library will get compromised and if all your tag data is in the MC library...well...you get the picture. I am taking no chances and all the metadata goes into the file. If not for the simple fact that I may choose not use Media Center in the future and I want to ensure that whatever I use - I do not have to re-tag the entire hundreds of gigs of files that I have on my radar. Also - why are you bothering to attempt to paly with playing FLAC thru your Denon when the WDTV Live does it natively - plus it displays all the lovely tag data right on the big screen - including album art etc ? I have the same scene - my Pioneer Elite doesn't do FLAC either - but I didn't buy it cause it was a good "music" translator - I bought it to drive my speakers...I let the inout devices handle the files.

OK, menu's. Due to differing music tastes and each not wanting to scroll through each others music, I have tagged all the music with names using the "usage" tag.
i.e. Bob, Jane, kid's

Then under the Music root library item I have a user library item with a display filter for the name

i.e.

Music > All
        > Bob
        > Jane
        > kid's

After that I have the typical library items for browing the music my Album Artist, Album Name, Song title, Genre etc. after each user.

i.e Music > Bob > Album by Name
                     > Album by Artist
                     > Song by Name
                     > Song by Artist

etc.

As MC is really the Library manager and backend to the house system, I have this view scheme setup for the Web Remote and also under the DLNA server.

This way all the music (and photos and video/movies) is contained and managed in a single library, but each user is not exposed to content they don't like as they each have there own

Maybe not the most elegent, but passes the usabilty test and doesn't cause me a masiive operational overhead.
Anything I want to appear in multiple vies, I just comma delimit in the usage tag and voila, the few artists we have in common, appear in both

This customization of the menu's (view schemes) that are presented to the users via DLNA and Web Remote, along with MC's library management, is why i have invested so much time organizing and tagging the entire music and video collection. One day I'll get to the photo library (but that is a VERY different problem)

I see...yes - I have a number of view schemes in play now. But with this DLNA discovery and especially Library Server...over the holidays - I will be parsing out the different "tastes" back to the different machines (example - my wife's stuff is all going back on her computer) - to be exposed to the network via LS/DLNA so she can play her stuff on whatever PC she is near.

I am also going to install MC on my WHS to centralize/serve the lossless library to every PC - should be fun.

Cheers!

VP

[horse]

VP

Agree, need to be careful with my library, backup, backup, backup, that and I could convert the entire library to Flac with embedded tags supplied by MC should I ever switch. That would certainly give my workstation some work to do for a while :-)
My main reason for not using the WD TV or the Mac Mini I use for Video and photo content is I don't want the TV display on in order to  browse music or see what is playing. With a 65" screen in the living room uses quite a bit of power and I listen to a lot of music!
I could use a smaller screen just for that purpose, but have settled on using the iPad with MC's WebRemote to stream music to the Denon via DNLA and also my other audio zones. In theory I could use the same method to stream to the WD TV, but have yet to make MC's DLNA server stream to the WD TV DMR. And although it supports Flac, it would be another box and another link in the chain between my media and the amp.

The good news, as illustrated by our differing approaches, is over the past decade the ability to have all our media on a server/NAS and be able to access it using so many devices, in many places at any time is becoming not only cheaper, but also much more main stream.



I guess many people on this forum will be spending too much time over the holiday break working on the home media system.

[Vocalpoint]

My main reason for not using the WD TV or the Mac Mini I use for Video and photo content is I don't want the TV display on in order to  browse music or see what is playing. With a 65" screen in the living room uses quite a bit of power and I listen to a lot of music!

I guess I am confused - why do you have a WDTV live at all? Sounds like you don't use it for anything. And you can easily "play to" the WDTV from MC with no TV on...

Cheers!

VP

[horse]

It lives in the garage and was just about right for providing accessing to the media library while "she" does her exercise.
It replaces the DVD player and the sneaker method for selecting DVD's. I'm trying to get them and all the CD's out the house and into storage boxes so there isn't shelves of the things attracting dust!

I did test it in the living room and I would have been tempted to leave it there for movies, Netflix and maybe Pandora if I had not already got the mini setup with Plex

Was very impressed with what it can do, especially for the price.