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[NickF]

With the new feature enabling us to show Live TV on a MC client served by a server with a TV card, I wondered whether we could do the same thing to a DLNA TV or other DLNA display.  I tried right click on a TV channel on the server and "Send to" to my Sony TV.  MC reported an error and failed to send the video:

"There was a problem controlling the selected DLNA device. Double check you device, server and network settings."

Should we be able to do this?   Is it just a settings issue?  It would be great if we could.

The query on DVBLink got me wondering about this.

Nick.

[cncb]

Is Live TV possible?  Also, what happens if you are watching an in-progress recording over DLNA?  Is the total length of the recording updated or does it stop playback after you reach the end/length of the recording when you first started watching?

[AndrewFG]

Is Live TV possible?  Also, what happens if you are watching an in-progress recording over DLNA?  Is the total length of the recording updated or does it stop playback after you reach the end/length of the recording when you first started watching?

Certainly the UPnP / DLNA specifications have the capability of sending live streams to renderers via Play To; so the only question is if MC has any internal hindrances against implementing this (from my perspective I don't see any reasons why it could not be possible).

The UPnP / DLNA commands send the Content Length (i.e. duration) to the renderer when the Play To command is first initiated, so if the Content Length is unknown at that time, it obviously cannot send such Content Length. If the Content Length is not known, then the Seek command is not possible, however this is hardly a problem since a live stream is anyway (obviously) not seekable...

[NickF]

Certainly the UPnP / DLNA specifications have the capability of sending live streams to renderers via Play To; so the only question is if MC has any internal hindrances against implementing this (from my perspective I don't see any reasons why it could not be possible).

I hope you're right, Andrew.  I'm sure this would be popular.  There must be many who would like to watch live TV on their tablets.

The UPnP / DLNA commands send the Content Length (i.e. duration) to the renderer when the Play To command is first initiated, so if the Content Length is unknown at that time, it obviously cannot send such Content Length. If the Content Length is not known, then the Seek command is not possible, however this is hardly a problem since a live stream is anyway (obviously) not seekable...

The length of a show is known from the guide and, I think, from the program itself.  Otherwise, just use a very long duration and rely on the user stopping the stream when finished watching.  That must be feasible.

Nick.

[csimon]

This would also be useful for people (like me!) whose only form of TV is satellite, therefore to get TV into a particular room you need a separate satellite feed into that room, which means a multiple output LNB on the dish and suitable cabling or a multiswtich distribution unit in the house - but you still need cabling to the room, plus a satellite receiver.  There are already live TV streamers but the vast majority of them assume you want to view on a PC or a tablet or a phone (understandable I suppose, since if you wanted to view on a TV then "normally" the TV has its own reception device built-in, i.e. an aerial for terrestrial broadcasts, so why would you need something to stream live TV to a TV??) and you need specific (proprietary) software on the device to do this.

If the streaming protocol was DLNA then it would have global accessibility to all devices, as DLNA is now very common.

I believe the Elgato Netstream Sat has http and UDP accessible streams for its channels and there is one other well-known video card company (which is so well known I can't remember which one it is...) which provides DLNA streaming software for its TV cards.

[NickF]

(understandable I suppose, since if you wanted to view on a TV then "normally" the TV has its own reception device built-in, i.e. an aerial for terrestrial broadcasts, so why would you need something to stream live TV to a TV??)

If your TV only has a terrestrial tuner and your PC also has a Satellite tuner, you would be able to watch Satellite programs on your TV.  This is one of the reasons why I would like to see this.

Nick.

[csimon]

Yeah, sorry, that's the point I was making!  I was just saying that streaming software tends to ignore streaming to TVs because there's a perception that there isn't any need to. You're another person with the same idea as me - although with me it's a case of the internal terrestrial tuner is no good because there is no terrestrial signal here. So I can't watch TV in a room unless I get a satellite feed and receiver there.  I could stretch to a network cable....

[AndrewFG]

The length of a show is known from the guide and, I think, from the program itself.  Otherwise, just use a very long duration and rely on the user stopping the stream when finished watching.  That must be feasible.

No, this part of your suggestion would not work. Essentially the Control Point says to the renderer "please play this url which has an unknown content length", and the renderer keeps playing that stream until either the user tells it to stop, or until the IP socket connection gets broken. However as said before, a live stream having unknown content length would in no way be a show stopper (excuse the pun).

[cncb]

If the Content Length is not known, then the Seek command is not possible, however this is hardly a problem since a live stream is anyway (obviously) not seekable...

So it sounds like seeking for in-progress recordings (not live) is not possible with DLNA?  That's too bad.

[csimon]

I've just been looking at Serviio actually. It is able to stream online streams (that is accessible via a http URL) over DLNA and also has a plug-in system for connected media (Youtube, iPlayer etc) to stream those over DLNA too.

Thinking about getting an Elgato Netstream Sat now and just have Serviio running to deliver TV channels via DLNA. It's also installable on NAS devices, including my Synology where I have my MC-served media files!

[csimon]

Have a look at this announcement from Humax: http://www.humaxdigital.com/global/newscenter/news_120612.asp

They intend to bring out a 4-tuner "home media server" to distribute live TV and recordings to any device around the house, presumably each device also acts as a "virtual" PVR.

MC already has TV tuner, PVR, transcoding and client technology. Just add the streaming of live TV over DLNA and you've got everything that the hardware manfacturers are only just now thinking about!

[cncb]

So it sounds like seeking for in-progress recordings (not live) is not possible with DLNA?  That's too bad.

I was finally able to test this and it turns out that you can indeed seek in an in-progress recording.  The problem is that playback ends at the duration when you started watching.  Would there be a way to send the full duration when playback begins so that this doesn't happen?

[cncb]

bump

[cncb]

I was finally able to test this and it turns out that you can indeed seek in an in-progress recording.  The problem is that playback ends at the duration when you started watching.  Would there be a way to send the full duration when playback begins so that this doesn't happen?

Could someone at JRiver comment on this, please?  If none of this is possible I won't pursue this any further.

Would it be possible to "trick" the DLNA client by reporting the full/final length of a recording that is in progress so that it won't kick you out of playback when you reach the initial recording position (with no way to resume)?  If someone then tries to seek beyond where the current recording position is could it gracefully just continue playback? 

[cncb]

I'll try to bump this one more time and then might try my luck in the beta forum...