DLNA tutorials?

[ifrankenberg]

Both pc's are Running windows xp.
at first when i sync'd my music i used the windows media sync in windows media player via a usb cable.
To get my movies which is on my 2nd pc i used dlna over wifi
video files are in .avi, when i transfer them to my phone it says it is not supported
but i downloaded Rockplayer from market place and it plays them without issue

 

[jdbower]

I see now, you're cheating

DLNA is nice in that you shouldn't need to copy it to your phone, but you should be able to play it directly from the server without needing to cache it locally first. The problem is that the X seems very limited in the types of files it can stream from the DLNA server so nothing plays very well - and the "Mac effect" of DLNA ("it just works, like magic!") means that there's precious little documentation out there for when it doesn't "just work". Still, transferring things first is something I never considered and isn't that much worse I suppose.

 

[ifrankenberg]

I can stream stuff while at home, movies/music/pictures, i just copied it to my phone so i can watch movies while at work

 

[jdbower]

Interesting, I guess I'll have to keep fiddling with things (or perhaps you've just got a very special phone). I can stream fine to my XBox and to my PCs using XBMC, just not to my X. Either there's something about your AVI files that works the way the developers wanted (AVI is a pretty generic term, the actual audio/video encoding can vary wildly between files) or there's a quirk about your setup that encodes things properly on the fly.

 

[ifrankenberg]

I'll take a quick glance with my settings when i get home

My laptop is winxp media center but my media pc is jsut xp pro
I do no use the media center from xbox i just go into video library and
my media pc shows under there.

 

[fecurtis]

Interesting that everyone is working on sending video TO the DX. My only interest in DLNA is to send video FROM the DX to my PC, for starters. Has anyone tried that, and had any success?

I have. I haven't tried my PC but I do it through my 60" HDTV.

If you have a PS3 or XBox360 to stream it through, it's easy.

Simply open up DLNA, make sure both are connected to your WiFi network, and your phone will find it and ask if you'd like to share media, photos, and music with it. Say yes and you'll see a green DLNA icon on top of the phone letting you know you're ready to go.

I then turn on my PS3 and select whatever I want to view (Picture, Video, or Music). You'll then see a selection that'll read "DROIDX", from there you can browse the folders on your SDCard and play what you want.

Works just fine. I've watched hour long shows in lovely HD that I have on my phone on my TV.

 

[jazz_nh]

Im new to DLNA.... and my DX....

I have a Mac on OSX and a Wii...... what DLNA servers can I use to share files between the MAC and my Droid X and also with the Wii to my TV ? Is this possible ?

 

[fronobulax]

OK, I've got better info now.
My current understanding is this:
The droid-x processor only supports MP4 natively (maybe wmv or some other format that I will not use, but MP4 as far as I'm concerned). That is the only format that will spool from a DLNA server to the phone.
Problem is that the phone requires the MP4 files to have specific data at the beginning of the file (lookup MP4 ATOMs for more detail). Well it seems that the information for some of the required ATOMs cannot be calculated until the file is converted to MP4 (it is also possible the FFMPEG could but just does not create these up front, since almost everyone uses FFMPEG for transcoding...). Most of the media servers will stream you a MP4 file that does not require transcoding. And most of the media servers will transcode the MP4 files into whatever format your other devices like. So it appears that your best convergence option is to re-encode (and take the quality hit) your video as MP4 so your phone can view it natively, then let your media server transcode for all the other systems (XBOX/TV/DVR/PS3/etc...). Note if you are using handbrake to convert, I have to set the file to enable streaming to get the phone to play it.

Other than that I'm off to my next level of convergence... The phone captures in .3gp I have one media server on a Linux VM (twonky I believe) that supports DLNA uploads. So I can seamlessly upload video to the server. Unfortunately I haven't found one of the DLNA servers that will transcode the .3gp files... It would be really nice if I could simply DLNA copy videos and pics from my phone to the DLNA server then have them instantly available via transcode on the other DLNA clients around the house...

Anybody else have a DLNA that supports uploads or .3gp transcode?

 

[Bond32]

Hmmm I have plenty of MP4 movies it says I need to copy to be able to view it, rather than being able to stream it...

 

[fronobulax]

Hmmm I have plenty of MP4 movies it says I need to copy to be able to view it, rather than being able to stream it...

Are they built as streaming MP4 (in handbrake you need to make sure you have the --optimize flag set)?

Try using Handbrake to make a streaming version with the following command arguments (remember if you have spaces in your file name or path you will have to put the input file and output file in quotes):

handbrakecli --input <your input file> --output <your output file> --format MP4 --markers --x264opts level=30:bframes=0:cabac=0:ref=1:vbv-maxrate=768:vbv-bufsize=2000:analyse=all:me=umh:no-fast-pskip=1:subq=6:8x8dct=0:trellis=0:weightb=0:mixed-refs=0:ref=1:subme=2 --vb 1536 --two-pass --optimize --keep-display-aspect --turbo --audio 1 --aencoder faac --ab 160 --mixdown dpl2 --arate 48 --drc 2.0 --native-language eng --subtitle-forced scan --subtitle scan

The command line above does a whole bunch of extra junk, but it should at least make you a MP4 file that a DLNA server will stream to your Droid-X. I'm currently serving it up with mezzmo DLNA server. It has a nice directory option that will let me list library files by type, so I can just skip directly to the MP4 files...

 

[Seven2k]

Both pc's are Running windows xp.
at first when i sync'd my music i used the windows media sync in windows media player via a usb cable.
To get my movies which is on my 2nd pc i used dlna over wifi
video files are in .avi, when i transfer them to my phone it says it is not supported
but i downloaded Rockplayer from market place and it plays them without issue

So you transfered the movies? or stream them? Can you stream them instead of copying to the device? Sorry the questions I want to start using this.

Thanks

 

[matrix2004]

XMBC works for me. Streams from Droid X to PC. Still haven't figured out how to stream from DX to PS3. I can only access files from DX.

 

[jazz_nh]

Great, Thanks. SO I downloaded XMBC and can view my DX files on my MAC now..... still trying to figure out how I can view the videos I have on the MAC, on the Droid.

 

[matrix2004]

If you have Windows Media Player open and recognized as a device, you can use the Droid X as a remote control to play all the media.

 

[matrix2004]

Try these settings too. [Guide] Setting Up DLNA(AllShare) on Windows 7 - Android Forums

 

[jazz_nh]

Im using a MAC..... not Windows