DLNA - Nearby Devices and Windows 7 Media Player Naming for multiple PCs

[oldAGE]

Ah... Don't you just love how things are always changed for the better. Back in the good-ol' days of DLNA and AllShare, you would turn on your DLNA compliant devices and those devices, as named, would show up on your host... then you would just drill down to what you want.

Cut to today's variant on the S3 and you jump through the hoops to turn on NEARBY DEVICES to start your S3 into native DLNA mode and voila.... four different "Windows Media Player" devices are found. It took me a while to figure this out but yes, all my HomeGroup and networked PCs show up on my S3 not by their system name but rather by the tie to the latest version of Windows Media Player being the end-all-be-all for music, video, and picture viewing. So rather than each unique device name (host name) showing, all are identified by the generic application.

I expect this type of integration by Apple because, after all, when you own an iPhone, MAC Powerbook, and iPad, god only knows that you are the sole user in the universe and your life is tied to these devices and your sole AppleID and iTunes account. (another CF by Apple for another day but I digress).

So, my Android friends out there.... does anyone know a work around to have native Windows 7 DLNA compliant access to devices show up on the S3 using their given name rather than generic application nomenclature?

AGE

 

[oldAGE]

To expand upon this a bit, when you open Gallery, Music Player, or Video Player on the S3, you do see the host ID names of the different PCs (I think... I know for sure with Gallery). The point is, you are in a busy coffee shop and you want to allow access from a friend's Windows PC... how does one discern their PC from the six other Windows Media Players that show up.... Just saying.....

AGE

 

[Craig Stevensson]

And I can't believe there's no answer for this yet.

I've been googling for hours, and haven't found a solution.

I would expect that someone might know a windows registry key where the value of the device name such as "Windows-Media-Player" could be renamed to anything more specifi so to tell which device one wants to share files with.

 

[oldAGE]

Craig - Thanks for reviving this. Now that I have a Nexus 7 tablet, my life becomes even more complicated because NFC doesn't work 98% of the time via A-beam, I can't get any WiFi Direct functionality to work between the S3 and the N7, and of course, as you so aptly point out.... this is still broken. Now to make matters worse, I think Samsung rolled out yet another "all devices share all kinds of things" app via Samsung Link. So now, I sit in my kitchen and do something and the chorus of "HEY!!!!" goes up from my family room where my kids and their friends are now either listening to my phone stream The Grateful Dead or they see my Photo Gallery start a slide show across my Samsung flat panel TV.... for no rhyme or reason. It's maddening. Hang in there.

AGE