Media Player Appliances

Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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There's a bluetooth receiver in my bathroom that's connected to a set of Klipsch Promedia 2.1s. I stuck the subwoofer for it in the cabinet under my vanity. The bathroom tablet is a controllable Plex client so I can actually send an audio stream to it, and it's running Google Voice and Vonage so I can actually answer both personal and work calls while I'm reading in the bathtub. I also have a plastic bag I can hang on my shower head so I could watch something in the shower if I wanted to do so. Yes, that pretty much falls in to the "because I could" territory but occasional houseguests think it's pretty awesome.
 
Clocker

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Mercutio said:
FireTV. $100. Tentatively I'll say that it looks really interesting. It has the fully checklist of streaming services support. Plex is a launch partner. It DOES have a full Youtube client (this is an issue on Fire tablets and Microsoft devices). Amazon says it's going to add screen mirroring (miracast?) for tablet devices and the hardware specs are several steps ahead of Roku and AppleTV. It also does voice search and supposedly has fairly credible gaming support.
It's entirely missing support for DTS (or at least I can't see it listed on a specs sheet anyplace) and I don't see anything about HBO Go or Spotify.

I'll probably order one tomorrow.
Click to expand...

If it supported DLNA I would order one today. Any idea if that will be added? I read somewhere that it doesn't support DLNA. Would like to hear your review after you have played with it for a while.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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You can get Twonky for Android, and Plex media server presents as DLNA if you have one plus doing all the other cool stuff that Plex does, but Fire TV is an Android device so even if it's not in Amazon's app store you're going to have DLNA as an option somehow.

I just got mine today and I'll know more in a couple hours.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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It's definitely very responsive. There's no "pushing the button and waiting to see if it does anything"-crap like on a Roku. The on-screen keyboard is an abomination, but that's given from the fact that it's an on-screen keyboard.
There are a total of about a dozen FireTV-approved apps for it other than games. Other things have to be side-loaded via network ADB. The process for doing so is a little cumbersome and the sideloaded apps are not allowed to appear on the home screen, so navigating to them is a tad cumbersome.

There's nothing immediately obvious for dealing with locally stored content. I could plug in a USB drive, maybe, but USB storage isn't really that interesting compared to tens of terabytes of stuff as close as an SMB share away. No sign of a native DLNA client.
It appears that I can pair a Playstation controller to it if I want. I need to find a BT keyboard to try with it.

Voice search is pretty "meh" to me. I tried it and it showed me things that are on Amazon but not anything on Plex or Netflix. It's a cute trick right now, but honestly as long as I don't have to type anything, navigation is a breeze anyway.

Plex transcodes data with DTS sound in to two channel AAC, which is weak but understandable.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Ok actually the only places to get multichannel audio are Netflix and Amazon instant Video. Plex is entirely stereo.

There is no supported access to Amazon cloud music. The music features are really pretty lacking. You have Pandora and Plex and some video services like Vevo. That's a little surprising given how prominent purchases are in the FireOS launcher.

I'm not a huge fan of the Netflix presentation. It's the standard Android client. Unlike youtube or Plex, the FireTV can't accept Netflix content selections from another device, even an HDX.

Plex on the FireTV is missing the ability to access online content. No Daily Show or Escapist or HGTV or PBS. That's not standard Android and I don't know why it's like that, but I use those features and it's odd not to have them.
 
Clocker

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I don't use Plex for my DLNA server, I'm still using Serviio just because it has been working fine for me and I see no need to change it. So, did I read right that there is no DLNA client yet available without doing a bunch of work arounds?

I'd like something simple to use to get DLNA streaming to the box working. I know there are some other options (WD TV, Roku) but since this Amazon box is new and seems to have good specs. I'm still interested in it...
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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There's no DLNA client without sideloading. I got Amazon MP3 working on mine using APK Share from my phone. I don't think Twonky would be a big deal, but sideloaded apps don't get put on the home screen, which of course reduces the wife acceptance factor.
 
Clocker

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Mercutio said:
There's no DLNA client without sideloading. I got Amazon MP3 working on mine using APK Share from my phone. I don't think Twonky would be a big deal, but sideloaded apps don't get put on the home screen, which of course reduces the wife acceptance factor.
Click to expand...

You know exactly where I'm coming from.

If I just need a DLNA adapter to add streaming to my TV and my DLNA server does transcoding, what's the best one out there?
 
Clocker

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Maybe I should just run Plex on my server and then I can use the Fire TV w/o problem? My other TV, Panasonic Plasma has DLNA built it so I'm thinking that could also access the Plex server.. ?

Plex resistance is futile? Nice thing about Servioo is that I can run it as a service, no login required.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

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The WD TV Live would work, but it's sort of slow. Also, you don't want to leave it connected to a giant shared folder using Windows file sharing, because it will reindex stuff all the damned time. The TV Live is definitely happiest when it's connected directly to a disk drive.

The thing about Plex is that it encapsulates presentation. The presentation isn't always all that great (I don't like the Samsung Smart TV or GoogleTV clients and I'm not super-happy with the FireTV's), but it's a big step up from the way DLNA works. There's no tree-like structure to navigate or reliance on playlists to create shortcuts to the right content. There really isn't a better back-end out there and I strongly urge you to give it a try.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

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Well, other than the fact that having expensive electronics in a room that's regularly at 100% humidity probably isn't the best thing for those electronics.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Nope. I sideloaded it off my phone. If you do that it'll show up in the "All Apps" screen under settings. Sideloaded apps don't show up on the home screen.
 
LunarMist

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Well, in the bathroom. I guess its from being stationed in Europe too long.
 
Clocker

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Still mulling this FireTV over a bit in my head.

If all I want to do with my TV is access movies that are on my Plex Media Server (Blue-Ray's ripped to MKV) is Chromecast my best/cheapest option as opposed to the FireTV? Only potential down side that jumps out at me is that it is only a wireless connection but maybe that's not a big deal.. I know on my Panasonic Plasma, streaming my movies to the TVs integrated DLNA function buffered a lot until I went with the wired connection. Granted, the MKV files were on the order of 10GB in size and I don't think any transcoding was happening.

Thanks!
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

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Hrrmm.

OK here's the thing: Plex on mobile platforms is less than ideal. Because the Plex version for mobile platforms doesn't support high quality audio formats. If you're ripping BDs and preserving anything nicer than stereo MP3 or AAC, it's not being delivered through Plex (or, for that matter, any DLNA client since DLNA by definition delivers two channel MP3). The Chromecast/FireTV is fantastic for the bedroom or second TV. From a UI standpoint, Plex is a huge win over any DLNA client you'll ever use, and the mobile versions will be on these fast, fanless devices, but there's still a trade-off to be made.

If you want to try out an STB, Amazon will give you a month to try it.
 
Clocker

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Thanks for the info. The location I'm considering the ChromeCast or the FireTV is actually a bedroom. So Stereo TV is not an issue because the TV only has 2 speakers. Sounding like Chromecast is the most cost efficient this this application maybe?

With regard to DLNA audio, my Serviio server sends 5 channel audio to my other TV that has a Sony DVD player as the DLNA player. I'm just playing 1080P MKVs downloaded from Tweaknews (about 10GB each). It's connected to my Sony HT-SS2000 HTIB system and the 5 channel audio works great there. I know you will probably stroke out since I typed the word Sony now three times in this post. But it was an open box special and has served me well.
 
Mercutio

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DLNA as a specification delivers MPEG1 Layer 3 Audio, which is always stereo (Not always I guess since it could be mono, but definitely not 6 channel). If Serviio is able to deliver anything else to your client and actually have it work, it's basically a coincidence.
 
Clocker

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Mercutio said:
DLNA as a specification delivers MPEG1 Layer 3 Audio, which is always stereo (Not always I guess since it could be mono, but definitely not 6 channel). If Serviio is able to deliver anything else to your client and actually have it work, it's basically a coincidence.
Click to expand...

Well it works so I'm happy. Anyway..I got a ChromeCast and it's working fine with my bedroom TV and Plex on my media server..so that TV is all set. I lost the ability to stream to that TV when I switched back to Comcast and their X1 platform. When I was with WOW, the UltraTV client boxes had DLNA streaming capability, although they were clunky and slow. Using Plex with my Touchpad is a nice nice upgrade.
 
Chewy509

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FYI, with DLNA IIRC there is only 1 mandated video and audio codec (MPEG2 and MP3 respectively), however the DMS (DLNA Media Server) and DMP (DLNA media player) may advertise support for additional codecs, via the client profile as setup via uPNP. If there are matches, the DMS and DMP may use those additional codecs. Some DLNA servers will advertise all formats/codecs as supported and will transcode on the fly to what ever the DMP wants. (MediaTomb on Linux does this).

The big problem is, a lot of appliance like devices (NASes, BR players, TVs, etc) only support the mandated codecs or they don't advertise additional supported codecs via uPNP correctly, hence a lot of people have issues. For example recent Samsung TVs do support H264 for video, but only for certain resolutions/frame rates... (The required res's and framerates are not advertised correctly, AFAIK an update will or already has fixed this), so people have a lot of issues getting it to work. Mind you LG has a similar issue, and IIRC Sony only support the mandated codecs well. (I've only got the mandated codecs to work with my Sony TV, despite having support for more than just MPEG2 when playing back from a USB key/HDD).

So, I hope that explains why Clocker is seeing 5.1 channel audio, as both his DMS and DMP support it correctly and are actually able to communicate this correctly...

PS. FYI, DLNA is based on the uPNP IP protocol, and having implemented parts of it (mainly SSDP), it's a minefield of missing details, what-if's, etc...
 
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