DLNA and NAS and Samsung LED TV (1 Viewer)

[karajan]

My friend buy a new TV, samsung which support watch video, listen music and pictures over DLNA which is connected over ethetnet to NAS (that NAS supportt DLNA). They say to me that is the perfect solution and then dont needed MP.
I did not see how its works.
Is onyone try this combination? What are the results of quality ? And finnaly what is DLNA in practice?

Thanks

 

[robbo100]

Basically DLNA is just a protocol which will just play files over your network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Living_Network_Alliance.

Whether or not they/you need MP still is a completely personal view, but media playback is one (relatively small) element of everything that MP will allow you to do, and I for one do not see how MP can be replaced on my system without buying lots and lots of different set top boxes and consoles, and then having 20 tons of wires connecting it all together!

I don't see many set top boxes out there which will mix an unlimited number of TV tuners (of any type), with an unlimited amount of storage (for example).

 

[karajan]

Thank you for answer robo100. I rescpect your clever answers, but still is a question. Does DLNA protocol plays video from NAS with compare quality that the MP can do?
Thanks

 

[2BitSculptor]

The quality of the playback depends on the client (control point), whether it is hard-wired or wifi, and what player codec it is using. As a protocol, DLNA is concerned with communication between the control point and the (server) device and file transfer. It is up to the control point to give the end user all the eye candy, e.g., Graphical User Interface, cataloged file lists, scraping/display of fanart, system environment controls, file maintenance and media playback. This is what MediaPortal does. By the way, there is a UPNP/DLNA plugin under development for MP that will allow compatibility, connection and control communications with such devices, so you will be able to use MediaPortal as your UPNP/DLNA client.

 

[karajan]

thank you

 

[kiwijunglist]

The playback using DLNA on your new TV is likely to be very very similar in quality compared to mediaportal. An HTPC with the right setup could achieve better quality post processing of video, however whether or not you can notice the difference is another story, I would say the average person would not notice a difference in quality of your TV's DLNA player 'vs' an HTPC running mediaportal.

The main difference being that
(a) it is possible that some obscure video/audio formats will not be able to played by the TV's built in DLNA player.
(b) the TV will not have the awesome meta data features + browsing that mediaportal provides
(c) mediaportal can record live tv / pause tv etc, most tv's can't do this unless they have a built in recorder.
(d) mediaportal probably has a better GUI than the TV for browsing pictures/music etc.

However for the non tech savy person, I'd say just go with the TV's DLNA player as mediaportal often requires a bit of tech knowledge to setup and maintain.