× NETGEAR will be terminating ReadyCLOUD service by July 1st, 2023. For more details click here.
Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
Reply

Best streaming applications (for me)

dsm1212
Apprentice

Best streaming applications (for me)

At some point I thought I'd share the set of streaming apps I'm running on my pro-6 just to get feedback and in case it might help someone else. I'm running and actually using all of the following:

1. mini-DLNA - For Home Videos and Movies, I make sure the formats don't need transcoding for Samsung or PS3 by converting them to the right format on a powerful PC before copying them to the NAS. Really this turns out to be much easier than leaving this stuff transcode with a different server. I convert them to M2TS, mp4, or mpg depending on the video quality. Even a full length 16GB movie usually only takes maybe 5 minutes to convert. If it's a watch once thing, I might leave it as an MKV but then I can't use mini-dlna. For 3D movies pre-transcoding is the only way to go as it's a lot of bandwidth. Everything plays smoothly with miniDLNA no matter how high def once transcoded. I've got a 1GB/s network, no LACP.

2. serviio - This serves one purpose. My Denon receiver doesn't have a great GUI for going through artists alphabetically. I mean it will take minutes to get to the M's :-(. MiniDLNA offers no configuration options for the lists it produces. Serviio has a hierarchical list that works much better. I believe I could muck with folder hierarchies maybe to get miniDLNA to do the same thing, but then I'd have to rework all the itunes in the house that access the same folders. If miniDLNA would just add a little flexibility here I could get rid of serviio.

3. Plex - This just works so well with AppleTV, ipad and iPhone it's a must have. I serve up TV shows on it because the interface is so darn good. Also we often watch the home movies through this too both inside and outside the house via the internet. This works directly with an LG TV we have too so it's convenient with that as well. Also, this will play MKV's and it defeats cinevera or whatever it is called that stops some moves at 20mins.

4. Subsonic - Great music phone, web, and ipad apps so I don't have to carry all my music everywhere. Very nice, reliable interface. Buffers songs, etc.

Things I found not useful:

itunes server (firefly) - on the LAN itunes clients can just add the files. The lame firefly support doesn't work with appletv. Really need an upgrade here to forked-daapd.

PS3 media server, Twonky & Tversity - Transcoding was not reliable. PMS supports ISO's, but it's ugly to use and really how hard is it for me to convert them with a real horsepower PC once. By not reliable I mean if my wife or kids set down to watch something it needs to work smoothly and shouldn't require me to dork around figuring out why it doesn't. Seriously transcoding isn't all it's cracked up to be and it consumes a lot of resources, so I just avoid it.

Would like to hear what other people have found to work for them.

-steve
Message 1 of 4
tiranor
Aspirant

Re: Best streaming applications (for me)

On my Ultra4, i still use only ReadyDLNA, Plex didn't work for me. I don't have a player for it, and the feature i wanted (remote acces) didn't work.

On my TV (Pana VT30), ReadyDLNA has a problem with ordering (the TV doesn't have any option of ordering and everything is ordered by date...).
Fortunatly, my ISP provides me with a player which plays everything (except ISOs).


About transcoding :
Except for few cases, what we really need isn't transcoding, but transmuxing (mkv to m2ts, etc.). Transmuxing doesn't change the codec (h264), it only changes the encapsulation, which is, most of the times, what is only needed (as does tsmuxer).
Message 2 of 4
dsm1212
Apprentice

Re: Best streaming applications (for me)

For others who don't realize it, minidlna is readydlna. I guess netgear open sourced mindlna but they still package it up as readydlna.

Just curious but what player does your ISP provide and do you run it on a computer or is it built into your router or something like that?

Steve
Message 3 of 4
tiranor
Aspirant

Re: Best streaming applications (for me)

In France, the competition between ISPs brought first (many years ago) the triple play (Internet, VOIP and TV, all with the router), then they began to add a basic multimedia player with an usb port to see photos and vids from a external HDD (separated from the router).

Now, the device with the most features is the one i have, the router is called the "server" and has a basic NAS integrated, the multimedia part (connected to the TV/amp) is called the "player" and has integrated a blu-ray (3D) player, upnp player (not dlna compliant), TV reciever, web browser, etc.
Message 4 of 4
Top Contributors
Discussion stats
  • 3 replies
  • 3693 views
  • 0 kudos
  • 2 in conversation
Announcements