Don't know what to think at the moment as I can't get anything to play over DLNA (that’s .avi, MKV, MP3 or MP4). That being said I recently changed router firmware to Gargoyle and I'm sure I got it to play something before then (not the .avi's though) so I suspect I've messed up my settings somewhere along the way. Currently the player does see the files in my folders and even does a wee thumbnail for everything - it just won't play any of them! I’ll get it fixed – I just need to figure out how!
Edit: Oh and theres also a new computer with Win7 which might be causing the problem!
Does play .avi's through a USB.
Can’t remember if it was the TV or the 220 but one ort other won’t play files more than 4gb(?) on either the memory card or USB. Sorry – not very useful I know but I’ve been playing around a bit and don’t rightly recollect all the different combos I’ve come up against. It would be a darn sight easier if Panasonic just enabled all their devices to play all the same formats.
Well, Windows media player will play avi's and MP4's through the 220 so I must be able to get serviio to do it. Its a bit tricky as I have a new laptop and router and firmware so I just need to get each running as well as get my head around the 220.
Well testing pretty much complete and there are significant shortcomings.
All DLNA is streamed over a wireless network.
So I have most of my files in .avi format and stored on an external USB drive. For test purposes I have an AVI, MP4 and WMP file on the laptop. Streaming to the Panasonic TV hasn't been an issue so I figure the USB / Laptop / Router and Firmware end all work.
At the 220 end I have issues. I've tried Twonky, Serviio, Windows Media player and Plex.
No success at all with Plex - just can't get the console to work at the moment.
No real success with Serviio. It sees the files and will only play MP4 store on the lap top. There is no 220 profile (yet) for the 220.
Couldn't get Twonky to work at any level.
Have managed with Window Media player to stream AVI files off my laptop and they play audio and video so all well and good on that front. Except most of my files are external and I don't want to have to transfer them to the laptop every time I want to play them. Trouble is when I try to play off the USB drive the 220 will play the video but there is no audio. Probably fine watching a Mr Bean episode but really not much use at all.
I think I'll stick to streaming directly to the TV when I want cruddy two channel audio. If I want 5.1 I think I'll just copy to a USB memory stick and poke that into the 220.
If I end up with a better solution I'll post again. Hopefully someone else may have a solution already!
As a footnote I recently changed from a Telecom Thomson wireless router to a Netgear WNDR 3700. With the telecom router I used to have major lags. With the WNDR there is pretty much no lag at all. I can flick through the folders with all my videos in it pretty quickly whereas with the telecom it took an age to go page to page.
You can throw a F32 USB stick at it (not tried a HDD as its possibly a low power port) and it will read most formats fine.
Use a DLNA unit, no go. It won't recognise MKV/MP4 for streaming to it. And when it does, its a forced transocde type. It seems they are not as equal as you would think when it comes to USB/DLNA playback formats.
Serviio forums are good for test panasonic profiles. My new 42ST50 decided to be discovered as an ST30 as only UT/GT50 profile is active. Some tweaking of xml files and it works better. Though if there is any issues with the file integrity (or possibly the newer encode engine) it won't seek or will crash playback.
Right, I can now stream .avi files from the external USB attached to the laptop wirelessy via DLNA to the 220 and get video and audio playing! This is using Windows Media Centre as the server
I have changed the "sound" settings in the 220 setup so its "PCM" rather than "Bitstream".
While I can now stream a movie file I'm not sure about the sound quality. I have an optical cable between the 220 and my amp.
I have 5.1 audio with one of my movies but its not showing as 5.1 on my AV reciever. It looks like the amp is sending stereo audio out to the speakers but most of the audio is coming out of the centre speaker. Haven't had time to work out if there is any .1 bass audio yet.
Video quality isn't great. But I think its a reflection of the resolution in the .avi file. When I get time I'l try a higher defintion file and see what its like.
At this point I'd still opt to stream directly to my TV and put up with the inferior audio out of the tv speakers. But I am determined to get 5.1 audio going through the amp so off to my next challenge!
install and tweak AC3Filter, or check windows sound properties to ensure that AC3/DTS streams are set to be output to optical and not decoded. Or that optical is default output.
dlna is hard work - esp once you have to configure servers and then transcode :/
wireless is also often a challenge esp if you start wnting to play higher bitrate content
plugging usb hdds in was more reliable - but becomes a pain copying files
so i have tried all of the options above and gave up and instead got a media streamer and have been well happy with this (note: again wired has proven to be much more reliable)
strongly recommend a media streamer for easier playback and more comprehensive format support
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