On paper it looks like a dream, in reality it is a nightmare. Don't let the name fool you: it came out because early DLNA servers didn't play well with the PS3 (due to it doing some things in a non-standard way) but it had worked on just about every DLNA renderer that I've tried it with.ĭLNA is a constantly frustrating pain in the a$$ in my experience. If you want something that's just a server then PS3 Media Server has always been rock-solid for me.
On a DLNA renderer the extended library features of Plex are unused but if you move to a device that has a Plex media player (Roku, Xbox, HTPC, some smart TVs) then you can begin using their front-end software as well. I personally recommend Plex Media Server because it's a lot more than just DLNA with transcoding.
You could either upgrade your renderer to something that supports mkv (expensive and, for obvious reasons, not ideal), remux the mkvs to mp4 (most videos this will work fine for but not anything with DTS, multiple subs or soft subs also time-consuming) or move to a transcoding DLNA server (easiest, though if it's a server with library functionality it may require some time for setup and scanning to occur). If a folder on the server only contains unsupported filetypes then it will appear to be an empty folder when browsing it which is exactly what you described. It's, unfortunately, not uncommon for renderers to not support mkv.
All DLNA does is define the discovery and listing mechanism that the server(s), remote(s) and renderer(s) will use. DLNA itself doesn't define any specific codec or containers that must be supported. Is there something wrong with the windows 7 server? should I be using some 3rd party server.? cause this technology is just shockingly bad or somethings wrong. Is there something wrong with the windows 7 server? should I be using some 3rd party server.? cause this technology is just shockingly bad or somethings wrong Can you guys recommend a bluray player that just works out of the box? or should I think roku?
but I weirdly can't make my current sony bdp-s5200 bluray player read anything last time I checked With my brand new samsung 55" hdtv It will try to do DLNA but when I tell it to read it. sony would report "no files or some other error" I managed to get the the sony bdp-S3200 to work with everything but MKV files.avi was working. I don't think bandwidth/wifi is the problem here. (just so were clear what DLNA is) I've had all kinds of problems with my windows 7 ultimate to various dvd/bluray players and smart hdtv's (tried about 4-5 so far) I've only been using 100 mbit ethernet. Recently I've really wanted to stream mostly MKV (or whatever I have on my computer) by network to my HDTV.