DLNA is an organization that was
established by many manufacturers in order to come to an agreement on the
common standards to help home entertainment devices communicate with each
other. The standard system that DLNA developed was based on the UPnP protocol
and some other popular network protocols, helping to ensure the compatibility
between devices of different types, platforms and manufacturers. Also DLNA is
held responsible for checking the compatibility of a family device series to
grant a corresponding certificate, letting users know what the product they are
going to buy can do. In addition to recognizing and communicaing with other
devices thanks to the UPnP support (with its role as a network protocol), there
are also other problems about the processing capabilities, decoding (codecs),
etc. to consider when you want to work with multimedia data on a home
entertainment device. Users should mainly notuce the certificate on the devices
that belong to the "3rd group" as TVs, HD Box, Camera because as
mentioned, on your PC, laptop running the operating system with the powerful
capability to expand like Windows, Linux, the only problem is whether you can
find the appropriate software with all the functions.
DLNA
is built on existing standards such as TCP/IP and UPnP.
The classification of devices is based on
the role that a device can take (which is quite similar to what has been said
above). Devices such as PCs, laptops can apparently take at the same time
multiple roles:
·
Digital Media Server (DMS)
·
Digital Media Player (DMP)
·
Digital Media Renderer (DMR)
·
Digital Media Controller (DMC)
This is for your
information in case you wonder what "Player" and "Renderer"
are: a Renderer can be controlled by the Controller as said in the example
above, while a Player is not. If you have had a different understanding of the
traditional search by file and in the library, as described above, another
point is that you can use the Controller to swtich to the file browser mode and
use the Renderer to show them – in case the library encounters any error. The
Player – for example, the music player will only be able to see and play what
is displayed in the library. Also in some cases, we can see the Scanners/Printers
which also have the DLNA certificate as they are able to communicate to receive
or display images directly from the server or via UPnP, helping users avoid complex
steps to follow when using the tools available on Windows or Mac.
But to take a deeper look, it’s not that everything
will be ok if we have a Server, a Controlller and a Renderer, if it were that
easy, DLNA would not have created a page that provides information about all
the certificates that they have granted. DLNA certificate catalogs granted for devices
are far more than that. Depending on the device specifications, there will be
times when you encounter HD Box that cannot decode some video formats from your
home library, or a camera cannot that display images from the scanner – because
as mentioned avobe, on the one hand, devices can recognize and communicate with
each other with the help of the UPnP, but on the other hand, we don’t know
whether those devices can process the received signal.
After you have been fed up with the theory,
we will go through a few simple steps to set up the basic UPnP in the LAN
system.
Step One: Install the library on Mediaserver
As the applications serve to satisfy
entertainment needs, except for Mediatomb, whatever Mediaserver you choose to install
– you will not face much difficulty getting familiar with the user-friendly
interface of those applications. In this example, we will use XBMC.
To make it easy for searching for content,
we should first access Music or Movies, Select AddSource to add data sources
for scanning, Locate the hard drive partition or folder on which your videos,
images and audio are stored and create a catchy name for them.
The source that’s just been scanned will
just appear in the main menu, right-click to select Scan Item to Library, wait
a bit for the scan to be completed, then you will have a multimedia library.
Right-click
to select Scan Item to Library, wait a bit for the scan to be completed, then
you will have a multimedia library.
Step Two: Install UPnP on XBMC
Access Settings > Services > UPnP: We
will see the option to share data from XBMC library via UPnP, and also to allow
controlling XBMC via UPnP connection. Enable the data sharing option (and the
control option if you want). Note that the Allow control via HTTP option will
allow you to manage your XBMC library via web interface by going to the address
"IP server install XBMC": "Port", whose default port is
8080.
Step
2: install UPnP on XBMC
Step Three: Find XBMC Library Just Created On Other
Devices
If you want to test streaming between
desktops and laptops, continue to install XBMC on the other devices – they will
act as Clients (or even try installing Plex, Mediatomb if you want to test the sharing
ability of UPnP in general, not just XBMC only). On these devices, when selecting
AddSource, you would not look for any folder on it, but rather access UPnP
Devices > the server that has been configured in Step Two will be shown
here. After succeeding in adding these sources for scanning, the entire
contents of XBMC library from the server will be added to the library of these devices
(continue to right-click and scan to library if you have not seen them yet).
You will see that no space will be occupied on client devices, but videos or audio
files can still be played normally.
Step
3: find XBMC library just created on other devices
Mobile devices usually do not require such
a lengthy AddSource step as such. Just turn on BubbleUPnP, PlugPlayer or
8Player, and they will automatically receive the multimedia library of Android/iOS
and display them with the name of "Local Library" or "Local
Server" and display at the same time the library on the PC(s) you have
just installed XBMC on. As stated above, BubbleUPnP or PlugPlayer has the ControlPoint
function, what you have to do is to select Server or Renderer respectively from
the list of devices then comfortably enjoy your achievements.
