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Some thoughts on IOS development / DLNA


steve1977

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steve1977

I understand that there is some development ongoing and hopefully we may be able to see an update of the IOS apps in the near future. Definitely something that I would be happy to pay for an upgrade to a 2.0 version.

 

I have a few general questions related to the IOS apps:

 

1) Why do the apps use some form of proprietary protocol to access MBS. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler and more in the spirit of standard protocols to have the IOS apps access MBS via DLNA. Given MBS acts as a full DLNA server, this should be easy? Are there any disadvantages of replacing the proprietary protocols to access the MBS server with accessing it via DLNA?

 

2) Sending from IOS device to television. Besides "just" watching on the IOS device, there is an increasing interest to stream to the big television screen. Yet again, I believe there are four different ways and I would think that DLNA yet again would be the best / most-supported / least-constraint?

* DLNA - most televisions support this and this would allow DTS and anything else that I can think of

* MBS - yet again proprietary and not sure whether this is required?

* Chromecast - I am sure that many will ask for it as it is an easy way to upgrade a TV that does not support DLNA

* Airplay - I was asking for this before, but now thinking whether this may actually not be required as DLNA could do this job? Or do we need it for the ATV?

 

3) When streaming from MBS (UPNP server) over IOS device (UPNP receiver and sender) to television (UPNP receiver), how does this actually work? For example, could I turn off the IOS device and the television will still play the video / song? Can I then turn on the IOS device again and pause or fastforward the video?

 

 

Thanks in advance!!!

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Vidman

1)Media browser uses its own protocol because it is more feature rich than dlna

2) if your TV supports dlna then the server will list it as an available client (if its on the same LAN) and any media browser app can then send/cast media to it via dlna, media browser server also supports Chromecast so you can now already use the first 3 methods you describe, only airplay is not supported (yet;))

3) I know you can do this with media browser clients but I'm not sure with dlna

Edited by Vidman
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steve1977

Thanks for your message:

 

re 1 - what are the mbs-specific features that dlna is not supporting. Would be nice to use an open standard (dlna) if all features could be incorporated.

 

re 2 - great. Is this already working with the IOS apps (iphone / ipad). So, I can use my iphone as both an dlna receiver and also as a dlan streamer to my TV?

 

re 3 - if this would work with DLNA, this would be really fabulous.

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swhitmore

Regarding #3, the DLNA stream is sent from MBS to the DMR, even when initialised from another client.

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Vidman

Thanks for your message:

 

re 1 - what are the mbs-specific features that dlna is not supporting. Would be nice to use an open standard (dlna) if all features could be incorporated.

 

re 2 - great. Is this already working with the IOS apps (iphone / ipad). So, I can use my iphone as both an dlna receiver and also as a dlan streamer to my TV?

 

re 3 - if this would work with DLNA, this would be really fabulous.

re re 1:I believe media browser uses its own api precisely because all the extra features the devs have added couldn't be done with dlna (more media rich interfaces with extra fanart/metadata then dlna allows and im sure theres alot more things that more experienced devs could tell you)

re re 2 your iphone doesnt need to be a dlna receiver/streamer if you use the ios app..the media browser sever will handle the dlna stuff and the ios app can control the server to send media to your tv.

re re 3 as implied above, it doesnt really need to work with dlna (it may be another one of the dlna limitations that using their own api has allowed)

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