2011-12-11, 20:51
I am using XBMC on Apple TV with a self made DLNA server (based on Platinum SDK). Thumbnails are not even not working (at minimum on IOS version) there is also a bug :
A DLNA server can supply several resource elements for 1 media item. For example for a picture you can have a resource element for the thumbnail, one for low, medium and high resolution.
The resource elements have a protocolInfo attribute which contains the DLNA profile id JPEG_TN, JPEG_SM, JPEG_MED, JPEG_LRG. I verified that XBMC does not handle this multiple resources correctly. I guess it uses simply the first one. If it is the thumbnail XBMC displays a photo with 160 * 160 resolution. If a thumbnail is defined for a video it tries to play a jpeg thumbnail instead of the mp4 movie.
After modifying my DLNA server to deliver only one resource it works, but of course did not make use of the thumbnails. During this test I found another problem. During uPNP Browse operation the XBMC identifies itself as "Platinum/0.5.3.0, DLNADOC/1.50" when it accessed the media file the identification is “XBMC/….”. this is also not correct.
Beside thumbnail a “noble” DLNA server delivers a lot of additional metadata which makes it needless to browse movie databases and all that stuff. This information should also be used from XBMC.
I know the idea behind XBMC is to be more than a media player. But on the other hand we have now a different situation. Every new TV implements a DLNA player, Audio devices support DLNA servers. On Apples app store approx. 10 different DLNA players are offered. So the only possible place for all that metadata stuff is the server containing the media. And hopefully the DLNA server is able to provide it to the players.
Quite often I get the advice to use a SMB share. Quite simple : DLNA / uPNP is the standard and defines the only standardized, platform independent technology to provide media and metadata to many, many media player products.
Christian
A DLNA server can supply several resource elements for 1 media item. For example for a picture you can have a resource element for the thumbnail, one for low, medium and high resolution.
The resource elements have a protocolInfo attribute which contains the DLNA profile id JPEG_TN, JPEG_SM, JPEG_MED, JPEG_LRG. I verified that XBMC does not handle this multiple resources correctly. I guess it uses simply the first one. If it is the thumbnail XBMC displays a photo with 160 * 160 resolution. If a thumbnail is defined for a video it tries to play a jpeg thumbnail instead of the mp4 movie.
After modifying my DLNA server to deliver only one resource it works, but of course did not make use of the thumbnails. During this test I found another problem. During uPNP Browse operation the XBMC identifies itself as "Platinum/0.5.3.0, DLNADOC/1.50" when it accessed the media file the identification is “XBMC/….”. this is also not correct.
Beside thumbnail a “noble” DLNA server delivers a lot of additional metadata which makes it needless to browse movie databases and all that stuff. This information should also be used from XBMC.
I know the idea behind XBMC is to be more than a media player. But on the other hand we have now a different situation. Every new TV implements a DLNA player, Audio devices support DLNA servers. On Apples app store approx. 10 different DLNA players are offered. So the only possible place for all that metadata stuff is the server containing the media. And hopefully the DLNA server is able to provide it to the players.
Quite often I get the advice to use a SMB share. Quite simple : DLNA / uPNP is the standard and defines the only standardized, platform independent technology to provide media and metadata to many, many media player products.
Christian