Windows 7 frustration with DLNA servers and MKV files

Before I load XBMC and set up external player, I was trying to determine how to both access a DLNA media server and playback MKV files using Windows 7. My DLNA media server is a Netgear ReadyNAS. After reading some discussion on Netgear user forum, Microsoft Answers site, and Windows 7 blog, it appears you can only stream media from or to a DLNA device using Windows Media Player as there is no way to do this using Windows Media Center. Can anyone confirm this Also, it looks like Windows 7 can not decode MKV files and therefore you can not use Windows Media Player to play/stream MKV files. Can anyone confirm this

Are there any solutions for using Windows 7 Media Center or Media Player to stream and decode MKV files from a DLNA media server?

Why even bother with DLNA/UPnP? just get up the Netgear to use a normal file sharing protocol like SMB/Windows Sharing. Both XBMC and the various native Windows players will support that.

(2012-03-17 23:00)Ned Scott Wrote:  Why even bother with DLNA/UPnP? just get up the Netgear to use a normal file sharing protocol like SMB/Windows Sharing. Both XBMC and the various native Windows players will support that.

Not sure I can configure my NAS that way, but I will take a look. Even if I can configure the NAS that way I would probably loose connectivity with other devices like my blu-ray player and Integra processor that require NAS to be DLNA compliant.

Most likely you can enable both SMB and DLNA. I've never heard of a NAS that made a user choose between them.

(2012-03-18 03:58)Hellcat Wrote:  

(2012-03-17 23:00)Ned Scott Wrote:  Why even bother with DLNA/UPnP? just get up the Netgear to use a normal file sharing protocol like SMB/Windows Sharing. Both XBMC and the various native Windows players will support that.

Not sure I can configure my NAS that way, but I will take a look. Even if I can configure the NAS that way I would probably loose connectivity with other devices like my blu-ray player and Integra processor that require NAS to be DLNA compliant.

Your NAS does not work like that, your using Samba/SMB when you copy files onto it from your PC so it's already enabled. Browse "Windows Networks SMB" shares in XBMC then add your folders that way.

Forgive my lack of experience with NAS. This is the first time I've used one. Starstream is correct and now I understand what he and Ned are saying. That is, my NAS (a Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus) uses CIFS, which in the Mac OS X world is referred to as SMB. That's something I just wasn't familer with. Under services available on my NAS, I have CIFS, AFP, and HTTP enabled, while NFS and FTP are disabled. The NAS is DLNA compliant (not something you can enable or disable).

So now I've just got to play around with WMC and WMP a bit with some solutions I've found for MKV files and see how that works before I load and experiment with XBMC. I'm sure the latter with be supiorior in performance and experience, but I just want to see what I can do in Windows as a baseline for comparison and to satisfy my own curiosity.

BTW, what version of XMBC should I use being that this is my first time using XBMC?

Well, SMB was formally the official name for it even on Windows, but CIFS is the new name for it. XBMC will still refer to it as SMB.

You might as well jump on the latest XBMC v11 (Eden). It's on Release Candidate 2, and a final release should be coming very soon. It's more than stable enough for daily use, and it will mean you won't have to figure out the changes between v10 and v11. Just check out the beta link on the download page.

The other bonus of using a normal file sharing protocol is that XBMC will be able to use all the library features (cover art, summaries, etc) with it. XBMC can't do that with DLNA/UPnP because the file paths are dynamic (though such meta-data can be transmitted via the protocol if the DLNA server support it and has that data).

(2012-03-18 20:20)Ned Scott Wrote:  Well, SMB was formally the official name for it even on Windows, but CIFS is the new name for it. XBMC will still refer to it as SMB.

You might as well jump on the latest XBMC v11 (Eden). It's on Release Candidate 2, and a final release should be coming very soon. It's more than stable enough for daily use, and it will mean you won't have to figure out the changes between v10 and v11. Just check out the beta link on the download page.

The other bonus of using a normal file sharing protocol is that XBMC will be able to use all the library features (cover art, summaries, etc) with it. XBMC can't do that with DLNA/UPnP because the file paths are dynamic (though such meta-data can be transmitted via the protocol if the DLNA server support it and has that data).

But I assume even though my NAS is a DNLA server (is DLNA/UPnP compliant), as long as CIFS is enabled, I should have no problem with XBMC, right?

Correct

I'm using AppleTv , Windows 7and Linux OS as my players and my Media server is Amahi running on Fedora14 and all my movies in that server are 720p and 1080p MKV files. I do not have any problem at all.