2011-02-19, 19:32
I've no idea if technically possible or any parties would even be interested but what if XBMC and PS3 Media Server or Serviio joined forces ?
I mention those two as they are both cross platform, open source and free.
The UPnP/DLNA server could be an add-on like the PVR one, so while still being part of XBMC it could also exist as a standalone application XBMC Media Server [XMS] that anyone can install without needing XBMC.
I think this could bring a couple of benefits to XBMC;
* More frequent updates to the XBMC UPnP/DLNA server.
* Improved compatibility with various DLNA devices to stream media to via XBMC or XMS, they have profiles for various devices which all have their own weird DLNA implementation (e.g ffw/rwd on Samsung TV's).
* Video transcoding would allow streaming media to other devices from XBMC that dont have the same level of media support.
* With transcoding it could possibly allow XBMC Lite (GUI only) clients through official app store smartphone/tablet channels ?
* XBMC clients could scrape movie info from the XMS server properly, at this time PS3 Media Server is the only one that I know that works. As most servers do not expose the file name in the UPnP/DLNA media path.
* Might even spawn XMS built into NAS directly if XMS became the defacto free UPnP/DLNA server, most commercial linux NAS ship with the Twonky server but some people have gotten the better Serviio and PS3 Media Server running on them through a lot of hacking.
Of course there could be a lot of obstacles to this, technical reasons or other projects having no interest in merging with XBMC
I mention those two as they are both cross platform, open source and free.
The UPnP/DLNA server could be an add-on like the PVR one, so while still being part of XBMC it could also exist as a standalone application XBMC Media Server [XMS] that anyone can install without needing XBMC.
I think this could bring a couple of benefits to XBMC;
* More frequent updates to the XBMC UPnP/DLNA server.
* Improved compatibility with various DLNA devices to stream media to via XBMC or XMS, they have profiles for various devices which all have their own weird DLNA implementation (e.g ffw/rwd on Samsung TV's).
* Video transcoding would allow streaming media to other devices from XBMC that dont have the same level of media support.
* With transcoding it could possibly allow XBMC Lite (GUI only) clients through official app store smartphone/tablet channels ?
* XBMC clients could scrape movie info from the XMS server properly, at this time PS3 Media Server is the only one that I know that works. As most servers do not expose the file name in the UPnP/DLNA media path.
* Might even spawn XMS built into NAS directly if XMS became the defacto free UPnP/DLNA server, most commercial linux NAS ship with the Twonky server but some people have gotten the better Serviio and PS3 Media Server running on them through a lot of hacking.
Of course there could be a lot of obstacles to this, technical reasons or other projects having no interest in merging with XBMC