Last updated: Jan. 25th, 2010
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Choosing the Right Digital Media Adapter
1. There is no one single digital media adapter that is good at everything. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some are much better than others. Make sure to do your homework before purchasing. This document should help steer you in the right direction.
2. Purchase DLNA-certified products whenever possible. They undergo a higher level of interoperability testing with other devices than UPnP AV-only devices. You can view a list of all DLNA-certified products here: http://www.dlna.org/products/
3. Keep current with both software and firmware updates. Advanced features like external control are often enabled by new firmware upgrades.
4. Try to purchase digital media adapters that have both wireless and hardwired network connections. Wireless-only devices are much more likely to experience problems in large homes or on busy corporate environments, they also sometimes drop connections for no apparent reason, which can cause playback to stop.
5. Try to buy devices that are digital media renderers (DMRs), not just digital media players (DMPs). They're more flexible, because they can either pull content or accept pushed content. DMRs can also be controlled externally by a digital media controller (DMC) running on a PC, mobile phone or handheld remote. You can find a list of DMRs here: http://www.twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5960
You can now buy DLNA-certified televisions now that are DMRs and can be externally controlled.
6. Before purchasing a game console over a dedicated digital media adapter, you should be aware of their limitations.
- You can not push media to the Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii
- Game consoles do not support as many formats as some other DMAs.
- The XBox 360 creates its own navigation tree. As a result, it won't display advanced or custom TwonkyMedia trees or any of our Internet feeds.
- None of the currently shipping game consoles can play FLAC audio files
7. Ideally, you should have a DMR that supports photos and video everywhere you have a television. Try to find a DMR that is capable of streaming 1080i HD video and has an HDMI output.
8. Don’t assume that all photo renderers will automatically scale your photos, so they are full-screen. Some DLNA-certified TVs do not do this.
9. The best photo renderers will have nice transitions in-between photos and also let you play music in the background if desired (e.g. Sony PS3).
10. There are no DMRs at this time that can display a continuous photo slideshow (all display a without colored screen in-between photos). For that reason, you’ll want to pull your slide shows from your TV remote or using the remote that came with your digital media adapter.
11. Don’t assume that all DMP/DMRs can stream high definition video. Some cannot do this without major stuttering problems (e.g. Apple TV). Don’t assume your DMP/DMR can play QuickTime video. Most cannot.
12. Don’t assume your DMP/DMR can play FLV video from YouTube. Most cannot. The only devices that we have found that can accept pushed YouTube videos are Samsung DLNA-certified TVs, Xbox 360 (running as a Media Center extender), Apple TV running XBMC and Comtrend’s White Label set top box.
13. Ideally you should have a DMP/DMR that supports music everywhere you have a stereo. If you have a good stereo and speakers, you may want to avoid A/V media adapters and get an audio-only device because they sometimes have better D/A converters. Connect to your receiver digitally if possible. For the best possible sound, connect the digital output on your DMR to an outboard D/A converter.
14. Don’t assume that all DMRs can have their volume changed externally. Most receivers disable this feature.
15. Don’t assume that all DMP/DMRs can accept pushed music playlists or photo slideshows. Some only allow single files to be pushed to them.
16. Look for audio DMRs that can be grouped -- so you can have the same music playing in different rooms of your home. Examples of devices that can do this: Linksys DMC/DMP Wireless music players, Philips Streamium NP Series DMAs, Sonos ZonePlayers, etc.
17. If you subscribe to a music service like Rhapsody, make sure your digital music adapters work directly with your service, so you don’t have to use Rhapsody’s PC UPnP server. Examples of devices that include Rhapsody support include: Denon AVR receivers, Linksys DMC/DMP Wireless music players, Philips Streamium NP Series DMAs, Sonos ZonePlayers, etc.
18. If you must use wireless digital media adapters, make sure your devices can support advanced encryption like WPA or WPA2.
19. You should have a least one networked digital photo frame in your home. Try to find one that has both wired and wireless support. This will allow you to place it anywhere in your home and easily move it from room to room. Make sure your networked digital photo frame works with UPnP-AV servers like TwonkyMedia server.
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Media-related Tips
1. Perform regular backups of all of your media OR make sure it's stored on two different hard disks. One of the best ways to do this is to copy your media to a PC and a NAS. Once your media is copied to both drives, use backup software to keep both disks synchronized.
Advantages:
- You won't lose any media -- even if one of your systems or drives fail
- You'll have full access to your media 24/7 -- without having to leave your PC on.
- When you're PC is on, you'll be able to take advantage of the advanced features like server-side playlists.
2. Avoid buying copy-protected media when the same content exists in a legal unprotected form. Unprotected media is superior, because it can be played by any device, and you’ll never have to worry about losing your licenses
3. As you create your digital media library, try to use the formats which are required for DLNA certification: JPEG (photos), LPCM (audio) and MPEG2 (video). Although they are optional for home devices, MP3 (audio), WMV (video) and MPEG4 (video) are almost always supported by DLNA-certified devices as well.
4. When ripping your CDs, choose MP3 or LPCM (WAV) over AAC and FLAC, because not every device can play AAC or FLAC files.
If you must use lossless audio, consider LPCM (WAV) encode with the FLAC codec and try to avoid tagging these files with ID3 tags, because not all devices can play them.
5. It's a good idea to remove unsupported file formats from your shared media folders. Although most media servers support a long list of media formats, most external devices support a much smaller list. Moving these formats to a non-shared folder will prevent problems.
6. It is essential that all of your music files have accurate metadata tags, because media servers use these ID3 tags to create their navigation trees. If some your files are missing artist, genre or album tags, then those artists/genres/albums won’t appear in the navigation tree. You can still access this media from the song list, but its much more time consuming.
Tip: There is software available (e.g. Tag & Rename) that will allow you to use the artist and album folder names and song file names to create ID3 tags for you.
7. Avoid entering or editing metadata using media management software like iTunes or Windows Media Player. It’s much better to enter the metadata directly into an ID3 or EXIF tag, so it can be imported by any software.
8. Although it is not essential, it's a good idea to create separate folders for each artist in your music library. Each artist folder should have separate folders for each album. Each album folder should contain a JPEG file for the album cover. Normally this file is called "folder.jpg". Your media server will use this file to display album art. You can also embed album art in each music file in the ID3 tag, but this is more work.
9. It's a good idea to create separate folders for each year in your My Photos folder. Inside each year folder you should have subfolders for different albums. Your media server will use these folders to make it easier to locate photos.
10. It's also a good idea to use software like Windows Live Photo Gallery add tags to your photos. Although it's time consuming, you should try to rename your individual photos from their machine-issued names.
11. Pre-rotate your pictures before you copy them to your shared folder. The easiest way to do this is view them by thumbnails and right-click on the photos that need to be rotated.
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Network-related Tips
1. Always choose wired over wireless when you have a choice. Wired networks are easier to setup and capable of higher throughput. They also don't "drop" and have range problems like wireless connections.
2. If you have problems with wireless devices on your network, consider Power-line networking alternatives like HomePlug. It can be more reliable than wireless, but has its own issues with split-phase wiring. If you're using HomePlug, avoid using an AC power strip and plug the unit directly into the wall, since the power strip’s surge protection circuit can interfere with the device.
3. If you must use wireless, make sure your wireless access point is not broadcasting your SSID and you are using the most advanced security your devices will support (e.g. WPA-PSK or WPA2).
4. If you want to access your media remotely, consider buying a router than supports UPnP configuration.
5. Do not connect any of your PCs or devices to the "Internet" or "Uplink" ports on your router or switch.
6. Configure your router or switch to use DHCP; It makes setup easier.
7. Some routers and switches work better than others for media streaming. Problems with media playback stopping or stuttering sometimes go away when a new router or switch is used.
8. Changing router settings can also sometimes improve media streaming performance. Important: Before changing any router setting, make sure to write down the old setting, if case you need to go back to it someday.
a. If you have a busy network, collisions can occur which reduce your throughput. Lowering the fragmentation threshold can improve performance by reducing re-transmissions. Try setting the fragmentation threshold to 1,000 bytes and see if it improves media streaming. Be aware that using smaller packet adds extra overhead, so you shouldn’t set this value too low. Setting the threshold to the largest value (2,346 bytes) effectively disables fragmentation. Do not change this setting if you are not having media streaming problems.
b. Another parameter that some users experiment with is UPnP Advertisment Period. Some claim lowering this parameter can cause devices to appear faster on the network.
9. Don’t use fancy network setups with multiple subnets and hubs. Doing so can introduce latencies that cause problems with DLNA.
10. If you want to be able to stream multiple high-def videos, make sure there are no 10Mbps routers or switches on your LAN. Use 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet switches instead. They are now surprisingly affordable.
11. Use Cat5e cable. It costs about the same as Cat 5 cable and will enable your network to achieve higher speeds when you upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet.
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Server & Storage Suggestions
1. Store your media on an always-on device like a headless low-power PC or NAS device with an embedded media server.
2. Avoid using UPnP-only media servers like Windows Media Player 11 (Windows Media Connect), iTunes (Bonjour) or Rhapsody if you have access to a DLNA-certified media server like TwonkyMedia or Windows 7.
3. Make sure your media server is DLNA 1.5-certified. If possible, it should be a DLNA reference server (like TwonkyMedia or Macrovision).
4. If you’re running a Gigabit Ethernet network, you should try to use a PC or NAS that supports Gigabit Ethernet. This will speed up your data backup and enable more simultaneous high-def streams between your media server and DMRs that support Gigabit Ethernet (like PCs).
5. If you’re server is a PC, consider running Linux, Windows Home Server or Windows XP over Vista.
6. If you’re using a PC as a server, make sure your virus scanner is not a CPU hog. This can cause problems like skipping during playback.
7. Avoid running firewall software like ZoneAlarm, unless you understand how to configure it so it won't cause problems.
8. Avoid storing media on a network share. It’s better to share content from a hard drive in the same device where the server resides. Network shares increase the traffic on your network and can be unreliable if they are not always online.
9. Be careful which folder you select as your watched folder. Do not select a folder the system constantly updates, like a temp folder, a bit-torrent download folder or the Windows System folder. A watched folder with lots of changes, can really slow down your media server.
Other Suggestions
1. To get the most of your DMRs, use them with Digital Media Controller (DMC). Check to see if a DMC or UPnP controller is available for your Smart phone or PC.
* You can't push media to most game consoles from a Control Point (like TwonkyMedia Manager) because most of them cannot function as a DMR. For this reason, you must the game console as the main interface for streaming media from a DLNA/UPnP server on the network.
This article contains the opinions of the author(s) that do not necessarily reflect those of PacketVideo or DLNA.org. Thanks to Christian Gran, Jim Pfeifer, Angela Scheller and Ken Clapp for contributing to this article.
Copyright 2009-2010 by Rick Schwartz & PacketVideo. All rights reserved. Please do not publish this list elsewhere without permission -- however linking to this document is encouraged.
