Network help (streaming files to my TV)

[Jim]

Hi everybody, I'm having real issues getting what i thought would be a
simple setup to work on my rig, I'll explain what i want to do first and
then the hardware i have second, finally i will supply link to the
various hardware in case you need to refer to that.

I have one one corner of my living my desk which has the main PC, the
router (provided by my ISP O2 and is a re-badged Thomson SpeedTouch
TG587nv2) and a few external hard drives, in a word me and my computer
stuff are all shoved in a corner (ring any bells?), now about 10 meters
away (cable run) is my Sony Bravia KDL-46EX723, right now there is a
simple old PVR (Humax 9200T) connected via a scart lead and then my
normal DVD (Toshiba SD3005) going into one of the HDMI sockets on the
TV, this all works fine I forgot to mention the TV is plugged into the
router via cable NOT wireless.

As it stands right now if i want to watch video files that are on my PC
on the TV I have to bung them on a USB stick and move them over, now
that's not the end of the world, but the Sony is picky about media so I
have been looking at these "Media Players" and i did narrow it down to
the WD TV Live (Gen 3 SMP) and the Apple 2 TV, but in the end i went for
the WD as it did 1080p out of the box as well as mkv, and from my
understanding the ATV2 will only do 720 and no MKV support, however when
you jailbrake it i hear along with XBMC it can do wonders with on-line
streaming etc.

However I have had the WD for a few days now and for the life of me i
can't get the damm thing to see my PC, even WD are stumped and 2nd line
support are coming back to me in the next day or so to see if they can
help, as it stands now i have 6 hard drives in the tower, and one is no
name external USB enclosure, however my plans are to plug 2 new 2TB
drives in my IcyBox IB-RD4320StU3 in RAID1 (i think it's 1 it's
mirroring anyway) and then have that linked into my WD via Ethernet
cable, as i say I alter what is on my media drive almost every day so
plugged into WD via USB is out of the question plus i want the safe
guard of RAID in case it goes down.

Now i'm fairly happy working with a PC but i'd be the first to admit
that i know almost nothing about networking (well i think that's what
it's called), I don't even know how to share a folder between my PC and
laptops, but you can see from above what i want to achieve, does anyone
know if this is even possible using the IcyBox or any other kind of RAID
box that will be connected to a USB 3 card and then allow me to have it
working with the WD TV Live?


My motherboard is an older Asus P5E3 Prem
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5E3_PremiumWiFiAP_n

Sony Bravia KDL-46EX723
http://www.sony.co.uk/product/tv-117-46-lcd/kdl-46ex723

O2 wireless Router
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2_wireless_box

Humax 9200T (reviews)
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/tv-recorders-and-receivers/humax-pvr-9200t-review-39194399
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Humax-PVR9200T-Set-Top-Box/dp/B000BO2F6M

IcyBox IB-RD4320StU3
http://www.raidsonic.de/en/products/details.php?we_objectID=7059

 

[Paul]

Hi everybody, I'm having real issues getting what i thought would be a
simple setup to work on my rig, I'll explain what i want to do first and
then the hardware i have second, finally i will supply link to the
various hardware in case you need to refer to that.

I have one one corner of my living my desk which has the main PC, the
router (provided by my ISP O2 and is a re-badged Thomson SpeedTouch
TG587nv2) and a few external hard drives, in a word me and my computer
stuff are all shoved in a corner (ring any bells?), now about 10 meters
away (cable run) is my Sony Bravia KDL-46EX723, right now there is a
simple old PVR (Humax 9200T) connected via a scart lead and then my
normal DVD (Toshiba SD3005) going into one of the HDMI sockets on the
TV, this all works fine I forgot to mention the TV is plugged into the
router via cable NOT wireless.

As it stands right now if i want to watch video files that are on my PC
on the TV I have to bung them on a USB stick and move them over, now
that's not the end of the world, but the Sony is picky about media so I
have been looking at these "Media Players" and i did narrow it down to
the WD TV Live (Gen 3 SMP) and the Apple 2 TV, but in the end i went for
the WD as it did 1080p out of the box as well as mkv, and from my
understanding the ATV2 will only do 720 and no MKV support, however when
you jailbrake it i hear along with XBMC it can do wonders with on-line
streaming etc.

However I have had the WD for a few days now and for the life of me i
can't get the damm thing to see my PC, even WD are stumped and 2nd line
support are coming back to me in the next day or so to see if they can
help, as it stands now i have 6 hard drives in the tower, and one is no
name external USB enclosure, however my plans are to plug 2 new 2TB
drives in my IcyBox IB-RD4320StU3 in RAID1 (i think it's 1 it's
mirroring anyway) and then have that linked into my WD via Ethernet
cable, as i say I alter what is on my media drive almost every day so
plugged into WD via USB is out of the question plus i want the safe
guard of RAID in case it goes down.

Now i'm fairly happy working with a PC but i'd be the first to admit
that i know almost nothing about networking (well i think that's what
it's called), I don't even know how to share a folder between my PC and
laptops, but you can see from above what i want to achieve, does anyone
know if this is even possible using the IcyBox or any other kind of RAID
box that will be connected to a USB 3 card and then allow me to have it
working with the WD TV Live?


My motherboard is an older Asus P5E3 Prem
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5E3_PremiumWiFiAP_n

Sony Bravia KDL-46EX723
http://www.sony.co.uk/product/tv-117-46-lcd/kdl-46ex723

O2 wireless Router
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2_wireless_box

Humax 9200T (reviews)
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/tv-recorders-and-receivers/humax-pvr-9200t-review-39194399

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Humax-PVR9200T-Set-Top-Box/dp/B000BO2F6M

IcyBox IB-RD4320StU3
http://www.raidsonic.de/en/products/details.php?we_objectID=7059

If I crack open the specs for the TV, it support "DLNA".

http://www.sony.lv/product/tv-117-46-lcd/kdl-46ex723/tab/overview

There is some suggestion here, to make a PC into a DLNA server.
That doesn't tell me though, how permissions or the like are handled,
or what folders are offered. One other multimedia product, came with software
you load on the PC itself, to somehow aid a DNLA setup (making me wonder
whether it's really necessary or not).

http://www.ehow.com/how_6945372_make-computer-dlna-server-ps3.html

According to this, DLNA uses UPnP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Living_Network_Alliance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play

In the other direction, you can add an optional item to the
network control panel on the PC, such that UPnP devices show up
in some map. But I don't know what benefit you'd get from this,
other than yet another reboot to find out

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821980

For me to do this stuff, I'd have to be sitting in front of
the gear, trying one thing after another. And being careful
to backtrack, if some added widget isn't helping.

One problem I have with researching this stuff, is articles
that "tell you how to enable X", seldom explain what protocols
X uses, what ports have to be open, and how "X" might relate to
some thing you might like to get working. And that makes it
very hard to say "do this and this", because the articles
just don't have details.

Paul

 

[Peter]

Hi everybody, I'm having real issues getting what i thought would be a
simple setup to work on my rig, I'll explain what i want to do first and
then the hardware i have second, finally i will supply link to the
various hardware in case you need to refer to that.


As it stands right now if i want to watch video files that are on my PC
on the TV I have to bung them on a USB stick and move them over, now
that's not the end of the world, but the Sony is picky about media so I
have been looking at these "Media Players" and i did narrow it down to
the WD TV Live (Gen 3 SMP) and the Apple 2 TV, but in the end i went for
the WD as it did 1080p out of the box as well as mkv, and from my
understanding the ATV2 will only do 720 and no MKV support, however when
you jailbrake it i hear along with XBMC it can do wonders with on-line
streaming etc.

However I have had the WD for a few days now and for the life of me i
can't get the damm thing to see my PC, even WD are stumped and 2nd line
support are coming back to me in the next day or so to see if they can
help, as it stands now i have 6 hard drives in the tower, and one is no
name external USB enclosure, however my plans are to plug 2 new 2TB
drives in my IcyBox IB-RD4320StU3 in RAID1 (i think it's 1 it's
mirroring anyway) and then have that linked into my WD via Ethernet
cable, as i say I alter what is on my media drive almost every day so
plugged into WD via USB is out of the question plus i want the safe
guard of RAID in case it goes down.

So when you say the WD cannot see your PC, how are you connecting the WD
media player to the computer? Is it going through your router?

What Operating System are you using and have you read up on how to share
files using that O/S.

I have a Cyclone Media player, though it is not one with networking. I
also have an Empire media player which does have networking and it can
detect my shares on my XP computer. However, its media playing
capabilities are pretty useless so I don't bother with it. Whereas the
Cyclone does play most forms of media files currently out there.

Personally, even if I had a decent media player with networking, I doubt
I would want to stream to my tv via it, but would rather download the
file directly onto the media player's drive and then play it directly
from there. Not sure that's how you plan to use yours. This way of use
pretty much eradicates the need for networking because you can plug the
device via USB and upload the media file(s) that way. Then plug it back
into the tv and away you go.

 

[GMAN]

If I crack open the specs for the TV, it support "DLNA".

http://www.sony.lv/product/tv-117-46-lcd/kdl-46ex723/tab/overview

There is some suggestion here, to make a PC into a DLNA server.
That doesn't tell me though, how permissions or the like are handled,
or what folders are offered. One other multimedia product, came with software
you load on the PC itself, to somehow aid a DNLA setup (making me wonder
whether it's really necessary or not).

http://www.ehow.com/how_6945372_make-computer-dlna-server-ps3.html

According to this, DLNA uses UPnP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Living_Network_Alliance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play

In the other direction, you can add an optional item to the
network control panel on the PC, such that UPnP devices show up
in some map. But I don't know what benefit you'd get from this,
other than yet another reboot to find out

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821980

For me to do this stuff, I'd have to be sitting in front of
the gear, trying one thing after another. And being careful
to backtrack, if some added widget isn't helping.

One problem I have with researching this stuff, is articles
that "tell you how to enable X", seldom explain what protocols
X uses, what ports have to be open, and how "X" might relate to
some thing you might like to get working. And that makes it
very hard to say "do this and this", because the articles
just don't have details.

Paul

Paul is correct. You must use either some third party software to share the
media on the pc using DLNA, or you just go into windows media player or if you
have itunes, you can go into it and deep in one of themenues you tell it to
share media. Once that is fone and you tell it what folders etc to share, your
WD box will see the directies and files on your pc. Any other device like a
PS3 or XBOX360 will see them too.


You didnt say what OS your using so heres how to get it to work on XP

http://www.agoraquest.com/viewtopic.php?topic=35037&forum=70


And hers how on Windows 7

http://windows.microsoft.
com/en-US/windows7/Stream-your-media-to-devices-and-computers-using-Windows-Me
dia-Player