DLNA for ATRAC anyone?

[sfbp]

Do y'all know about DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance)? Well, I was looking around for something to manage video files on my network after I discovered that the free product (AllShare) from Samsung crashed under the load of too many files.

DLNA has been around as a more-or-less-standard since 2003. It means in principle that someone can write a DLNA client and talk to any DLNA server, or provide a DLNA server that can be used by any DLNA client. This is an improvement on custom solutions because one is not locked in to a single vendor, and because future devices can be supported by innovative techies writing software of one sort or another.

This last year saw me get my feet wet in the tablet (and smartphone) market with no less than 3 different android devices from different manufacturers. The point is that there's software for Android (from independent third party authors) that will play MP3, WAV, WMA, etc etc, in addition to handling a bunch of video formats. That's by the bye. But what DID occur to me was "wouldn't it be nice if I could stream ATRAC?". I am even thinking of iPad owners

So when I researched to find a DLNA server, I ended up finding one in Australia, and spent much of the last month first getting everything working with my various devices (including 2 TVs and also Windows Media Player), then convincing the author to add ATRAC conversion and streaming. The result is that there's a version almost does everything one might want available, and I guess there's going to be an announcement sometime soon. But the present post is to see what level of interest there might be.

If you want to get some preview information, feel free to PM me. I'm not being deliberately mysterious (anyone with half a brain will find it in about 10 seconds) but I respect the right of the members here not to get spammed. To give you a clue, the on-demand conversion is being done by ffmpeg, which is a direct spin off from the #linux-minidisc project, and allows even copy-protected files to be played (sadly Atrac3+ aka HiMD awaits the next release or so of ffmpeg, but rest assured that is in the works).

ATRAC lives.....!?!?

[sfbp]

Time to bump this one a little. I have spent a lot of time going backwards and forwards with the developer. He and I should be able to have an interesting dialog about his product here, provided no one objects too much. One reason I haven't pushed hard, myself, is that some of the ATRAC stuff is just coming onstream right now, and I wouldn't want ANYONE to get misled into getting on board too soon. But it's looking really really good.

Seems to me that this is the answer to prayer for many many of you out there. I'd love to hear a few comments, even negative ones. I have nothing to gain except the satisfaction that ATRAC will continue to get used in the network-based systems of the future.

Stephen

[dvlpr]

Hi all,

I'll briefly step in here and would like to say that I'm happy to discuss using DLNA, how DLNA works and why it's a good solution, especially if you have multiple devices in your home that you wish to listen to your music on (or watch movies or photos).

If you tried DLNA before and had a bad experience (it didn't work or wasn't what you expected), let's see if we can make it work for you now.

(note by sfbp: Dennis is the developer - WELCOME! I hope he will find us friendly, as he's done something quite special for the ATRAC community within his product and at my suggestion).

Edited February 25, 2013 by sfbp
Admin: explanation

[sfbp]

I personally am absolutely overjoyed that I can not only watch all my movies and TV shows on tablets, phone, tv's as well as any PC (some of this I could do before but none of the solutions were very clean or reliable), but also listen to ATRAC anywhere in the house without converting it all first to some other format.