What I have done to this point.

I am going to start blogging about everything I do, and the tools that I use as well as links to various places that might be of interest. I might also do some tutorials or some other documentation here for anyone interested in media streaming (DLNA specifically) and things of that nature. I will probably just rant about various things here at some point also, thus this thing could have anything on it!

I currently have a couple Ubuntu 8.04 boxes (The Hardy Heron), one of them has VirtualBox on it and I run three MS operating systems on them. Two Windows 2003 servers, one with IIS and the other with SQL 2005 with the full suite of tools. I am a developer and this is my test lab if you will that allows me to program and play in the world I have a career in.

I have tried all the "Major" DLNA streaming software out there from TVersity, Twonky, MediaTomb and ORB (the major 4 if you will) and all of them I have had various problems with. Each having it's own set of idiosyncrasies. I will outline my experiences and what I have done in the coming posts, perhaps I will post one for each streaming software and give you my thoughts on each and also then what kind of hardware and what I have done with the house to facilitate what I have in my house.

I do know one thing, that I believe my PS3 is what my major problem is with. I have moved content directly to the PS3 and it acts almost the same was as the streaming software and servers I have. I have followed TVersities comments (the best documented anywhere, just have to sift through the forums to get the info) and there is a tool there called Cidero which I will also post about just to have some information on that particular piece of software on the blog and in my history so I can refer back to it at some point. That tool lets you connect to a DLNA server and basically "surf it" and create a play list that you can then open I believe with a DLNA player (I think Windows Media would do this? Not sure, haven't gone that far.) But this tool from Cidero can surf every aspect of all the media of all the major DLNA servers listed above without a problem (Pictures, Music and Movies). But on the PS3 on some it works with Movies but not Music or Pictures, and on some it works on Music but not the other.

I tend to think the whole DLNA is still in it's infancy and really things are not done shaking out with having a really solid DLNA server or DLNA consuming device that is easy to use for the whole family and just "works" out of the box if you will. If I can find the right combinations of things, I will be posting that on this blog all my trials and tribulations on this subject.

If anyone has interesting media streaming blogs or anything of that nature, please put them in the comments or e-mail me I would love to hear about them.

Okay enough blabbing for now! More posts to come.