Links

Bergin-IT Gizmoot

Direct link to iTunes App Store

My comments

This happens to be the latest DLNA controller program for the iPhone or iPod Touch and is available for free from the iTunes App Store. This program also is ad-supported through the iAd network that exists for iOS software. At the moment, it isn’t designed to work well with the iPad.

The functionality is basic in that it allows you to browse your media on a DLNA (UPnP AV) media server and have it play on a DLNA (UPnP AV) Media Renderer. This would be considered basic compared to the likes of PlugPlayer in that it wouldn’t allow you to play the media from the Media Server through the iPhone, nor would it support downloading or uploading between the Media Server and the iPhone’s local storage.

It can support playlists and slideshows so you can have your Samsung TV or WDTV Live run a sequence of media under the control of your iPhone.

I would still recommend this app for people who want to get going with UPnP AV / DLNA “three-box” setups and they have equipment that can be controlled through a UPnP AV / DLNA control point. This would be more so with network AV media adaptors which you want to press in to service for audio playback and you don’t necessarily need to have the TV on so you can select music to listen to. You may even think of using this program with that iPod Touch or iPhone 3GS that you have set aside because you have moved to the ultra-cool iPhone 4, so that the old phone can be part of the DLNA Home Media Network.

Click on this link to view the video if it doesn’t show up on your device.

Direct link to the Twonky website

No doubt you may have decided to go towards an Android smartphone or tablet device and it may not have come with an adequate DLNA media app. There is another DLNA so

Judging from this video, I could see that the Twonky Mobile app can do what is expected of a DLNA control point app for a mobile phone or tablet device. It can even link with online content like podcasts or YouTube videos that you pull up through your Internet browsing as well as the content that is in your phone or DLNA media servers.

To get at this software, you would have to go to the Android Market and hunt for “Twonky Mobile” and is currently free for a short time.

News Article

PROMISE Technology Announces General Availability of SmartStor Zero and Its Fusion Stream DLNA Digital Media Apps | DMN NewsWire

From the horse’s mouth

SmartStor Fusion Stream

My comments and notes

SmartStor Fusion Stream app

The SmartStor Fusion Stream app is another program that integrates a smartphone or tablet computer based on the iOS or Android platforms in to a standards-based DLNA Home Media Network.

It is capable of what is nowadays expected for a smartphone-based DLNA network media app. That is it can play or show media held anywhere in the DLNA Home Media Network on the device itself or a DLNA Media Renderer device capable of accepting media that is “pushed” to it from a control device.

Another key feature is that it integrates the local storage with the DLNA Home Media Network. Here, you can upload pictures or videos taken with the device’s camera to a DLNA-compliant media server that supports the upload function. It can also download media held in the DLNA Home Media Network to the device’s local storage so it can be enjoyed “on the go”.

The ability to download content held on a DLNA Media Server to the local storage of an iOS or Android device with this software could be handy especially for iOS users who want to add selected pictures to their device without having to perform special sync routines. This is because iTunes doesn’t seem to support “drag-n-drop” syncing of pictures that a user selects to an iOS device – a feature that can come in handy if an iPod Touch or iPad is put in to service as an electronic photo album or digital photo frame.

A main question that I would have at the moment would be whether pictures and videos that come in to a smartphone that runs this software can be shown via a DLNA screen or uploaded to a DLNA Media Server if they came in via email, MMS picture or Bluetooth? Similarly, I would like to be sure that the program doesn’t impair the performance of the smartphone or device; or doesn’t take too long to browse the a DLNA media collection on a server.

This program could raise the bar when it comes to DLNA interface programs for mobile phones and internet tablets.

SmartStor Zero

The SmartStor Zero is another two-bay network-attached storage device which is optimised to work as a media server. As well as serving media to DLNA equipment and iTunes clients, it can accept content that is uploaded from mobile devices that are equipped with DLNA-Upload software like most of the DLNA-integration software for the Android platform and the abovementioned Fusion Stream app for the iPhone.

This device’s Web-based user interface has the ability to become an access point for the media held on the NAS. But it supports the ability to allow one to directly upload selected pictures to Facebook whether to a new album or as extra images for an existing album.

Another bonus is that the Installation software doesn’t add any drivers or other components to allow a computer to gain access to the NAS. Instead, the software works with the host operating system’s network-storage capabilities to “find” the NAS and provide a mount point or mapped drive letter for the storage resources.

One feature that I would like the DLNA software to benefit from is to support the photo tags that are part of iPhoto or Windows Live Photo Gallery. This could even include the People Tags and Geotags that Windows Live Photo Gallery supports so as to allow one to search or browse for people in the photo library using the user interface provided by a DLNA-compliant media player or control point.

Previously, I have mentioned in this site about PlugPlayer which is a DLNA Media Controller app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I have cited it more as a solution to bridge this popular smartphone with the DLNA Home Media Network.

Now this app has been ported to the iPad and is able to take advantage of the larger screen area offered by this new device. It is mostly based on the iPhone version but there are plans to make this app use all the assets of the iPad as it is revised.

This may appeal to those of you who want to see the iPad work as a coffee-table control point for the DLNA Home Media Network or bring up pictures and videos held on a network-attached storage on the iPad.

As well, any of you who own a Linn DS network-audio streamer that works with Cara software can be sure that the latest version of this software will offer the full functionality of the latest firmware. This includes on/standby, access to Internet radio as well as source selection.

HTC Unveils a DLNA-based ‘Media Link’ for Handset TV Streaming | eHomeUpgrade

My comments

At the moment, Samsung has already delivered a DLNA media control point / server with their Android handsets in the form of AllShare. This would have meant that someone who had an HTC Desire or wanted to start a mobile service contract using an HTC Android handset would have had to visit Android Marketplace to add on TwonkyMedia Server and Andromote to add on DLNA media-sharing / media-control functionality to their handset.

But HTC is intending to supply a “Media Link” app with their newer Android handsets to integrate them in to the DLNA Home Media Network. At the moment, this app is standard with the upcoming Desire Z and HD handsets and is intended to be available for newer HTC Android handsets.

The main issue I have with this app is whether it is available as an in-place upgrade or add-on for existing HTC Android handsets or will these users need to look towards Andromote and TwonkyMedia Server?

From what I have gleaned about this program, it seems to be able to work with content held on the handset but I would like to know whether a person can use the handset to have content held on another DLNA media server like a NAS playing on the DLNA-enabled media player or be able to “pull-down” selected content held on the DLNA media server to the phone via the network.

It is still worth keeping an eye on the Android market for apps that may do the job better than whatever comes with the phone, especially if you are after more DLNA functionality.

Web site

AndroMote – An Android UPnP Remote Control

You can pick the software up at the Android MarketPlace using your Android device.

My Comments

Previously, TwonkyMedia have released a version of the TwonkyMedia Server for the Android platform but this program presents media that is held in your Android device to the UPnP AV / DLNA Home Media Network. It doesn’t offer any way for you to play media already available on the network through your Android device nor does it allow you to “push” media to another UPnP AV / DLNA device for playback or control its playback on that device.

Now another German developer have shown up with a UPnP AV control point / media player for the Android platform. This will allow you to use phones like the HTC Desire to control playback of media on UPnP MediaRenderer devices or “bring down” media available on your UPnP MediaServer to your phone for instant playback.

I had observed on the site that there is a wish for people to copy a “collection” of media like an album from the UPnP MediaServer to the Android phone’s local storage. But could this function be available for an upcoming version?

It is now becoming very real that a programmable mobile phone platform like the iPhone or the Android can be part of the UPnP AV / DLNA Home Media Network once people write software that provides media-service, media-control or media-playback functionality for the platform.

TwonkyMedia have capitalised on their UPnP AV / DLNA expertise and developed a browser helper object that can play user-selected music, pictures and video from a Web site that you are browsing on to a DLNA-enabled media renderer device “there and then”.

What is TwonkyBeam

TwonkyBeam is a browser helper object which allows you to “push” media found on a Web page to your UPnP AV-enabled media device(s). This can come in handy with YouTube videos, Facebook or Flickr photos, last.fm music or similar sites where you may want to have the media on devices other than your PC’s screen or your laptop’s tinny speakers.

At the moment, the program has been written to work with Windows and Internet Explorer, but will be ported to other desktop Web-viewing environments.

How does it work

Once the software is installed, there is a window that lists all compatible media on the Website and you select which media you want to use. As you select the different media, the media file’s URL is highlighted in the main Web page. In that same window, there is a list of UPnP AV-enabled media players on your network that accept “push” content.

The user identifies the media player that they want to push the media to and selects the media to be viewed in the media list. Then, to show the image, they press the “play” button in that window above the media player list.

On the other hand, the user can right-click on the link and select “TwonkyBeam to” as a way of putting the media on to the DLNA device.

Limitations with certain Websites

At the moment, the current version that is available is a “rough diamond” beta version. In some ways, the program doesn’t provide full access to photo albums that are broken in to groups of, say, 20. This may limit its usefulness with large Facebook photo albums or Flickr photostreams, which is what I have often used the program with when testing it against the “TwonkyMedia Manage UPnP AV Media Renderer”. Nor does it provide access to embedded media clips like most of YouTube’s pages or video clips that are set up in news articles, blogs and social-networking sites. These are the ones where there are playback controls integrated in to the site’s user interface and you can typically see the video in the Web page.

Web developers may have to provide an “all images” view as an option for photo albums or write a “link” URL for video clips that are ordinarily embedded to work around the limitation. The “link” URL could be part of the article’s copy or as a separate link under the embedded video.

Development ideas

One way of improving this program would be for Websites to support media XML files that describe the primary media assets. This would include collections that are broken up in to paginated groups like most Web photo albums.

Similarly, there could be support for handling Flash-embedded videos that are common to YouTube sites and most Web sites that include video material. This could be looked at through the development of applets that “click on” to TwonkyBeam and similar programs and expose the video clips to these programs.

Conclusion

This program can work as a “quick and easy” way to get media that is in a Web site up on to the large screen or better speakers of a DLNA-connected TV or stereo system. It could, in some ways, legitimise the need for one of the Sony or Samsung DLNA-enabled flatscreen TVs in the office or conference room.

The review will be updated whenever the beta version of this program is “polished up” and ready for full release.