I have a DirecTV HR21 receiver that runs Intel ViiV media player code. It plays media fils from my Vista MC server fine. It can browse the WHS and sees media files but cannot thumbnail nor play any of the files. It reports a "can not access" error.
My other media players (well, the PCs and a Pioneer Kuro TV) can play the photos from the WHS fine.
Any hints or troubleshooting suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Dick, the whole media experience is, umm, let's say "not fully baked". This isn't any individual manufacturer's fault, and it's not unique to Windows Home Server. It's because there are dozens of "standards" each of which is subject to enough interpretation that there may be more dozens of implementations of each standard. If TV manufacturer A implements a standard in one way, but media streaming device manufacturer B implements it in a different way, it is entirely possible that TV A won't be able to talk to media streamer B, even though they both implement the same standard. (More likely you'll get reduced functionality; there are usually core components that are required.)
As far as logos and certifications are concerned, usually I believe a manufacturer gets a certification that their equipment supports certain core features of one version of the specification. Then they continue to use that logo for years on that equipment, even though the certification may have moved on since then and made that support obsolete. All the consumer sees is the logo, which they assume is curent.
Regarding Vista vs. Windows Home Server: Windows Media Connect 2.0 (implemented in WHS) is several years old. Vista Media Center is a couple of years old, but still years newer than WMC. And Vista Media Center is the current "state of the art" from Microsoft, at least in terms of retail operating systems with media support. So yes, I would normally expect that Vista will deal better with media than WHS. Which is why I've said repeatedly here in the forums that the recommended solution today is a "two box" solution, where Vista Media Center is using WHS as additional storage, but serving data up itself.
Anyway, what all this adds up to is that the home media enthusiast today needs to pick and choose equipment and software with extreme care. It's not possible to go out and buy a random assortment of media devices and get full streaming functionality for all your media, to and from all devices, without a lot of thought. And it may not be possible for years, which is why home theater pros (especially the ones that set up the high-end whole house media solutions) are so expensive. :( I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
Proposed as answer bykariya21ModeratorThursday, January 1, 2009 4:24 AM
Seems like I've spent all day screwing around wth this stuff.
I've now tested four different media clients with two different media servers for some audio, video, and photo test cases. The results are not too impressive.
All my test cases worked with a Vista client and a Vista Ultimate server.
The Vista client and the WHS did the photos and music fine save no album art for the music. One of my test videos took minutes to start playing.
A Yamaha RX-V3900 (claims all of the WinLogo media stuff) worked fine for music on the Vista Utimate server. It has NEVER indicated that it can see the WHS. Is a Windows Media Connect somehow different from a Vista Ultimate serving media?
A Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-110FD played eveything from both the Vista Ultimate server and the WHS fine save no album art for the music from WHS.
A DirecTV HR21 played photos and music from the Vista Ultimate server just fine. It played one of the test videos (sourced from a Sony DVD camcorder) without audio and refused to play any of the rest including the WMA samples (it's documented that it only plays MPEG2 and these it shows with an X in place of an icon) and .MPG from a Sony still camera believed to also be MPEG2 (which it says "no playable files in this folder" when you try to play). It saw metadata for the photos and audio just fine but reported access errors when trying to play any of these media. From the WHS server, it sees all the videos served up and plays (no access errors!) the ones that came from the camcorder but with no audio. It sees the video files from the still camera and when you try to play them you are back to "no playable files".
Now I know that there are way too many competing media file formats that are not always implemented the same and may or may not be compliant and I know that there are lots of very buggy devices out there and all of that. But when several devices have MUCH MORE success with a Vista Ultimate machine serving media than they have with WHS serving many of the exact same media files, that seems like it just might be reflective of some issues that belong at some level to WHS.
Microsoft in particular and all of the home electronics companies in general seem disappointed that we haven't all adopted all of this home media "convergence" stuff at the rate they'd like. I've made my way up to a Microsoft MVP. I work and play with computers for fun and profit and have done so for decades now. If I struggle to get this stuff to work at a 60% success rate, what, pray tell, do these people think the vast bulk of users of this stuff will do??!? And do any of these people ever actually test any of this stuff?
Dick, the whole media experience is, umm, let's say "not fully baked". This isn't any individual manufacturer's fault, and it's not unique to Windows Home Server. It's because there are dozens of "standards" each of which is subject to enough interpretation that there may be more dozens of implementations of each standard. If TV manufacturer A implements a standard in one way, but media streaming device manufacturer B implements it in a different way, it is entirely possible that TV A won't be able to talk to media streamer B, even though they both implement the same standard. (More likely you'll get reduced functionality; there are usually core components that are required.)
As far as logos and certifications are concerned, usually I believe a manufacturer gets a certification that their equipment supports certain core features of one version of the specification. Then they continue to use that logo for years on that equipment, even though the certification may have moved on since then and made that support obsolete. All the consumer sees is the logo, which they assume is curent.
Regarding Vista vs. Windows Home Server: Windows Media Connect 2.0 (implemented in WHS) is several years old. Vista Media Center is a couple of years old, but still years newer than WMC. And Vista Media Center is the current "state of the art" from Microsoft, at least in terms of retail operating systems with media support. So yes, I would normally expect that Vista will deal better with media than WHS. Which is why I've said repeatedly here in the forums that the recommended solution today is a "two box" solution, where Vista Media Center is using WHS as additional storage, but serving data up itself.
Anyway, what all this adds up to is that the home media enthusiast today needs to pick and choose equipment and software with extreme care. It's not possible to go out and buy a random assortment of media devices and get full streaming functionality for all your media, to and from all devices, without a lot of thought. And it may not be possible for years, which is why home theater pros (especially the ones that set up the high-end whole house media solutions) are so expensive. :( I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
Proposed as answer bykariya21ModeratorThursday, January 1, 2009 4:24 AM
They all ought to be embarassed. When nobody takes this stuff seriously a decade from no, they will be able to look back and realize the long-term opportunity they all squandered trying to capture a bit of short-term market share from the next guy by being first to market with ____ that just didn't work.
