Front Row uPnP Support

Graeme Ison wrote:
Hi,

I am trying to play networked media on my Mac, and so far have come up with nothing but a blank.

I was hoping that Front Row could (or would in the future) support uPnP media sharing.

I have a Mediatomb server running on my network that can be seen by other machines, but not the Mac.

Any suggestions? Or timeframes for support?

Thanks,
Graeme

Typically people want to do it the other way round, that is have media on a Mac and share it to a media playing device. There are several UPnP server programs for the Mac to do this.

However the Mac seems less well served for software to let it be a client to a UPnP server. Apparently VLC can do this (with an add-on), but it will not integrate with Front Row in a way that will meet your needs. Likewise I believe SlimServer can act both as a UPnP client and server but again will not integrate with Front Row.

It looks like you will either have to make your Mac the server, or perhaps make the existing UPnP server also a file server in to which the Mac can login and then access the media files. It should then be possible to add them to iTunes / Front Row.

Graeme Ison wrote:
Thanks for the reply John.

I have noticed this myself - as you say, most want to do it the other way round.

I cant do this at present, as I don't have any other means to play the content other than my Macbook Pro at the moment, hence the question.

I have tried creating an alias in my Movies folder which is mapped to the shared files on my server - it is a Debian Linux box with mediatomb running. I am however running a wireless network, and this is at best... an impractical solution...

What is most frustrating is that all this was easy with my previous Windows environment - something I am loathe to go back to....

Anyone who knows how to achieve this with VLC - suggestions here please 😉 I have VLC but can't seem to find this elusive addon.

Thanks again 🙂

Perhaps upgrading to 802.11n will help, or if you are merely in a different room of the house (and not using a laptop) you could consider Ethernet over powerlines.

I think you have to compile this module into VLC, rather than it being simply a file you install. So you would have to go to the VLC site, download the source code, compile it and then use it.

Ironically, MediaTomb is available for Mac OS X.

Now that I know what server you currently have, a couple of other options suggest themselves but would only help for music files.

1. You can install SlimServer for Linux see http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html you can then either use the web interface to access it, or a Java client called "SoftSqueeze" which will act as a software equivalent to their hardware players.

2. You can install a DAAP server for Linux. DAAP is the underlying protocol iTunes uses for sharing its library across a network. The original name for this is/was mt-daapd but is now called Firefly see http://www.fireflymediaserver.org/index.php

With Firefly/mt-daapd installed, iTunes on a Mac (and hence Front Row) will see it as if it was another iTunes sharing its library.

As far as I can see both the above solutions are limited to just music files (not video) but both should support MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, or any other music format you want (but not protected iTunes Store tracks).

I have used Firefly running on both Windows and Mac OS X and successfully connected to it using iTunes.

I've found a way to do video -- it's a bit of a hack but seems to work.

I have a linux server with my movies, sharing via samba.

Using Finder, I open the movies folder on the linux server. Then, using the terminal, you can create a soft link from your home directory's "Movies" folder to the linux folder (located in /Volumes/ ....

After that, you should be able to browse / play your videos in Front Row .. just pick "Movies Folder" and browse down.

I don't think this will survive reboots, and I'm not sure how long the volume will stay mounted, but it's working now.

To have those shares survive a reboot you need to add them as startup items in your account profile.
To do this:
Go to System Preferences, select accounts, make sure your user profile is selected, click the Login Items tab, Press the + sign on the right hand side, navigate to the shared folder and press enter. You'll need to repeat this process for each shared folder. The folders will open at startup and will be available from front row.