Nokia N95 and UPNP
Finally i got it….at first it was a mess, some explanations on what does what:
- Media Server: it serves the content on the network
- Media Renderer: it renders the content served by a media server
So I actually needed both on my gentoo linux.
Probably the easiest way to browse content served by upnp servers is djmount , it works as a FUSE file system ( that can be mounted by a normal user) and it looks for all the upnp devices in a network. It works very well even with content provided by Windows Vista (or better from the Media Player that comes with windows vista). You create a directory and simply “djmount it”, in that directory there will be other subdirectories , one for each media server you have in your network.
Easy and working but not that cool, I mean…all this new stuff and , in the end, I still have to browse directories. I’m not using these new things just because I don’t want to plug in an usb cable, I’m not that lazy. So I went searching in various forums another solution.
My first choice as media server was ushare, somehow connected to the geexbox project but it had its limitation, one above all that it doesn’t read tags, so when you copy a music file to another device you must retag it manually. Another problem was the init script that didn’t work that well and I didn’t have time/will to fix it. Mediatomb seems the definitive choice to me, it seems a nice project, it reads metadata and has a built in sqlite backend. (you can use mysql too but i don’t have the server on my box). Mediatomb has a webserver you can connect to and you can add/delete content to your share and chose how to rescan your library , you can chose inotify on that ( if you are using beagle you should already have inotify in your kernel).
When it goes to the Media Renderer it seems that there is not much choice yet, but there is some and in particular there is gmediarenderer from the GNU guys. GmediaRender , as the names says, it’s able to render content served from a MediaServer, it needs gstreamer as a backend for all the codecs (it actually uses gstreamer to render the stream ). If you have gmediarender running you can simply go to your nokia N95 media player , chose a song and in options chose “execute on personal network” ( or something like that) and your computer (not the phone) will sound. You can do the same for videos or pictures.
What about coherence? I have it installed and the rhythmbox plugins actually works , I can see my N95 and browse its contents but you can’t (yet) make rhythmbox work as a MediaRenderer. Coherence is supposed to be a full UPNP solution with its server, renderer and controller but the people who develop it are very good in making Youtube videos but not that good to explain the world “how the hell that damn thing works”.
What is missing? On my nokia I can chose to copy or move stuff to my personal network, I can’t do it and don’t know what part of this upnp mess should provide this feature.
Kuang, 
roxen, 
and 2 others are discussing. 
elio, 
ANDREA and 6 others are discussing. 
Grazie per la tempestiva risposta gas, ormai approfitto della tua gentilezza per farti un’altra domanda, non è che sai come viene gestita la garanzia nokia con un cell comprato in cina??? ossia se mi si blocca o cose del genere me lo aggiusteranno in italia???? grazie ancora e ciao
dev 00:05 on 17 marzo 2008 Permalink |
I can now tell you a bit more why the N95 doesn’t work together with Coherence.
The long story you can read here: https://coherence.beebits.net/wiki/NokiaN95
In a nutshell it’s due to a flaw in the Symbian UPnP stack, that doesn’t react on UPnP v2 devices, which Coherence announces itself as default.
I’m trying to find a solution for this, unfortunately limiting Coherence to v1 isn’t a good one, as that interferes with other things we are working on. :-/
The whole idea behind UPnP is “that these damn things work”, so if that Symbian stack would follow the spec only a ‘ little bit’ more, you would happily browse and control Rhythmbox/Coherence via UPnP.
Re your question about copying things from the Nokia to the UPnP MediaServer, there are methods in the ContentDirectory service there, that allow creating and importing of media objects – music, images,…
The Nokia phones are actually one of the first consumer devices, that unveil these methods to a broader audience. What a shame they fail on such a basic level.
It seems to be fixed in a future versions of S60 3rd, but I have no idea if that will be available for our ‘older’ phones.
Ciao,
dev
zx 02:04 on 14 febbraio 2009 Permalink |
Hi,
could you please explain how you have setup the gmediarender.
I was able to compile it and also to start it. Here are the last lines of the output:
gmediarender
…
Registering support for ‘application/x-gdp’
Registering support for ‘audio/x-ttafile’
Registering support for ‘application/x-icy’
Registering support for ‘video/x-mve’
registering ‘/upnp/rendertransportSCPD.xml’
registering ‘/upnp/renderconnmgrSCPD.xml’
registering ‘/upnp/rendercontrolSCPD.xml’
Ready for rendering..
GStreamer: play: State change: OLD: ‘NULL’, NEW: ‘READY’, PENDING: ‘VOID_PENDING’
But I don’t have any clue how to use it. The documentation is a little bit limited
The gmediarender is not found by my control point.
Regards,
zx
Anonimo 15:27 on 25 febbraio 2009 Permalink |
Hi,
I am also facing same problem …Any one have solution for it
Regards,
Avinash Magdum
roxen 11:36 on 18 marzo 2009 Permalink |
Hi all,
me too.. I have the same problem..
Does anyone know a good how to for gmediarender??
Regards,
Roxen
Kuang 00:01 on 31 luglio 2009 Permalink |
I got the same problem. Let me know when you get to know how to do next