I have a LinkStation Live, I think (it's at home)... 500 GB, etc. etc. and have been using this not only as a network share, but also as a UPnP server to my Wifi Nokia N810. I edit my vacation videos to MPEG-1 for review and then watch them on the N810. Lots of fun. Now I noticed after some time that I wasn't getting the right folders shown, both on the N810 and using the UPnP tools available from Intel - these will show you what folders are being exposed by the UPnP A/V Media Server.
So, I rebooted the Linkstation, then went to the PCast setup, did a rescan of the folders, but nothing showed up on the UPnP devices at all! Then, lo and behold, the next day, everything was fine and where I expected it. All I can conclude is something I learned when I was hacking the Kurobox briefly earlier this year to make it run an iTunes (Firefly) server - is that the database may take quite some time to rebuild, and unless you have telnet access to the box to see what it's really doing, the web interface doesn't tell you very much.
Finally, I used to be able to get to the MediaBolic login, I thought, by just clicking on the icon shown in My Network Places (Win XP Pro), but now that just takes me to the web login.
This stuff isn't really documented very well - what's the relationship between PCast and MediaBolic? Several articles I read said that PCast wasn't REALLY a UPnP Media Server, but something on the box is really acting like one because my N810 gets it just beautifully (assuming you wait long enough for your files to be scanned and added to the database).
Anyone have a deeper insight into this?
Thanks,
DL
Hi Matt_M,
I want to share with you an interesting observation after jumping to 2.11 firmware (LS Live 500 Gb w/ gigabit). I am using an HP MediaSmart Connect x280N (DLNA media render / Control Point) over wireless N, the backend is a D-Link DIR-655.
I upgraded the firmware in the LSL as the MSC would not discover the LSL reliably. For background on the initial issue, once the LSL was software restarted, notify messages from the LSL would flow (as monitored by Intel uPNP toolset) - basically the LSL would go silent and the MSC would not discover the backend on its own; the HP gateway software would pull media from the backend, but this required the XP box be up an running.
Well after the firmware upgrade, Media Server discovery is not longer a problem with the MSC and music streams fine. (I rip WMA to the NAS from Media Player 11) Video from a Sony HDD based camcorder is in a "video" sub directory off parent "share".
Now... before the upgrade I could navigate to the video folder via the MSC and play the content without problems. The Windows XP box would launch the MPEG media from the share point without issues as well. Problem now is the MSC cannot recursor the video share point on the NAS. The parent "video" directory is present but I cannot drill down to the subdirectories (a shared media error is presented on the MSC).
For testing I setup the Intel Media Control Point tool and confirmed I can "discover" all the Video content on the LSL.
So.. Media Player is oK and the Intel tools confirms the ability to discover the content but the MSC will not following LSL firmware upgrade. (I have flashed the DLNA DB with the PCAST tool - no change)
Now the only change was the firmware upgrade on the LSL backend and now no video content is presented to the MSC (DLNA certified)...
I asked the Support Engineering a Buffalo for a summary/white paper/readme of the fixes in 2.1 but nothing was available.
As a user, it would be nice to know if the Content Directory Service and or Connection Manager Service have changed. My next step is to convert or download some different video formats as standards to test if the issue is related to transfer protocol/format combination (Connection manager service).
Finally the MSC uses a "gateway service" to expose the control point to more formats ( I assume some form of transcoding) but content discovery and connection management should be point to point if both sides are DLNA compliant.
Any idea?