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Does VLC work with MinimServer?
16-09-2013, 15:25
Post: #1
Question Does VLC work with MinimServer?
While experimenting with MinimServer configuration on my Windows PC, I thought it would be convenient to keep everything within that computer, rather than having to switch on all my AV kit. For this reason, I tried to use VLC as my player. However, I can't get VLC to display the MinimServer browser tree.

When I look at View > Playlist > Local Network > Universal Plug'n'Play in VLC I can see all my UPnP/DLNA servers, including MinimServer, but MinimServer is the only server that doesn't let me browse its files.

What am I missing here?

David
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16-09-2013, 23:49
Post: #2
RE: Does VLC work with MinimServer?
(16-09-2013 15:25)haggis999 Wrote:  While experimenting with MinimServer configuration on my Windows PC, I thought it would be convenient to keep everything within that computer, rather than having to switch on all my AV kit. For this reason, I tried to use VLC as my player. However, I can't get VLC to display the MinimServer browser tree.

When I look at View > Playlist > Local Network > Universal Plug'n'Play in VLC I can see all my UPnP/DLNA servers, including MinimServer, but MinimServer is the only server that doesn't let me browse its files.

What am I missing here?

David

I've just tried this. The problem is that VLC has a rather "dumb" implementation of UPnP that attempts to download the entire server browse tree as part of the UPnP discovery process. See this page.

With "conventional" UPnP music servers, there is a single browsing path to each item, so the browse tree contains each item exactly once. In contrast, the MinimServer browse tree provides multiple browsing paths to each item, which makes it appear to VLC as if each item appears hundreds or thousands of times in the browse tree (a combinatorial explosion). You might need to leave VLC running for days or weeks for this download process to complete, and either VLC or MinimServer would run out of resources long before that.

I'll add a note to the MinimServer User guide explaining this incompatibilty.
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16-09-2013, 23:52
Post: #3
RE: Does VLC work with MinimServer?
Thanks for that explanation, Simon. Is there another Windows-based player you would recommend?

David
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17-09-2013, 00:01
Post: #4
RE: Does VLC work with MinimServer?
(16-09-2013 23:52)haggis999 Wrote:  Thanks for that explanation, Simon. Is there another Windows-based player you would recommend?

David

foobar2000 works OK with MinimServer because it downloads the top-level menu of the browse tree initially and then downloads further sections of the browse tree dynamically as they are selected by the user.
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17-09-2013, 00:25
Post: #5
RE: Does VLC work with MinimServer?
I installed Foobar2000 on my PC a long time ago and then forgot I even possessed this application. With the addition of the UPnP component, it does indeed give me access to MinimServer's browsing tree. Thanks for the suggestion.

David
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