Wow. I'm really impressed! Freenas?

[DavidHB]

(01-06-2015 10:51)n3mmr Wrote:  My Sony BDP-S370, however, claims that minimserver does not support DLNA....???
That machine is really old, but as audio players go, it's very good, and it works well with Serviio since the first beta. What gives? Is that special to this FreeBSD version, or is it always so for these Sony BDP-s??

I hope that Simon can help you with this issue; there may be something in the log that enables him to see what the Sony player is really doing (it has to be doing something, to generate the message).

In the meantime, it is worth noting that the error message from the Sony is half (or perhaps 25%) correct. MinimServer is not DLNA certified, and AFAIK Simon has no plans to make it so. The point here is that DLNA is more (and in some ways also less) than a standard; it is a trade association (the 'A' stands for 'Alliance') which sets a particular standard and certifies its members' products as being compliant with that standard. Within the standard there are certain restrictions compliant products must observe as well as certain capabilities they must provide.

One aspect of the DLNA specification that might come as a surprise is that it references remarkably few audio formats. None of the Apple formats are supported (Apple is not a member of DLNA), nor are important open source formats such as FLAC. DLNA devices are not required to play unsupported formats, and many do not do so. So my DLNA-compliant TV, for example, can see the whole of the MinimServer browse tree, but cannot play the FLAC files it references.

MinimServer, for its part, is compliant with the UPnP AV standard for media streaming. Because DLNA uses the UPnP messaging protocols, most DLNA-certified products are generally compatible with MinimServer. The User Guide says:

"There's another standard named DLNA that's very similar to UPnP AV. If a component in a digital audio network supports DLNA, it should be compatible with other components that support UPnP AV, and vice versa."

Sony is the founder of DLNA, and maybe it takes (or did take) a more restrictive view of compatibility than other companies. It may just be that MinimServer uses features of the UPnP control set that your Sony device does not support, and the reference to DLNA in the message is a red herring. Or it may relate to unsupported file formats, as previously described.

From what Simon has told us, there is nothing in the DLNA specification to prevent manufacturers adding features to the basic set, provided that their product remains complaint, so there is no blanket ban on compatibility with non-DLNA products. It will be interesting if you and he can identify what is really going on.

David