minidlna config

[nesta...@gmail.com]

Can someone, please who know what they're doing, because I clearly don't; show me how to configure this server to point to files.

A test movie and music is here: \\Allseasons\new4all\sda2\Public\RW

And I put that at the bottom of the config file, such as: media_dir=V, \\Allseasons\new4all\sda2\Public\RW

And I get a "minidnla.c:475: error: Media directory Allseasons\new4all\sda2\Public\RW" not accessible ! No such file or directory"

Thanks a lot in advance.

[TJ]

In the brief time I used minidlna, I kept to the gui. I'm happy to configure it through the gui and post the resulting config in plain text. I'm away from my box, so give me about 6 or 7 hours.

T.J.

[nesta...@gmail.com]

I did not even know of a gui interface, looking forward to your help pointing me there and your config.

Cheers

[TJ]

I created 3 folders in mnt/sda:

 

test

 

test folder

 

test&folder test

 

I put a few photos in each, and setup through webgui. Here is my resulting .config file:

 

 

 

# port for HTTP (descriptions, SOAP, media transfer) traffic
port=8200

# network interface to bind to (this is the only interface that will serve files)
network_interface=eth0

# set this if you want to customize the name that shows up on your clients
friendly_name=miniDLNA

# set this if you would like to specify the directory where you want MiniDLNA to store its database and album art cache
db_dir=/var/lib/minidlna

# set this if you would like to specify the directory where you want MiniDLNA to store its log file
log_dir=/var/log

# set this to change the verbosity of the information that is logged
# each section can use a different level: off, fatal, error, warn, info, or debug
#log_level=general,artwork,database,inotify,scanner,metadata,http,ssdp,tivo=warn

# this should be a list of file names to check for when searching for album art
# note: names should be delimited with a forward slash ("/")
album_art_names=Cover.jpg/cover.jpg/AlbumArtSmall.jpg/albumartsmall.jpg/AlbumArt.jpg/albumart.jpg/Album.jpg/album.jpg/Folder.jpg/folder.jpg/Thumb.jpg/thumb.jpg

# set this to no to disable inotify monitoring to automatically discover new files
# note: the default is yes
inotify=yes

# set this to yes to enable support for streaming .jpg and .mp3 files to a TiVo supporting HMO
enable_tivo=no

# set this to strictly adhere to DLNA standards.
# * This will allow server-side downscaling of very large JPEG images,
#   which may hurt JPEG serving performance on (at least) Sony DLNA products.
strict_dlna=no

# default presentation url is http address on port 80
#presentation_url=http://www.mylan/index.php

# notify interval in seconds. default is 895 seconds.
notify_interval=900

# serial and model number the daemon will report to clients
# in its XML description
serial=12345678
model_number=1

# specify the path to the MiniSSDPd socket
#minissdpdsocket=/var/run/minissdpd.sock

# use different container as root of the tree
# possible values:
#   + "." - use standard container (this is the default)
#   + "B" - "Browse Directory"
#   + "M" - "Music"
#   + "V" - "Video"
#   + "P" - "Pictures"
# if you specify "B" and client device is audio-only then "Music/Folders" will be used as root
#root_container=.

# The next line is for Alt-F usage and *has* to be commented!
#force_rescan=no

# set this to the directory you want scanned.
# * if have multiple directories, you can have multiple media_dir= lines
# * if you want to restrict a media_dir to a specific content type, you
#   can prepend the type, followed by a comma, to the directory:
#   + "A" for audio  (eg. media_dir=A,/home/jmaggard/Music)
#   + "V" for video  (eg. media_dir=V,/home/jmaggard/Videos)
#   + "P" for images (eg. media_dir=P,/home/jmaggard/Pictures)
media_dir=/mnt/sda2/test
media_dir=/mnt/sda2/test folder
media_dir=/mnt/sda2/test&folder test

 

There is a problem with your directory listing. How did you manage to make "Allseasons" the parent folder of "new4all\sda2\Public\RW"?. As mentioned elsewhere, one should not put anything directly into the "/mnt" folder, as the mnt folder resides on flash memory and will not survive a reboot. For normal use data should be stored in "/mnt/sdXX/___subdirectories___" where XX is drive number.

 

There is also a problem with the spacing in your config file. There are no spaces in beggining of directory in webgui. See my example:

media_dir=P,/mnt/sda2/test
media_dir=A,/mnt/sda2/test folder
media_dir=V,/mnt/sda2/test&folder test

 

Hope this helps!

 

-T.J.

 

[TJ]

**PS**

 

The webgui for minidlna can be accessed through the webgui for alt-f.

 

 Services>User

 

You should see a list that hopefully includes minidlna. Clicking the configure button will bring up a basic setup page. For my uses I found MEDIATOMB to be far more robust - just my 2 cents.

 

 

-T.J.

[nesta...@gmail.com]

All seasons was created in ALT-F's user setup. And shows up as such in Windows explorer. I think I have a handle on this one now. I will go to "Setup>Directory, click on the HD I want to create a folder on, enter the name, and hit "create folder". Until now I had faint ideas on creating folders. 

 

There is also a problem with the spacing in your config file. There are no spaces in beggining of directory in webgui. See my example:

media_dir=P,/mnt/sda2/test
media_dir=A,/mnt/sda2/test folder
media_dir=V,/mnt/sda2/test&folder test

 

Hope this helps!

 

-T.J.

I now have the folders set sorted. To test, I placed a video_ts folder and tried playing it on the tv, that didn't work. Though I was able to browse pictures and listen to music. Any ideas at all on working with videos?

 

[TJ]

I'm assuming this video_ts folder you dragged and dropped off a dvd? There are problems with your approach.

First, that is not the correct way to rip a DVD. Modern discs have copy protection features. It is technically illegal to circumvent them. Also, your dlna client (I assume a TV in your case) is likely unable to handle the file type (.vob) in it's current format/container, not to mention all the other files in most video_ts folders for things like indexes and menus.

Typically you want video in .mpg .avi or .mp4 format for it to be fairly universal (mkv is still not universal). These files will also be much smaller in size. You require software to transcode/convert your DVD files. I use DVDFab and a mkv2vob for different purposes.

Just as your audio files have been converted to .mp3, so must your video files be converted in order to be easily manipulated.

I strongly suggest further reading, as there are some fundamentals that need to be understood before you should proceed.

-T.J.

[Nestamicky]

On 13-01-04 5:32 PM, TJ wrote:
> The webgui for minidlna can be accessed through the webgui for alt-f.
> Services>User
> You should see a list that hopefully includes minidlna. Clicking the
> configure button will bring up a basic setup page.

I'd spent hours, trying to figure this out, via ssh; and within two
minutes, it was done via the web. This is nuts, man. I have to write a
book on Alt-F; or could be because I'm so new to it. Great work though.

[Nestamicky]

On 13-01-04 5:32 PM, TJ wrote:

> For my uses I found MEDIATOMB to be far more robust - just my 2 cents.

You know what, I've been thinking about them both; as to which to use.

But the last blog I read, among others, people complain bitterly about
how hard it is to setup mediatomb. Perhaps I could learn from you, since
we're on the same platform, if I decide to go that route.

Thanks a lot for your help on this....will report back.

[nesta...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, January 5, 2013 8:36:32 AM UTC-7, TJ wrote:

I'm assuming this video_ts folder you dragged and dropped off a dvd? There are problems with your approach.

First, that is not the correct way to rip a DVD. Modern discs have copy protection features. It is technically illegal to circumvent them. Also,  your dlna client (I assume a TV in your case) is likely unable to handle the file type (.vob) in it's current format/container, not to mention all the other files in most video_ts folders for things like indexes and menus.

Forget dvd, I can't videos shot with a Canon camera to play on this thing. I'm baffled, confused and upset. A simple camera video won't play. I also tried one from a Nikon camera, no luck either. This really is sad. And these videos are but 5 minutes long.

[TJ]

Take a short video with all of your cameras (nothing too personal, maybe just 10 seconds out a window or something) give the video names like "canon7d", or "Nikond300" etc. and email them to me. I could fairly quickly find out which ones minidlna and mediatomb can play.

-T.J.

[Nesta Nesta]

Hello,

Thanks a lot for doing this for me, much appreciated.

I've attached a sample video. It's too large for Google, so it's here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ejyppps4okmggd7/DSC_0001.AVI

And while I have your attention, I've been on a test environment all this now. Now I want to move to a production environment. And to do this, install two 2tb HDs into the box and remove the two HDs that I've been using to test. What do I need to keep in mind as I do this? More precisely, how far back would I need to go; flash the box again, install packages, etc. Please let me know.

Thanks a lot.

On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 9:41 AM, TJ <tjs4...@gmail.com> wrote:

Take a short video with all of your cameras (nothing too personal, maybe just 10 seconds out a window or something) give the video names like "canon7d", or "Nikond300" etc. and email them to me. I could fairly quickly find out which ones minidlna and mediatomb can play.

-T.J.

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[TJ]

Both minidlna and mediatomb had no trouble streaming your test file to my PS3. I did not try using the dlna function of my TV, but I expect it would have worked as well.

One thing I noticed with minidlna - the file did not appear automatically - I had to force a rescan. I did this by checking the rescan box in minidlna webgui setup, and then stopped and restarted the service. The way I have mediatomb configured this was not required. I suspect minidlna didn't actually scan your media folder. Report back if this does not solve your problem.

 

-T.J.  

[Savio Dantes]

I'm sure this has probably been resolved by now, but for anyone else that ends up here. Try /Allseasons/new4all/sda2/Public/RW instead of   \\Allseasons\new4all\sda2\Public\RW

Fwd slash  (//) = Unix, MAC, and Web

Back slash (\\) = Windows