Streaming music files without turning TV on !

atoprak

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Hi all,

I have a very basic requirement which I couldnt find decent answers yet.. may be there is no product that can do that "simple" thing.

Now I am using WD TV Live to stream my content including both audio and video. I have connetec WD tv live to my receiver (denon avr 1910) via optical cable and so I am using Denon's internal generic DACs.

As the nature of my setup and product capabilities, I need the turn on the tv.. find the file to play, than stream. In performance wise it is OK but the practicality is bad. I dont want to turn tv on. I want to use a tablet or smart device to find the content in drive and PLAY.

I know that there are some new generation NMT devices can provide remote control via mobile devices but I think I need to use TV to find the content again. Please tell me if I am wrong and offer a product which also should be upgrade to WD TV Live

If I look at SONOS products, they all have very good reviews, excellent SQ (which is another important thing!!!!) and very pricey, while there is no direct connection to my external drives. They require NAS and so on ...


I may thing about upgrading my receiver to something that has build apple air play and or android application support to do that... but than, this device should be connected to external drive and needs to manage that drive (I think this is the best option as If I want to play music.. I think I wont need to turn TV on .. but If I need, than I can still use WD TV to do that.)


So, In the end, I want to believe that I am missing a thing.. may be I am wrong... I want to be wrong about this... I want to believe that I can do this simple thing with current technology.


I am looking for your recommendations.


Thank you
 
Afaik AirPlay will play media from your device, ipad iPhone etc, not an external drive.
 
So your using USB external drives on the WDTV ?

That does complicate things as there is no DLNA server on the WDTV and the only way to control the WDTV headless is via DLNA so you normally have a PC/NAS DLNA server (e.g. Serviio/TVMobili/Mezzmo) and a DLNA controller app (e.g. Skifta for iOS/Android).

It might be possible if you have an Android tablet/phone device and install XBMC for Android on it.
* WDTV Live can share out attached USB drives.
* XBMC can scan those via SMB windows networking into it's music library.
* Latest nightly builds of XBMC have Play Using* feature (DLNA control) so in theory the WDTV would appear here and it would play the file on the WDTV. Retouched skin for XBMC is meant for touch screens, might work better.

But thats pretty cutting edge stuff so how well it works if at all I dont know.

* The Play Using is in the context menu when selecting a file but how you activate that through touch controls I don't know.
 
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So your using USB external drives on the WDTV ?

That does complicate things as there is no DLNA server on the WDTV and the only way to control the WDTV headless is via DLNA so you normally have a PC/NAS DLNA server (e.g. Serviio/TVMobili/Mezzmo) and a DLNA controller app (e.g. Skifta for iOS/Android).

It might be possible if you have an Android tablet/phone device and install XBMC for Android on it.
* WDTV Live can share out attached USB drives.
* XBMC can scan those via SMB windows networking into it's music library.
* Latest nightly builds of XBMC have Play Using* feature (DLNA control) so in theory the WDTV would appear here and it would play the file on the WDTV. Retouched skin for XBMC is meant for touch screens, might work better.

But thats pretty cutting edge stuff so how well it works if at all I dont know.

* The Play Using is in the context menu when selecting a file but how you activate that through touch controls I don't know.



Well, that is.. pure cutting edge and I think it is over complicated.. I also thought about that when thinking SONOS and buying NAS enabled external moving music files and etc.. but .. the cost is going up as well .. Sonos + External, NAS enable HDD costs around entry level AVR..

And .. as you mentioned .. i am not sure how they perform as well..
 

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