DLNA Help - connecting my TV to my PC

iceman777

Seeing as I bought the TV from Richersounds, I thought I'd try here first as a lot of you good people have set up their TVs over time.

I bought a Philips 42PFL8404 from Richersounds and I must say it’s the business, but I need help in connecting the TV to my PC running Windows Vista. The TV is up-to-date with the latest software etc.

I have the TV connected via an Ethernet cable to my router so when I go to “Browse TV” on my TV, it stated that it’s wired. I can browse the web, surf youtube etc. without any problem.

I have Windows Media Centre, Windows Media Player 11 and also Wild Media Server setup on my PC and it’s shared to play all my movies. I have tried running these servers together and individually and stil no luck in my TV picking up the media server(s).

However, when I select “Browse TV”, it does not pick up the PC. Now I’m sure I’m doing something very wrong fundamentally, so I need your advice on how to connect my TV to my PC for DLNA.

I know my TV is “wired” and I have a wireless network in my house, but am I supposed to connect my TV wirelessly as I can’t seem to find out how to do that. When viewing wireless devices from my PC, it does not see my TV either.

If I try to connect a computer in the menu, it expects the computer to be connected through HDMI, EXT 1 etc.

Anyway, if someone can run me through the steps to get it setup, I’d really be very thankful.

Richersounds.ie: Ashley

Hi Iceman777

Can you leave this with me a couple of days and I'll look into it for you?

Cheers
Ash

zaphodbeeb

.... I did spend a bit of time when I got the TV trying to do this but then got lazy, got a reasonable sized USB thumb drive and copied whatever onto that, the popped that into Blu Ray Player and off I went....

This was more for watching converted DIVX or Photos or mp3s though.

Not a solution but kinda works for me.

Would be nice to have my entire music collection available to the TV though.

iceman777

I had another look over the weekend and I still can't get it to work.

However, a friend of mine said it might be an issue with ports used in Windows Vista so I'll take a look at that tonight and I'll have to switch settings within the control panel features.

We also suspect that the TV should not be picked up by my PC, but it's the TV that picks up the PC.

Failing that, I'm trying to get my hands on a laptop with Windows XP or Windows 7 just to see if that makes a difference.

Richersounds.ie: Dave

Hi Iceman.

I'm a bit of a techno nut, but in saying that, I've never come across that software.

Does the software automatically setup the folders that contain your content as "shared" folders so you can access them across the network.

Is the DLNA switched on, on the router ?
Is the firewall set to block all traffic ?

If the settings on the PC...ie ip address, subnet mask and DNS are all the same as the TV & router, then I don't feel that it's going to be a ports issue.

Can you PM me a contact phone number as it's likely to be easier discussed than done on posts ?

ATB


Dave

cgordonfreeman

You could try PS3 media server. It's designed for ps3 but works with my blu ray player too. Google it. it's easy to set up, just tell it where your media is and it'll tell you if it can find devices to send the content too. Oh and it's free.

iceman777

I enabled UPnP on the router and even tried the PS3 media server, but still no luck. Now, I have used 4 different media servers and I still cannot connect.

The folders where I have the moves are shared and I have selected those folders in the media servers.

As for checking the issue with Windows Vists, I did go to advanced system settings and for the Data Execution Prevention (DEP), I turned it on for the Windows host process (rundll32) as this can cause issues with streaming.

One of the next step is a few friends trying to brainstorm a solution.
I'll keep you posted.

basill

I wonder if its the DHCP on your router that is stopping the tv from "seeing" the media on your pc. Is there anyway you can get a direct connection from the tv back to the pc and bypass your router and see if that works?

When I setup my LG tv I got onto the internet no problem but had the same problem seeing the shared folders on my NAS which is in the loft. I was trying to connect the tv through the eircom router downstairs and thought that it would be able to detect the NAS on the ethernet. I was wrong. So instead I connected the tv to a run of cable that went to the Netgear gigabit switch in the loft. The NAS is connected into the switch as is the internet.

It all worked fine when I had everything going directly into the switch in the loft.

iceman777

After going through all the advice etc., it's still not working.

I have UPC so it 's cabled into the house and UPC provide a Cisco EPC2425 router, which from researching this type, it doesn't handle bridging or multicasting very well.

I connected the PC to the router via an ethernet cable and that also did not work.
I did check to see if the TV was connected to the home network and it is and I could ping my TV from my PC with and without it cabled.

I then got a Netopia 2247NWG router from a friend, but upon setting that up I realised it does not have a port for the UPC cable so that can't be used.

I think I'll try to get another router that can accept a cable and see if I can work with that instead as I think it's a router issue.

iceman777

Another update: I've also used the 2 routers, where the Netopia router is only connected to the TV and also connected to the PC, while hte Cisco router is connected/disconnected to/from the internet, but still nothing.

Richersounds.ie: Dave

Hi Ice.

Am I correct in saying that the TV has net access but you can't get anything to go back the other way ?

Are you using an external DNS or is the DNS set as the router IP ?

Cheers


Dave

iceman777

Thanks to Dave and the Richer Sounds team for their help in what has been a frustrating attempt at setting it up, but they haven't seen anything like this before.

A friend of mine brought his laptop with Ubuntu installed and it worked immediately once we cabled his laptop to the TV, therefore we knew it wasn't a TV issue. We used Mediatomb on Ubuntu as a media server.

So, I decided to install Ubuntu on my PC and long story-short, it didn't work after ensuring we are logged in as root and updating the config file for connections etc. Ubuntu is great and I'll keep that installed, but that's another story.

Then I decided to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, as Windows 7 has better media features, but still no joy. I think it's time for a media player purchase after trying 5 different media servers and having expert friends investigate it as well.