DLNA for iPhone?

So, what DLNA servers are working with the MPW, and iPhone? I have a conversion program, that makes my files MP4, but my library is over 6TB of movies and TV shows, and don’t want to have to convert everything. So is there one for the iPhone, or am I reaching? Thanks.

I think you are reaching.  I convert my movies I want on iPad/phone to m4v/mp4 using Handbrake and put onto MPW.  The iPhone/Pad (or any tablet or phone) doesn’t have the computing power to convert on the fly.

Okay, I use wonder share, and it is pretty fast. Was just hoping I didn’t have to do it that way. Oh well, as my mom says “Such as life!”

ARKmc does i’m pretty sure. I’ve used it before and it worked very well on nearly all formats.

Miller-Village, you don’t need a DLNA server to use with the MPW, you need a DLNA Client that is both a DLNA Controller and Renderer.

It seems that ARKmc is primarily a iOS/Android DLNA server, which duplicates the DLNA server functionality that the MPW already has. In fact the MPW DLNA server supports more file formats than the ARKmc DLNA server. You use the ARKmc DLNA server to stream FROM an iPhone, not to it.

However ARKmc is also a DLNA Controller and Renderer, or client/player. It does seem to play a wide range of media formats natively, without the need to transcode them to another format. It plays 3GP, AVI, WMV, ASF, MP4, MKV, MPG/MPEG, TS, M2TS, 3GP, VOB, FLV, MOV, M4V. That is a a pretty good list, and really only lacks QT, DivX, Xvid, RM and a few other common formats. Even the free version will play the file types listed.

ARKmc will connect to the MPW DLNA server, and it should play the formats I listed above. So you should give it a try Miller-Village, using it as a player. Maybe you can avoid converting much of that media library you have.

If ARKmc doesn’t work you should look at other iPhone DLNA Clients with Controller and Renderer. There may be more around. mike27oct has mentioned a few good ones in the past, but I don’t know what formats they will play natively. Mike is also correct that the iPhone would struggle to transcode video formats on the fly, but if a DLNA Client can play the format natively, there is no need to transcode. Do note however that some formats will have much higher bitrates, which may tax the iPhone’s processing power.

PS: You need to turn on the MPW DLNA server in the Dashboard. I think it can be done through the My Cloud App as well.

Just for giggles, I turned on the DLNA server on my MPW, downloaded and installed the free version of ARKmc onto my iPhone 4. (Yes, a lowly and not too powerful iPhone 4.)

First note that the trial version has a row of adds down the bottom, designed to look like App buttons, which if clicked deliberately or not(!) take you to a web page offering 18 year old virgins at your pleasure . . . well, actually just free stuff and looking very dodgy. Google adds at work.

Second, note that the free version is actually quite limited. They do say on the App description, “Please note! The limitation of LITE version is 3-5 items available per folder.” Enough to test functionality, but I missed that on the first read.

Third, note that an iPhone 4 really struggles with an 18Mbps MP4 video. The My Cloud App played some of my videos a little better than the ARKmc player. But not much better. Both had long pauses waiting for the stream to get ahead and fill the buffer. I didn’t bother trying to test other formats, since it would just have been depressing. :cry:

I’m sure an iPhone 6Plus would do better though. The good news was that ARKmc connected to the MPW DLNA server just fine, and listed all the files just fine. It also tried to play the files. So the DLNA Controller part of the player worked fine. Someone just needs to test if the DLNA Renderer part of the player can play all the formats they claim, using a decent iPhone.