General DLNA routing question (Win 7 - Play to)

[Coastie]

I am new to DLNA and have just recently tried Serviio.

My question refers to Windows 7 Play to feature...

I have all of my media on a separate NAS device.

If when using Windows 7 Media Player's Play to feature, to Play a song from my NAS to my media player, is it a direct connection from the NAS to the media player, or does the file get routet from the NAS, back to my requesting computer, and then to the Media player?

Kind of hard to explain, but I'll try to simplify what I am trying to say.

option 1:
Win 7 PC request > NAS > Media Player

option 2:
Win 7 PC request > NAS > Win 7 PC > Media Player

Setup Win 7 PC (2) - Buffalo Terastation NAS - WDTV Life Plus Media Player (2)

[Illico]

...
If when using Windows 7 Media Player's Play to feature, to Play a song from my NAS to my media player, is it a direct connection from the NAS to the media player, or does the file get routet from the NAS, back to my requesting computer, and then to the Media player?

--> option 2: Win 7 PC request > NAS > Win 7 PC > Media Player

The media always come from the DLNA Server.
If the server is located in the Win 7 PC you will have : Win 7 PC request > NAS read > Win 7 PC (remux/transcode/streaming) > Media Player (decode/rendering)
If the server is directly installed in the NAS (like serviio could do), you will have : NAS (remux/transcode/streaming) > Media Player (decode/rendering)

Thats why lots of people want to install serviio into there NAS. No need do power on the PC.

[Coastie]

Makes sense, thanks for the explanation.

[Coastie]

dlna.org had a different answer.

Thanks for your question and interest in DLNA. When using the “Play To” feature to send content from your NAS to your media player, the content is streamed directly from the NAS to the media player. The “Play To” feature acts as the remote control (Digital Media Controller).

[Illico]

dlna.org had a different answer.

Thanks for your question and interest in DLNA. When using the “Play To” feature to send content from your NAS to your media player, the content is streamed directly from the NAS to the media player. The “Play To” feature acts as the remote control (Digital Media Controller).

Yes, but did your NAS and TV supports this feature?

I think the answer to this depends on where the DLNA Media Server is.

If a Windows program is behaving as a Control Point and is browsing the media files on a NAS Media Server and uses play-to to send a file to a Renderer, then the file will pass directly from NAS Media Server to the Renderer.

If, however, you are using something like Windows Media Player to catalogue your media collection that is stored on a NAS File Server, then it is WMP that is acting as the Media Server and it will need to retrieve the file from the NAS first before sending it to the Renderer, so the file will pass from NAS File Server to PC Media Server to Renderer.

So, the question is, is your NAS device a File Server only or are you using it as a DLNA Media Server?

[Coastie]

the NAS acts only as a file server, so it looks like that would mean that the data flows through the PC where I use WMP12 to catalog the music on the NAS.