What separate DLNA playback device would you recommend?

[n3mmr]

I'm looking to buy a better network player for DLNA and other stuff, Video most important, but Audio is almost as important.
So Please tell me what you consider to be the best network media player today!

Some musings as a background: Please don't think I'm asking for advice on how to fix any shortcomings in my current equipment, I'm talking about my current stuff just as a base point that I'm looking to outperform.

I currently have a Sony BDP-S370 2010, and a WD TV Live HD.

The Sony has some well known problems with subtitle support, dts playback and so on and so forth. Video quality, and tricky things like repacing NTSC videos on a PAL tv and upscaling to 1080p are strengths of this player, but the subtitle support and the inability to access network shares directly is a major drawback.

The WD TV Live is OK, and it fast-forwards or rewinds from DLNA and/or USB or Network Shares much better than the SONY does on any source, and the WD plays back more formats natively than the Sony, but video quality is much worse, particularly on repacing between frame rates and standards, and upscaling is not very good at all.

Both share a major drawback in that there is NO useful display on either, you have to have a TV on to know what you're doing. If I'm playing music from my Serviio I really don't want that.
Don't tell med to use a DLNA control device; they are NEVER complete.

I've had a look at an OPPO BDP105, and, while quality is very good for video when it works, it has a lot of flaws and is currently not a reasonable choice. We spent far more time resetting and restarting the OPPO device than actually enjoying video and/or audio.

So please recommend some very high-quality DLNA enabled video and audio playback devices!
Something with excellent video upscaling and repacing and ubiquity in format and container handling, so that most transcoding and/or remuxing can be dispensed with.
Something with a useful display on the unit, so that I can play back DLNA-served music w/o turning the TV on.
Something with multichannel FLAC capacity, and fully modern DTS handling...

Would a Dune player be a good choice??

The WD TV Live has an option to use the frame rate of whatever file it's playing, which should eliminate any frame rate conversion issues you have with it. Can't help with the rest, sorry.

[n3mmr]

The WD TV Live has an option to use the frame rate of whatever file it's playing, which should eliminate any frame rate conversion issues you have with it. Can't help with the rest, sorry.

I know, I know, but that sometimes works, sometimes makes for a bout of seasickness... There's a display unit to be reckoned with, and that seems to screw things up at times.

Also, I AM looking to replace my current players, so please recommend the best you know of!

[atc98092]

You might look at a newer Sony BD player. I have the S3100, and with my videos ripped into MKV files I can select captions and different audio tracks. I know the Sony will send Dolby TrueHD bitstream audio, but I don't think is supports DTS Master Audio yet. Probably a licensing issue. The S3100 supports MKV natively over DLNA. The older players (and my N200 boxes) don't.

For accessing network shares, personally I think it's a pain. I had a Panasonic BD player that could get to network shares, and I constantly had connectivity issues. And I'm an IT administrator that knows a thing or two about networking . One thing that you can do with Serviio is enable folders view, and that lets you browse folders. Of course, the files are still played through Serviio, not being accessed directly with your playback device.

The only playback issues I have with the S3100 (and my other devices as well) is some older DVDs might not be mastered using the anamorphic style. I then end up with a pictureboxed picture with black bars all around the video. That's not a fault of the Sony per se, but something that I need to rip differently. Haven't learned how to do that yet. My older Toshiba TV has enough picture format settings I can use to make it fit the screen better, but my Panasonic TV only has two modes, and sometimes they don't change anything.

I have been using the Sony N-200, and it is beginning to show weakness... seems to run hot...I only wish I cld somehow jailbreak the device as with the Apple TV2 to put XBMC on there ... Once they jailbreak AppleTV3, I will purchase..

I do not know if the Raspberry Pi supports DLNA