After making my last post on the topic, I thought "it's probably a good idea to email Samsung and see if I'm just missing something." Turns out, I'm not...
Dear Anthony,Now, I didn't help my relative choose his TV set and besides this, it does have an amazing picture. I'd also hazard a guess that when it was being sold to him, both the salesperson and he probably assumed that it'd have rewind and fast forward. I think not being able to do the usual random seek on non-live media is a bit of a joke and underscores my opinion that without such capability, DLNA's only really useful for turning stuff into picture frames.
Thank you for contacting Samsung Customer Care.
Fast forward and rewind are disabled when streaming from a network, this is mentioned in the manual on page 35, the only work around would be to watch the movies from a USB memory stick.
On page 38 there is a list of supported codec's, at the most basic as long as a video file falls within the basic profile of each supported codec, then the movies will work on the TV.
For your own interest and convenience, you can view video tips for your Samsung products on the following link: http://www.samsung.com/au/knowledgecentre/
Thank you for contacting Samsung.
Now, I posted on one of the technology related mailing lists I'm a member of about this also... I was told that it is supported, on some sets, with some servers, using some CODECs - way to fragment the market people! DLNA is not ready for the home user.
Oh, one thing I will say, is that despite my displeasure at this lack of functionality in Samsung's implementation of DLNA and the lack of apparent cohesiveness from the DLNA consortium, Samsung's customer service should be praised for a quick, honest, straight forward answer.
Update:
Noticed this story on El Reg: WTF is... DLNA?
They observe similar fragmentation and lack of commitment by manufacturers to providing cohesive, recognisable support that's intelligible for the average consumer. Reads a bit like the HTML5 video tag fun - no one can agree on which codecs they want to support.
Is it reasonable to expect software on the PC that presumably needs to transcode files, into the TV's limited native codecs - on-the-fly, to jump around in the file, quickly transcode from there, and get that video back to the TV in time for the user to see what they are skipping over/to via FF/RW?
ReplyDeleteIt is my suspicion that Samsung claims support for a whole bunch of files but in reality transcodes anything not in the TV's native codec (probably MPG2 or 4) into that codec on-the-fly.
Sony's DLNA implementation on my KDL-32W5500 only claims MPG2 support. Presumably because AU DTV is MPG2 only. I suspect this is more honest than the Samsung approach though I've not used DLNA yet as I do not need it because I just have my computer in the same room as the telly.