December 28, 2009 10:48 AM

You're better off with a Sage HD200 extender or some other media player. It will see all your music, pics, videos and play them just fine. These TV companies add the ability to connect to your network as an afterthought. It's not going to work the way you hope it will.

December 31, 2009 5:25 PM updated: December 31, 2009 5:26 PM

Harty01 said:

Hey Mitch,

Thanks for the reply. Not sure why i need to purchase the Sage HD200 device when my Sony XBR9 is already DLNA-compliant. I'm able to view photos and play mp3 files. Unfortunately no video.

Wondering if i'm doing something wrong in my TV to WHS EX490/Twonky configuration.

thanks,
Harty01

Mitch probably suggested the HD200 because even though your TV is DLNA compliant the UI will be very limited as well as the number of video file types it will support. In the end the streaming of video to your TV using your TVs streaming capability will be less than satisfying.

I recently purchased the Samsung LED 8000 series and it is also DLNA compliant. I can stream video to it using the built in feature and the provided streaming software but it is very primative compared to what something like the HD200 can do.

What video file types are you trying to view with your TV? What video/audio codecs does it support? Is there server software installed on your WHS from Sony? Does Sony say that it supports Twonky? Was that what came with the TV? Have you tried Tversity? I am not sure Tversity will work on WHS but if it does it may be worth a try.

January 6, 2010 12:23 AM

I've tried to get Twonky working several times since I got my ex485 almost a year ago. I've retried recently after putting an E5200 CPU into my WHS. Even trying to get video to stream locally over hardwired gigbit lan is worthless. There are delays even waiting to load converted videos in low quality. Additionally, Twonky eats CPU usage. If you have a moderately large media library it can literally take days to index the media. The process bogs down performance and raises internal temps on the server.

Twonky does not perform as advertised. Streaming media was one of the reasons I went with the HP instead of building my own box.

I've made similar posts on other forums asking anyone who thinks I'm wrong to explain the error of my ways and show me how to set Twonky to run as advertised. Their website claims you can stream multiple HD videos with low CPU overhead. I don't know what platform they're seeing that on, but you can safely bet it ain't an HP MSS.

HP should just remove Twonky and end the frustration.

Somebody please tell me I'm wrong.

January 6, 2010 12:13 PM

Good question. The add-in says 5.0.2 which came with the 485. We've also tried Webguide briefly before we had to deal with some other issues. It was definitely better than Twonky, but it's too early to say if it's a good answer. We will probably try it again when we get time.

WebGuide can be downloaded here:

http://www.asciiexpress.com/webguide/default.aspx

April 27, 2010 7:44 PM updated: April 27, 2010 7:50 PM

Twonky 6.0 beta is now available as well.

We are also getting good results with Subsonic, although setting up the video can be tricky.

We also just installed Vail beta (ac tually it's a technology preview release) last night on a test machine, initial results are encouraging.

April 30, 2010 11:09 AM

I've downloaded and installed it, but I really haven't done much with it yet. I only mention it for those who are interested in trying to find alternatives to HP software. In your case I would suggest that you stick to the old addage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I ran into a lot of problems with Twonky that eventually convinced me to abandon the HP MSS altogether and build my own server. In my case I was more interested in accessing media from the internet rather than internal network media streaming. Twonky always hogged CPU cycles and took forever to index my media library.

I now use Subsonic for music and video streaming over internet, and we used Whiist to set up an online photo library. This has been a much better solution for our needs.

I decided to test Twonky 6.0 on my Vail beta Server just to see if there is any improvement in the product, but I haven't had time to do much with it yet.