Store MP3s on PC, play on PPC over WLAN

[Vaughan_Davies]

I have a music collection of around 20,000 MP3s and WMAs stored on my PC. With my PPC connected to my WLAN, I can see the files in File Explorer, but I haven't figured out how to play them without first copying them across to the PPC.

Isn't there some way to play tracks on my PPC over the WLAN?

[rookcnu]

Have you tried Orb?

[Vaughan_Davies]

Thanks. I had a look at the Orb website. It seems an amazing product.

OK, so this suggests that (Orb excepted) applications on my PPC can't access files stored elsewhere on my network. Local copies only. Is that right?

I have ADSL broadband, but living a few miles from the local exchange I get only 400k up, which (I'm guessing) is going to be OK for music but hopeless for video (maybe I should give it a try instead of guessing).

If I'm at home, will I stil be limited to my ADSL upload speed or will I be able to stream at the speed of my WLAN?

[Cybrid]

Thanks. I had a look at the Orb website. It seems an amazing product.

OK, so this suggests that (Orb excepted) applications on my PPC can't access files stored elsewhere on my network. Local copies only. Is that right?

I have ADSL broadband, but living a few miles from the local exchange I get only 400k up, which (I'm guessing) is going to be OK for music but hopeless for video (maybe I should give it a try instead of guessing).

If I'm at home, will I stil be limited to my ADSL upload speed or will I be able to stream at the speed of my WLAN?Orb does sense that "you're at home" and re-routes.
To the real answer. Pocket file explorer while network aware is not capable of execute in place (by some flawed design decision) but other 3rd party applications are well capable of it. www.ghisler.com (Total Commander) is free and works quite well if you are versed in pathnames. Resco Explorer (not free) is an incredibly well thought out application which can even map out shared folders taking the hard work of having to remember //192.168.1.100/c:/shared docs/my crap/ I'd really recommend if bugdet is no consideration.

[Vaughan_Davies]

I might have a look at the Resco Explorer. $30 isn't too bad, and you get a free trial to see if it does the job.

I signed up to Orb, and after fiddling around with the firewall settings on my router managed to get it up and running. The UPNP setup on Orb seems to have failed to make contact with my router, so I can foresee more fiddling around ahead.

Anyway, I'm browsing the various shared folders on the home computer through the PPC. Clicking on a .MP3 filename launches WMP10 as expected, but generates an "incompatible file format" type error. Same with any video files.

I'm getting a strong feeling that I'm missing something really basic. Any ideas?

[Nurhisham Hussein]

I'm getting a strong feeling that I'm missing something really basic. Any ideas?

Have you thought of trying a player other than WMP?

[rookcnu]

Like everyone's favorite FREE Media player:

TCPMP :D

[Cybrid]

I might have a look at the Resco Explorer. $30 isn't too bad, and you get a free trial to see if it does the job.
$0 vs. $30...same effectiveness except one is manual and the other is not...as such I went with Total Commander.

As for media, TCPMP is much more robust and will play far more file types. Even Quicktime .mov and YouTube .flv ....
For your error did you try several different .mp3 files or one? WMP10 should be able to play it. Try it from local as a test. (In my younger, more computer illiterate, days...I downloaded a bunch of movies and misc other files. Since they were always named similar to "xxx-hot-pr0n-girl-super-hot.avi"
I'd rename them more accurately..."semi-hot chick doing...mpeg" which would suprisingly work fine on a PC but not work on a PPC. )

[Vaughan_Davies]

For your error did you try several different .mp3 files or one? WMP10 should be able to play it. Try it from local as a test.

Yes I tried some that I had ripped myself, and a couple that I'd downloaded. I copied one to the PPC and it played OK.

Next I'm off to try TCPMP to see how it goes.

[Vaughan_Davies]

W w w whooops ... [snip]

[Vaughan_Davies]

Well, I installed a trial copy of Resco Explorer. Seems better, but still can't launch a music file direct from the server. :(

I installed TCPMP. Looks good, plays files on the server through the File menu. :D

I installed Orb on the home PC. Spent two days trying to make it work. One damn thing after another. Finally got to the point where I can see the audio files on the Orb site, clicking on them opens up TCPMP (that wasn't easy) but TCPMP just says "Cannot open the URL!" and that is that. :evil:

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

Vaughan

[rookcnu]

Have you checked all of your connection settings within Orb? Right click on the green globe in the bottom right corner of your desktop and go to the settings and make sure everything looks right.

Also,... you have the ability to set up "user accounts" in Orb to allow others access to some or all of your content. If you feel comfortable with doing it, I wouldn't mind helping on my end to take a look at what you have if you want to give me a temporary username and password (that you can control and remove whenever you want). I can log in and see if I have the same problems from this end. I might be able to offer up suggestions.

I am not the ultimate expert, but I have been using Orb for over a year and have over 4,000 songs, 100 dvd movies, 1,000 pictures, live television and even live webcam feeds that I can stream and watch from anywhere on my phone or from any pc that I have ever logged into. I feel pretty comfortable with the program.

If you want to try it - send my a Private Message with a username and password and I will give it a try. I will not be offended if you decline. :D

[Vaughan_Davies]

Thanks for the offer rookcnu. I did start putting together a collection of stuff to show you, but then my new HP iPAQ smartphone arrived. I tried that out and it worked fine with both music and video. It even plays DRM-protected .WMA files from my Napster subscription.

SOOO... the problem must be with my wife's iPAQ. That was new out of the box last week too, so something about the setup perhaps?

Clearly the operating systems will be somewhat different between the phone (version 5.1.195) and the PPC (version 5.1.1702). It would be very surprising if they were the same.

So maybe its a codec problem? How can I tell what codecs are installed on the PPC?

[Cybrid]

It even plays DRM-protected .WMA
So maybe its a codec problem? How can I tell what codecs are installed on the PPC?In registry: file extensions?
If the same file plays locally without any conversion...i.e. if you took the file and transferred it by SD card rather than syncing then no...it isn't a codec problem or DRM problem.
If it plays after sync then it might have been re-encoded.
Were the files that don't play DRM'ed? A long shot but maybe that particular Ipaq has specific DRM issues. That could be why if transported locally it runs but not over network...but thats a guess,

[Vaughan_Davies]

If the same file plays locally without any conversion...i.e. if you took the file and transferred it by SD card rather than syncing then no...it isn't a codec problem or DRM problem.

The same files play if copied over the network. They only fail when served up by Orb.

Were the files that don't play DRM'ed? A long shot but maybe that particular Ipaq has specific DRM issues. That could be why if transported locally it runs but not over network...but thats a guess,

Nothing plays via Orb, whether DRMmed or otherwise.

In registry: file extensions?

I compared the list of extensions in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Multimedia/WMPlayer/Extensions between the PPC and the Smartphone. The smartphone had all the same extensions as the PPC plus the following:

.3gp, .mid, .midi, .nsc

Could they be havng any effect?

Thanks

Vaughan

[Vaughan_Davies]

If the same file plays locally without any conversion...i.e. if you took the file and transferred it by SD card rather than syncing then no...it isn't a codec problem or DRM problem.

The same files play if copied over the network. They only fail when served up by Orb.

Were the files that don't play DRM'ed? A long shot but maybe that particular Ipaq has specific DRM issues. That could be why if transported locally it runs but not over network...but thats a guess,

Nothing plays via Orb, whether DRMmed or otherwise.

In registry: file extensions?

I compared the list of extensions in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Multimedia/WMPlayer/Extensions between the PPC and the Smartphone. The smartphone had all the same extensions as the PPC plus the following:

.3gp, .mid, .midi, .nsc

Could they be havng any effect?

Thanks

Vaughan

[Cybrid]

3GP, mid and midi are other media formats. 3GP is a .mp4 based mobile video format and mid, midi are synthesizer formats.

Orb doesn't care what format a file is in. Orb filters your pc files based on what file type. It does that for convinience...Orb's magic lies in that it configures a pc with the right open ports, etc to be accessible to their server. The server logs your pc as available and waits for you to log in...and then connects you together. A sort of networking middleman.

How much free memory do you have on the Ipaq? the only other thing I can think of is the buffer. local files don't require a buffer but streaming does.
clear the IE cache and see.

[Vaughan_Davies]

Thanks for all your help with this Cybrid. I tried what you suggested but it didn't make any difference so gave up on it for a while. Instead I got on with setting up Orb server on the family PC rather than my laptop(something I had intended to do eventually anyway).

Well would you believe the PPC streams from the family PC perfectly, but now the smartphone is giving the same error the PPC was giving before!

OK, so naturally I've got to try all the combinations. I got Orb server runing on the PC and the laptop at the same time, no problem there. I've got the PPC streaming successfully from the desktop and the smartphone from the laptop as before. Try them the other way round, and what do you know, they both work with both servers! Now I can switch off the laptop server as planned and me and the missus can both boogie down to our favourite sounds.

Honestly, I can't make any sense of this at all, but to be on the safe side I'm going to make some kind of sacrifice to Wlan, the pig-faced God of media servers.

Vaughan

[Vaughan_Davies]

Damn! That sacrifice did no good at all. Fired up Orb today and its back to the same old story.