DLNA and MCE

Several vendors (Buffalo, QNAP) are touting their DLNA capabilities and
compatibility with the Xbox 360. I haven't seen DLNA in action so I may not
have a full grasp of what it will do for me. My general understanding is
that the DLNA protocol allows direct transfer of media content from the
DLNA-enabled storage device to the DLNA-enabled playback device. My
questions:

1) The drives from Buffalo and QNAP are NAS appliances and as such cannot be
defined as media storage locations in Vista Media Center (ok, at least not
without hacking and headaches). With that in mind, are the DLNA capabilities
of these NAS drives of any use to Media Center? Even if I record tv shows to
a local drive and batch them to the NAS in the wee hours, wouldn't playback
still have to occur through the Media Center front end? If that's the case,
then DLNA is not being used at all, right?
2) Since the Xbox 360 is DLNA enabled, I assume it would "find" media files
stored on DLNA NAS appliances and could play them back without passing
through the Vista PC. In that scenario, wouldn't I lose the pause, rewind,
ff, etc. capabilties of the Media Center interface/remote control? Or does
the Xbox game controller provide those functions also?
3) Many forum posters advise against using NAS appliances as media storage
locations, claiming that playback performance will be degraded for various
reasons (congestion, unreliability, overall speed, etc.) but I haven't seen
anyone say "except in DLNA configurations". That leads me to wonder if DLNA
is a lot of hype that doesn't really work? On the flip side, I wonder if the
naysayers are assuming people are attempting play media across corporate
networks with hundreds of PCs competing for bandwidth. It's hard for me to
imagine network congestion being an issue on a typical home network with 3 or
4 PCs browsing the internet and one them streaming media from a NAS device.

My questions may seem off topic for this forum, but they all originate from
my desire to start using Vista Media Center. I have it, I'm just not sure
how I can use it yet and want to make sure I understand its capabilities and
limitations before I invest in a NAS applicance. I don't want to pay for
DLNA capabilities if they are of no use to Media Center.

I am very interested if you find answerrs to these questions elsewhere .....
I am waiting to purchase a NAS until I figure out the useablility issues.
BTW, if your network is setup correctly, it would take more then 3 or 4 PC
all using Media Center to impact network resources ..... that cannot be the
bottle neck ... sounds more like how each of these devices leverage the
network is the issue we ned to plan around :)

"skerdoba" wrote:

> Several vendors (Buffalo, QNAP) are touting their DLNA capabilities and
> compatibility with the Xbox 360. I haven't seen DLNA in action so I may not
> have a full grasp of what it will do for me. My general understanding is
> that the DLNA protocol allows direct transfer of media content from the
> DLNA-enabled storage device to the DLNA-enabled playback device. My
> questions:
>
> 1) The drives from Buffalo and QNAP are NAS appliances and as such cannot be
> defined as media storage locations in Vista Media Center (ok, at least not
> without hacking and headaches). With that in mind, are the DLNA capabilities
> of these NAS drives of any use to Media Center? Even if I record tv shows to
> a local drive and batch them to the NAS in the wee hours, wouldn't playback
> still have to occur through the Media Center front end? If that's the case,
> then DLNA is not being used at all, right?
> 2) Since the Xbox 360 is DLNA enabled, I assume it would "find" media files
> stored on DLNA NAS appliances and could play them back without passing
> through the Vista PC. In that scenario, wouldn't I lose the pause, rewind,
> ff, etc. capabilties of the Media Center interface/remote control? Or does
> the Xbox game controller provide those functions also?
> 3) Many forum posters advise against using NAS appliances as media storage
> locations, claiming that playback performance will be degraded for various
> reasons (congestion, unreliability, overall speed, etc.) but I haven't seen
> anyone say "except in DLNA configurations". That leads me to wonder if DLNA
> is a lot of hype that doesn't really work? On the flip side, I wonder if the
> naysayers are assuming people are attempting play media across corporate
> networks with hundreds of PCs competing for bandwidth. It's hard for me to
> imagine network congestion being an issue on a typical home network with 3 or
> 4 PCs browsing the internet and one them streaming media from a NAS device.
>
> My questions may seem off topic for this forum, but they all originate from
> my desire to start using Vista Media Center. I have it, I'm just not sure
> how I can use it yet and want to make sure I understand its capabilities and
> limitations before I invest in a NAS applicance. I don't want to pay for
> DLNA capabilities if they are of no use to Media Center.