Manage updates with the Download AppPlayback 1.7.1 for Mac User Reviews
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"Does not play a sufficient range of formats."
Version: Playback 1.7.1
Pros
It works.!
Cons
It costs.!
Summary
I'm sure that my content is protected. But I have used Connect360 to play some of the other movie files I have on my system, that this software could not.
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"UI good, worked for music, but not for video or TV"
Version: Playback 1.7.1
Pros
The program has a very good interface, very Mac-like. Recognized my DLNA client immediately. Played iTunes songs.
Cons
Did not play video or pictures. It cost more than Twonky, which had a free license of 30 days rather than 7.
Summary
In a perfect world I may have ended up with the program rather than Twonky, because it was slicker looking, but the world of DLNA is far far from perfect. This was the first DLNA/UpNP compatible server that I downloaded and tried when I first attempted to connect my MacBook Pro to a LG 50PX950 that is DLNA enabled.
(I tell the story below not as a review of the software, because it was find, but to give a heads up to those trying the same thing.)
Playback recognized the TV immediately and showed thumbnails of my picture, music, and videos. However the TV would only allow me to play the music. Because this DLNA technology is fairly new, I think that there are still a ton of compatibility issues between clients and servers. So the problem with the media not play is probably neither the software's nor LG's. I chalk it up to new technology. I knew that when I set out to connect my computer to the TV wirelessly to stream media I was heading towards the deep end of the proverbially pool for a person of my middling technology savvy. I downloaded all the mac compatible servers, I could find to see which would work best. None was able to work perfectly with my TV. I finally chose Twonky for three reasons. First, it worked about as good as the others. It was fairly cheap at $10. And finally, and most importantly, I had thirty days of free use to see if I could get it to work. I know that getting it to work properly--if I could get to work properly would take a long time. I was able to finally make it work after much research on the web and various trial and error "experiments". In the end I had to edit entries in a client.db file that is part of Twonky when you unpackage it. I then needed to edit a line in database to allow it to transcode my jpegs in a format that the TV would recognize. What I changed is probably not really considered code, but it was a bunch of letters, separated by commas amongst a lot of other letters separated by commas. This was a first for me. So my conclusion is that none of this DLNA server software for Macs is really good right now. I am sure that in a few years all the compatibility issues will be worked out and it will work like you expect it to work.
Epilogue:
I started this project knowing that it would be time consuming and not certain to be successful. I also knew that an AppleTV would stream my media easier and probably better. I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it. If you don't want to deal with a lot of hassles, I would skip the DLNA functionality for now.
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