DLNA is better than AirPlay

[Superaintit]

What is your experience? Pls share

 

[The_Lhc]

I've never used either of them. HTH HAND!!!

 

[Paul.]

Wouldn't want to comment on sound quality but airplay was less faff. DLNA on my PS3 was pretty flakey, iPhone to ATV2 delightfully faff free. If you want to use lots of different formats then DLNA is going to be the one for you however.

 

[Superaintit]

Well...I actually have used both in the same setup with some interesting results.

I was quite surprised (will reveal later).

First I'd like other peoples' experience with both...

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

From an ease of use point, I think Airplay wins hands down. So much better intergration with the OS. Launch app - hit icon. DLNA is more file based, yes there are apps, but they don't support everything.

If you're streaming lossless from Airplay, I can't imagine much of a difference in sq.

 

[AnotherJoe]

With a good implementation DLNA is better. Easy to stream video/audio to networked tv/amps/radios etc. Apple is a non-starter for highquality video.

With DLNA & a powerful enough NAS to do video transcoding, you can play any video/audio format from the NAS to a tv/amp and control it via your phone/tablet, and its all seamless.

No extra stuff needed (no laptop being on, no appletv, airport express etc)

It you try to cut corners then you need to make sure your player is capable of playing the correct formats.

Spend the extra £200 on a powerful NAS (dual-core) - rather than a cheapo one - and you wont regret it

That said, I'd still recommend a 1080p mediaplayer.

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

I was talking about music above. For video DLNA is far superior.

DLNA has a pretty big advantage of streaming straight from NAS devices. Does anyone know why apple have not got round to implementing this yet?

I use both, difficult to say one is definitively better.

 

[AnotherJoe]

From an ease of use point, I think Airplay wins hands down. So much better intergration with the OS. Launch app - hit icon. DLNA is more file based, yes there are apps, but they don't support everything.

Lets have a race.

The task is to play music on your phone direct from your NAS.

I swipe left to the music widget, tap library and select my song.

Now I want to play it through my amp instead, so I tap target devices and select denon.

Need a EDITED so I'd like to listen to it the bathroom, I tap target devices and select Phillips Streamium.

My girlfriend likes that song, so I long press on the song, select share, 'Illanas phone' and she has it.

What are the lyrics for that song? - I click soundhound and up come the live lyrics.

Is there a video for it? I click youtube and up comes the video.

I like it so much I'll have it as my ringtone - so I long press the song, select share, ringtone composer.

Thats integration.

 

[GSB]

I have only ever used DNLA to stream my music...and Thanks to those on here that patiently helped me through the proccess.

Never had any dropouts.

 

[GSB]

From an ease of use point, I think Airplay wins hands down. So much better intergration with the OS. Launch app - hit icon. DLNA is more file based, yes there are apps, but they don't support everything.

Lets have a race.

The task is to play music on your phone direct from your NAS.

I swipe left to the music widget, tap library and select my song.

Now I want to play it through my amp instead, so I tap target devices and select denon.

Need a EDITED so I'd like to listen to it the bathroom, I tap target devices and select Phillips Streamium.

My girlfriend likes that song, so I long press on the song, select share, 'Illanas phone' and she has it.

What are the lyrics for that song? - I click soundhound and up come the live lyrics.

Is there a video for it? I click youtube and up comes the video.

I like it so much I'll have it as my ringtone - so I long press the song, select share, ringtone composer.

Thats integration.

Show off......

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

There's plenty of apps for idevces that take this many steps. Swipe, select song, airplay icon. Done.

Does DLNA have support for some of the popular apps like bbc radio, or tunein radio?

Soundhound works on Iphone too, as does youtube.

 

[AnotherJoe]

There's plenty of apps for idevces that take this many steps. Swipe, select song, airplay icon. Done.

Does DLNA have support for some of the popular apps like bbc radio, or tunein radio?

Soundhound works on Iphone too, as does youtube.

Have you got your idevice playing direct off your NAS yet ?

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

Yes.

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

My earlier post were my thoughts on apple lack of implementation nas and Apple tv without the need for a pc/laptop

 

[AnotherJoe]

Really - without your laptop being on or using a jailbroken appletv? Dont think so.

Any yes I can stream anything to my tv/amp using medialink.

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

For audio, Yes. Without any lptop or pc.

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

Instead of going round in circles, which will be a tedious read of yes,no,yes,no.

There are plenty of apps that access my nas, play files ( Iphone is not jail-broken), then airplay.

 

[chebby]

Is it ok with you if I just carry on using AirPlay and enjoying it?

I don't want to 'race' against anyone or send my wife a 'gift' of one of my favourite tracks, suddenly played loud in the bathroom and frightening her. (Even assuming we had a bathroom system.)

 

[Juzzie Wuzzie]

Airplay = simple = achieves everything I need it to.

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

Super, You've teased us long enough ! What are your findings?

 

[AnotherJoe]

Well airplay is more susceptible to dropouts over wireless than DLNA (but unless you're over long range or have lots of interference its doubtful you'd notice). I doubt there's anything in it.

Its worth pointing out that there some decent DLNA clients apps available for IOS - so you're not stuck with only being able to stream audio.

One assumes that Apple will have to add support for WifiDirect/Miracast at some point to stay competitive.

 

[Superaintit]

Reading the what hifi reviews there was more than once mentioned that streaming over cat cable was not only more stable, but would sound better too.

Now I can confirm from my own experience. Dlna sounds better then AirPlay over wifi.

Don't understand it, as it is the same data played over the same system, but I can hear it quite clearly. Tighter sound, more clearly defined.

Quite a good 'upgrade' for the tenner the cat5e cable cost me.

Edit: btw it's not a *night and day* difference but more like 5-10% in my experience.

 

[Andrew17321]

Airplay resamples from 44.1 khz to 48 khz. This must do some damage as 48 is not a simple multiple of 44.1. Sampling errors will probably be doubled.

Whether or not the effect will be audible I do not know. I have Airplay from my iPad, but I avoid it for serious music listening.

Andrew

 

[Superaintit]

Hmmm. There could be a downgrade in audio due to sampling, although I couldn't find a definitive answer on the web. Yes, atv and airport express may use 48 kHz up sampling, but I don' t use either. I'm using a dlna and AirPlay enabled streamer; the only thing I changed was placing a cat5e cable between router and streamer, nothing else...

 

[DavieCee]

Really - without your laptop being on or using a jailbroken appletv? Dont think so.

Any yes I can stream anything to my tv/amp using medialink.

ATV1 & iPhone. Simples.