Serviio on Sony KD-65A1 Android Bravia

Hello - my first post!

I have been trying all day to get my new laptop "connected" via wi-fi to my Sony TV so that I can continue to use Serviio. Previously, I have been accessing Sony Media Player and using files sat on my Sony Vaio laptop

Following a telephone chat with Sony, they tell me that it's only possible to connect the new laptop to the TV via an HDMI cable - not pratical in my set up. The TV has been designed to only connect using wi-fi if one is using a Sony laptop and no other make of PC will connect using wi-fi

I do have a Nvidia Shield Pro connected via HDMI cable to the TV. Is it possible to use Serviio through the Shield using wi-fi? If yes, can someone tell me how please, in very simple language?

Many thanks in advance

Geoff

[atc98092]

First, they are correct that they only way to make the laptop display on the TV is using an HDMI cable. Depending on your operating system on the laptop it might be possible to mirror what is on the laptop to the TV. When I screen mirror my Samsung Windows 11 laptop to my LG 4K TV, the resolutions don't match up (the laptop is 2880x1800, which isn't a resolution my TV supports) so I get bars on the side of the image. So unless the laptop supports the same resolution as the TV (I could change the laptop to 1920x1080 to match the TV's 1080p setting) it's not the best to mirror the screen to the TV.

Now, can you use the Nvidia Shield to access Serviio? Absolutely, and I've been doing it for many years. I have three Shield players in my home, and I use Kodi as the player app to connect. It's a bit of work to get it configured, as stock settings don't support DLNA. But it's a one-time setting effort and after that you're good to go. The Shield will play almost anything without transcoding, so Serviio can easily support it using a very low powered computer. Kodi will show all of the captions (if any) your videos have, as well as all available audio tracks.

An even easier player app you can try on the Shield is VLC. It will see your Serviio server without making any special settings, and it too can play virtually any file on your Serviio box. I don't like the user interface at all (it doesn't provide any metadata information, the layout isn't as simple to use) but it's super easy to connect to Serviio and play your media.

Two items to mention about using Kodi to play from Serviio. First, you must switch the settings menu to Expert from Basic to access everything you need. Once that's done, you must enable DLNA support by entering the Services menu, selecting uPnP/DLNA and enabling DLNA support. Now you can locate your Serviio PC. Go to File Manager and select Add source. In the window that opens, select Browse. Scroll down to uPnP Devices and select it. Your Serviio PC should appear here. Select it, then move over and hit OK. Enter a name for your server (I think it will just add the default Serviio name) and click OK. Now on the main home screen of Kodi, under the Videos section you should have a link to Serviio. (I told you it was a bit complicated).

The second thing is that if you are playing a video and hit the Back button on your Shield remote, the video does NOT stop playing. It keeps running in the background. This is fine if you're playing music, but not good for videos. To "fix" this, you need to install an add-on called Keymap Editor. With that add-on, you can map the back button to stop playback. It's not a simple task either, but I can't recall the steps needed to make it work. But I'm sure you can figure it out. Otherwise, you can simply stop the video playback after you back out of a video by moving the cursor to the left, and using the transport buttons at the bottom of the screen you can stop playback. VLC doesn't do this, so makes a simpler playback app. But as I mentioned, I really don't like the user interface on Android devices.

Many thanks Dan

The laptop is a Microsoft Surface 7 15in running W11 Pro

I have installed Kodi and got so far. "Your Serviio PC should appear", but it doesn't. My three Sonos devices are the only things that do appear. I have tried to find the solution, but no joy

Any ideas, please

Geoff

[atc98092]

Is Serviio appearing on any of your other DLNA-capable devices, such as the TV itself showing as an available input? If not, then there's a firewall issue on your Windows PC. Since the Sonos devices are appearing in Kodi, it sounds like you have DLNA enabled correctly.

I'm not sure how, but I now have Serviio from the "old" Sony (Vaio) laptop and the "new" MS laptop showing on Kodi. I think that it was a firewall issue, as you suggested, on the MS laptop, but not sure on the Sony one, not that that matters now

When you say "Go to File Manager and select Add source", the page is split in two halves with the same info on both sides. Does it matter which side I select?

If I select Serviio (MSLaptop), Kodi locks up. After a while a message appears "cannot connect to network server". I click OK and then I am back to the previous step, so didn't progress

If I select Serviio (Vaio), it loads up immediately. All the images are there. If I click on one, I then have to go back to the list to then go down the list to the next image to view that one etc. (when using the Sony TV Media Player, the remote moved on to the next image etc). If I go to the main page of Kodi, Videos section, Serviio doesn't show. I only tried the Vaio option to see what happened as once everything is up and running on the MS Laptop, the Vaio will be "parked"

[atc98092]

I can't say why your laptop install won't connect. I have two Serviio computers on my network and Kodi connects to both without an issue. I do have different Serviio names on the servers (the name is in line #12 of the profiles.xml file). But the computers have different IP addresses, so that really shouldn't matter over DLNA.

Do you have user accounts configured in your Serviio console, and are those names assigned to a device in the console on the Status tab? If so, that user name must be granted access to each of your shared folder locations on the Library/Shared folders tab of the console.

Try installing VLC on your Shield and see if everything appears correctly. If it does, then the problem is with the Kodi settings. If VLC also has issues, then it's the Serviio configuration. We can at least pinpoint where the issue lies.

By user accounts, if you mean in the Users section - none listed

I have installed VLC onto the Shield and whilst it shows Serviio (Vaio), it doesn't show Serviio (MSLaptop). It does show MSLaptop itself, but I can't access that anyway as it needs a password and I only access the MSLaptop using Windows Hello

I tried loading the photos using VLC from the Vaio laptop, but they don't load. Again, it's irrelevant really as this laptop will become redundant

[atc98092]

Huh, strange. Since there's no config required for VLC, and the one laptop doesn't appear there either, then the issue is with the laptop itself. More than likely it's something in the Windows firewall. To be honest, I turn the firewall off on my computers on my home network. I'm not concerned with something within my network attacking them. Installing Serviio is supposed to configure the firewall to allow it's access through it, but sometimes a Windows update will turn the settings back on. That's why I turn them completely off.

I don't believe there's any setting within Serviio itself that is causing your issues. The only setting inside Serviio is the network connection used, which is configured at the bottom of the Status page. It's probably set to Automatic, but with laptops you can have a WiFi connection and sometimes a wired connection, and Serviio could select the wrong interface. You can click on the Network Settings box and all available connections will be shown. Make certain it's set to the network connection you're using to connect to your network. You might also consider setting a static IP address on the computer you run Serviio on, to keep it from changing if your DHCP server in your router decides to issue a new one.

Many thanks again

Network settings in Serviio is set to Automatically detected. The only other option is the Qualcomm FastConnect thingy! It didn't work at all when selecting that option

I tried turning off the Private and Public networks firewall. Yes!!! Kodi allowed me to follow your instructions, but it didn't show Serviio in the Videos section of the home screen. I then tried VLC - perfect! And it will suit me very well indeed, thank you. I then tried with one firewall on and the other off. It only works if the Public one is on and the Private one off

So, I think that I will try my best to find a way around why the Private firewall is blocking Serviio

I thank you again for your time and trouble

Geoff

I can be like a dog with a bone, sometimes!

I continued to try and solve the issue as I would prefer to keep the firewalls on all the time, because I won't remember to turn them back on at any point. By chance, I turned the Private firewall off and Serviio appeared in Media Player directly on the Sony TV!!! Very interesting, I thought

I continued fiddling (quite a lot) and tried changing the protocol in the firewall from UDP to TCP and hey presto it now works perfectly on the TV with the firewalls turned on. It's also much faster now with the new laptop

I hope that helps if anyone else has a similar problem

[atc98092]

If your home network is private (as it should be) there really is no issue running the firewall with fewer rules, if any. When you take your laptop somewhere and connect to a different network, it will default to public and have all the settings in place. As I mentioned, I don't run the firewall on any computer on my home network.