Posting this here because not much info on google on this. Someone might find it helpful.

I wanted to connect my Sony Blu-ray player to my computer to be able to remove a HTPC that was being used to free up an HDMI port, and found a work around, BUT not without complications.

Ok first off the player I have is linked below: Sony BDP-470

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882105427

Ok next I will mention the USB ports on this player. There is a Front and a Rear USB port and you can play movies through these ports such as MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 movies as tested. However it will not play AVI videos.

Secondly the USB port can only address FAT32 partitioned Flash Drives or Hard Drives, so there is a limitation of 32GB per port. This is a sad limitation and I haven't found a work around, as for I have about 260GB of videos, which means that I would have to create either 9 USB sticks with videos or find another solution.

Ok, now for the solution to get past the 64GB BARRIER ( 32GB per USB port x 2 )

The player can (see) address (DLNA) devices on the LAN and access to play or view music, movies, and photos. There are free DLNA server options out there both Windows and Linux based, BUT, this Sony player does not handshake with them.

I then moved onto testing DLNA server software that was trialware and came up with a match that worked well and the trial period was very generous. 14-days to test before you have to buy to continue using it. This is Wild Media Server.

http://www.wildmediaserver.com/

This software can run on computers that run Windows OS as old as Windows 2000 all the way forward to Windows 8, as well as it claims to work on Linux thru Wine. My test box for this software is the following:

Athlon II X2 215 2700Mhz Dual-Core
2GB DDR3 1333Mhz
500GB SATA II HDD
Windows XP Pro SP3

Installation was easy, however not without complications getting it to work.

Started the service and then walked to the livingroom to see if it works.

While the Blu-ray player found it right off displaying the MAC address as well as the system name of the computer with a logo for the Wild Media Server that was hosting this DLNA Server Service, when selecting this private DLNA server there were menu options to select from such as listing movies alphabetically, but when selecting this, there were no files to be found.

Going back to the server to see why its not displaying videos from the HDD of this server I noticed that the share location that my movies were located at was shadowed out by default. So I moved my mouse pointer over this and it gave an option to unhide. So I unhid this and then stopped the service and restarted the service and went back out to livingroom and now there was an option in the menu to select for my movies. Selecting this, I saw that it only listed MPEG-2 movies, but did not list the AVI or MPEG-4 movies.

So since it listed the MPEG-2 movies, I figured lets see if it will play a movie and so I selected it and then it played it.

Now for some strangeness. While I know that my player supports MPEG-4 movies since they will play off of the flash drive in the USB port, they are not listed as an option through this DLNA server. Digging deep into this Wild Media Server I see that it has a transcoding feature, so I figure maybe I need to transcode the MPEG-4 movies to MPEG-2 on the fly, so I go and configure this setting a buffer space for the transcoding to happen in which this computer acting as the DLNA server for this player would be able to upon selection of a MPEG-4 movie be able to transcode it to MPEG-2 on the fly to view this movie without swelling a 900MB file to 4GB permanently through the bloat that MPEG-4 to MPEG-2 files swell to. Problem is that this did not SOLVE the problem where you can not see the MPEG-4 movies to select them for the system to know to transcode them to MPEG-2 on the fly in this buffer area of dynamic transcoding in which videos are transcoded upon request and the bloated MPEG-2 is deleted to free up this space for the next transcode request.

One other interesting feature I noticed with this DLNA server software is that when the service starts it searches for ALL network CONNECTIONS. So since I have 2 NICs in this system one with a cross over cable to my gaming system and the other on the dynamic LAN it mounts this DLNA service to both NICs by default. While this is not a problem for my setup, I just figured I'd mention this in case anyone else with more than a single network connection runs into any network problems.

There is also a forum for this software and I created an account and posted some requests for solutions to the hidden MPEG-4 videos which should be listed and I cant figure out why only MPEG-2 files are displayed as playable.

So while its still a work in progress, I figured I'd post here what I have found so far and what works and what doesn't, and will post back when I get more useful info to share with anyone out there that decides that they want to use this feature of their players.I have a Samsung networked TV on my home LAN that has a DLNA client and I have had good results with 2 free products: Plex Media Server, and Serviio Media Server. They both run on PCs. Plex is a double package, it has its own Plex Media Server (PMS) which works similar to DLNA but requires its own client app to be run on a supported smart TV, BR player, or media box. PMS bristles with features including a better GUI than plain vanilla DLNA clients. If your player does not support the Plex PMS client app, the Plex package also has its own optional DLNA server which can run independently of PMS. Both offer transcode and direct play options. I use it for mp4, mpeg2, mkv, avi material. Serviio is a pure DLNA server, and offers transcoding and direct play options too. There are threads on the Plex and Serviio users forums about the Sony BDP-S370/470 series.

Unlike Wild, they are both free, as is XMBC which Plex is a fork of. I have found Plex to be the slickest but as with a lot of this sort of thing, you may have to do some digging in the (extensive) forums.

https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/52625-sony-bdp-blu-ray-profile/

http://forum.serviio.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=13006

Plex Media Server
https://plex.tv/

Serviio Media Server
http://www.serviio.org/

I see Wild uses the open source Ffmpeg transcoder, as do Plex, Serviio, and XMBC, so why pay for what you can get free?


Thanks for the info Salmon ... will try those free ones out on my sun/mon weekend in 2 days when i have time to play.  Found some interesting info on my media player the Sony BDP-S470. Info at Sony states why MPEG4 movies wont play through DLNA server. It seems as though there is far more media format support via USB direct than over a DLNA server service.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/support-info.pl?info_id=959&mdl=BDPS470

Also interesting that they have this claim:

Quote

Notes:

    Not all files are guaranteed to play.
    A part of a file type may not play back.
    Wi-Fi® built-in players require an 802.11 home network and content stored on a DLNA compliant PC or server.
    Wi-Fi ready players require a UWA-BR100 USB adapter (sold separately), 802.11 home network, and content stored on a DLNA compliant PC or server.
    Player that do not support wireless or the claim does not mention wireless require a home network and content stored on a DLNA compliant PC or server.