Searching streamed music on Sony Bravia

[ruhardy81]

I love my Bravia T.V and one of the main reasons I bought it was to stream music from my PC upstairs to my TV in the living room.  This works fine but I find the search music facility very poor as there are only 2 viewing options.  You have to trawl through everything right from the beginning to find an artist or album.  I am using Windows Media player.  What I want to do is browse like I do on Media player by artist or song title.  It is a nightmare tabbing from A to Z to find my favourite tracks.  Does the Bravia work with iTunes and is the search facilty any better on that?  or do I need to download some other software?

Browsing photo's is not particularly user friendly either.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[slowtrain]

Hi ruhardy

Have you seen my post on 'How to connect you Bravia TV to your PC to play media files'?

Cheers

slowtrain

Edited by Thalamus: Link added to post

[specialist-convergence]

Hi All

The best way to use DNLA is via folders, the TV will receive the table of content from the server and show a very basic layout, Artist, Folder or Genre can be the easiest to use.  Until a user interface can be added to DNLA it can only work with the Basic Tag data

[ruhardy81]

Thanks Slowtrain & Specialist-convergence for your prompt replies.  I may try the Mezzmo software but doubt if it will work in the way I want, it is on a free trial after all..  As specialist says DNLA will only work with basic tag data.  I am a music nut and have thousands of tracks and just want to browse them quickly and easily via my TV and reote control.

[Catmambo]

Hi

You can always download the software onto USB  stick and update it manually if its taking a while to do it  automatically. Sofware links at the top of this page.

It should play anything that isn't DRM protected, so may depend on your individual tracks.

Thanks

[RocRdriver]

I downloaded the firmware update so iPlayer (Beta) now works.

I downloaded Mezzmo trial version and it does work.

Feel somewhat mislead by the sales pitch. I did the research on which model would fit, and asked about 'Network ready'.  I wasn't told that only the Sony dongle will work (another £69.95) or that I would need to install a DLNA server onto my PC's to stream my media (another £25).

I am also a music nut and was prepared to buy an extra sound system (prob a Sound Bar as I do not have room for a surround system).  But at another £300, will have to wait. (again looks like only the Sony ones will work with the Bravia Tv).

I would appreciate recommendation for sound system in a small room, but my last message was deleted for some reason.

Cheers,

[slowtrain]

Hi RocRdriver

Glad to see you've got i player working and got Mezzmo installed. I too would like a decent sound system.

Since I have a PS3 I wouldn't need the all in one home cinema with BD/DVD player. I would just need a small system that just had the speakers. I've looked at the  Logitech Z-5450 Wireless Speakers which you can hook up a PS3 and your TV via the optical i/p. It's quite old now so may be difficult to get hold of, but it's had some great reviews. With the two rear speakers just requiring mains connections locally so no speaker wires being routed round the room, it should make quite a neat installation.

Oh, have you discovered that you can turn your PC on from your TV remote by pressing the heart/fav button.

Cheers.

[RocRdriver]

Thanks for that slowtrain,

I turned desktop PC, two laptops and PS3 off (family moaning) and tried the fav/heart button.

At PC tab, it shows underneath:

->external inputs|available only when connected.

Is there a setting on the TV or PC's I need to set up?

Cheers,

[slowtrain]

RocRdriver wrote:
Thanks for that slowtrain,
I turned desktop PC, two laptops and PS3 off (family moaning) and tried the fav/heart button.
At PC tab, it shows underneath:
->external inputs|available only when connected.
Is there a setting on the TV or PC's I need to set up?
Cheers,

Not sure what you mean 'At PC tab'?

What are you trying to do? Where are you seeing this?

[_simo_]

Agree that the scrolling you need to do with the TV interface is very time-consuming for large media libraries.

If you have an iPhone and you're streaming via wi-fi then you can buy an iPhone app called PlugPlayer (£2.99).  With that you can select the Media Server containing the music and select the Bravia TV as the playback device.  You can then browse for music very easily using the iPhone.

(If Sony are listening, a simple search feature using the number keys on the remote would be great; perhaps searching like you search for contacts in the address book of a Sony-Ericsson mobile phone.  You could quickly jump to folders starting with the chosen character or string of characters.)