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Q I am looking to buy an AV receiver that can play music (mainly FLAC files) and movies streamed from a media server hosted on a NAS. Are there any new receivers that provide that feature? I was looking at a Pioneer VSX-832 Network receiver based on a recommendation from a local dealer, but discovered a note on Pioneer’s website saying that it’s not supported.—Gigi Mathew

A Receivers like the Pioneer VSX-832 that you checked out do support media streaming from a networked computer or NAS (network-attached storage) via DLNA, but that capability is limited to audio-only playback. More specifically, the VSX-832 is a DLNA certified audio player that supports playback of a range of audio formats including FLAC and Apple Lossless (ALAC).

What the Pioneer doesn’t support — and you’ll find this to generally be the case with AV receivers and preamp/processors — is DLNA video streaming. Some receivers support playback of JPG- and PNG-format image files, but most are limited to audio-only streaming via DLNA. A resource you can use to check out the capabilities of DLNA Certified receiver models is the DLNA Product Search link on the Digital Living Network Alliance website. This lets you search products by manufacturer, type, and capability. After you’ve selected a specific product, you can then view its DLNA test certificate, which lists media format interoperability.

Blu-ray players are a better option for DLNA video playback. In my system, for example, I use an Oppo UDP-203 to play MPEG-4 AVC videos streamed over a Wi-Fi network from a MacBook Pro running JRiver Media Center 21 software. You can get the same result using an inexpensive streaming device like a Roku, however, which provides media player apps that function as a DLNA renderer for audio, video, and image files.