INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: John Gateley on December 21, 2004, 02:00:54 pm
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Merry Christmas - I have an implementation of UPnP ready to try.
Be warned - this is very definitely alpha. While it shouldn't harm your library, make a backup first.
This implements a Media Server as a UPnP Device. This means that not all UPnP Media Receivers will work -- some are implemented as control points, some as devices.
I've tested it with a NETGEAR MP101 Digital Music Player. For that one, I've noticed a few things: you must update to the latest firmware, otherwise you'll experience crashes, hangs and weird behavior. Even with the latest firmware, there's still some gotcha's. In particular, check the "NETGEAR Genre hack" checkbox in Options. This just causes the server to supply "Unknown" for any song with a blank genre. For some reason, the NETGEAR doesn't like blank genre's and refuses to play any songs with them.
The implementation is generic, so hopefully will work with other devices. Please let me know if you find others that work, or even sort of work.
This link will download and install the plugin:
http://www.jriver.com/~gateley/server_upnp.mjp
Start the server (under UPnP Server in the Plug-ins portion of the tree), and then have your device look for servers. Note that with the NETGEAR (and probably most devices), if you restart the server, you must have the device look for servers again.
j
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I've seen a few downloads - any test results (even negative)?
j
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My Philips Streamium SL400i doesn't see that server. It works with Twonkyvision and Nero MediaHome though, so it's not a firewall issue.
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Thanks! What does the status page for the plugin show? Any activity?
j
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Yes, it says "Starting..." and then "Running..."
It even survives a MC close ;D
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Probably means that the Streamium is a UPnP device instead of a UPnP control point. I hope to have something for this soon.
j
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I've only had a chance to play with this briefly, but it certainly appears to work fine with my Netgear MP101. I didn't realise at first that it only works with MC 11 so I've had to upgrade from v10 a little earlier than I had planned. Hopefully I'll get a chance to play a bit more over the next couple of days, and I'll report back any findings.
Nick
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My Linksys audio EZ-Stream won't be in for a few days, but I was really itching to try this out so fired it up with Intel's DeviceSpy UCP and AV Media Controller. I'm on XP SP2 (firewall disabled), using MC11 .160, which apparently already has the UPnP plugin built-in (and attempting the download the plug-in from your link fails since file is in use).
Unfortunately, after starting the UPnP server, SSDP discover doesn't find any MediaServers on the network. Using the Device Sniffer, I only see SSDP NOTIFY traffic from my Linksys router (InternetGatewayDevice and WANIPConnectionDevice with WANIPConnection, WANCommonInterface, Layer3Forwarding services). If I then fire up the Intel AV Renderer, I also see its SSDP NOTIFY for MediaRenderer device with AVTransport, ConnectionManager, and RenderingControl services).
I see no SSDP periodic announcements or discover responses from the Media Center UPnP server, however. I've tried starting it with and without the Netgear Genre Hack with the same behavior - no SSDP communication from Media Center. I also tried with and without the XP UPnP Device service started (I'd normally expect you rolled your own UPnP and the XP service might conflict, but wanted to test both ways just in case) - no change in behavior.
In the log for UPnP Server, I see occasional:
Unknown SSDP Server method: NOTIFY
or
SSDP Server requested type not found: upnp:rootdevice
If I M-SEARCH all devices or all rootdevices, I do not see any communication from MC UPnP Server, nor do I get any more logs on it. If I M-Search for particular device types, I get no SSDP response from MC, but do get logs, eg.
SSPD Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaRenderer:1
If you have any ideas on experiments or an updated version to try for basic SSDP from the MC UPnP plugin to work, let me know. Thanks.
Aaron
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Hi Aaron,
The NETGEAR is a UPnP Control Point, and the Linksys is a UPnP Device. I haven't got the device part done yet, look here for an announcement when I get it working.
j
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p.s. thanks for the detailed description
j
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The NETGEAR is a UPnP Control Point, and the Linksys is a UPnP Device. I haven't got the device part done yet, look here for an announcement when I get it working.
Odd. I expected any true UPnP media client (which offers local browsing and control from the device) to be a combination of control point and MediaRenderer device. I can see how a pseudo-compliant hackish device could get by with just a control point in conjunction with proprietary PC software for backdoor UPnP-free playback. I don't see right now how a UPnP media client could get by without a control point to at least find and browse a ContentDirectory. I'll be disappointed if indeed Linksys EZ-Stream is somehow hackish enough to proclaim UPnP compliance without even having a control point. If that's the case I may be looking for another media client soon after I get it. :P
In any case, my understanding of MC UPnP server is that it should currently be a MediaServer device (no MediaRenderer, no control point), so should be doing SSDP NOTIFY announcements and answer searches. Is this correct? Thanks.
Aaron
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Hi Aaron,
You are correct about the current UPnP server - it's a device.
I'm curious about the rest of your post. From what I've seen, the UPnP devices are roughly half "control points" (like NetGear) and half "devices" (like Linksys). Having used the Linksys (with it's own software), it browses just fine. I haven't studied this part of the protocol yet, so what am I missing - what is wrong with devices that are UPnP "devices" (ain't terminology wunnerful).
j
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You are correct about the current UPnP server - it's a device.
I'm curious about the rest of your post. From what I've seen, the UPnP devices are roughly half "control points" (like NetGear) and half "devices" (like Linksys). Having used the Linksys (with it's own software), it browses just fine. I haven't studied this part of the protocol yet, so what am I missing - what is wrong with devices that are UPnP "devices" (ain't terminology wunnerful).
MC UPnP being a device is why I'm concerned something might be wrong with the plugin on my system since there is no port 1900 SSDP traffic from it.
Curious - which Linksys do you have? The audio/video 802.11A/B one or the audio-only 802.11B one?
I don't care much for some of the UPnP terminology either. As I've been using it, control point is any 'client' - ie. it does not expose devices or services, but can do SSDP discovery of other devices or services, get their descriptions, control them, and subscribe to their events.
'Device' is the most generic and ambiguous term, I think I am being true to definition in considering it anything which contains one or more services, and is advertised or responds to searches via SSDP NOTIFY. 'Service' is the meat of all real functionality and defines all the control methods, state variables, eventable info, etc.
The AV related UPnP 'Devices' are
MediaServer
requires ContentDirectory service
requires ConnectionManager service
optional AVTransport service
MediaRenderer
requires RenderingControl service
requires ConnectionManager service
optional AVTransport service (I cursed the working group for the confusion of having CM and optional AVT both places)
A good citizen UPnP media client would implement MediaRenderer, exposing its volume, bass, etc. CM and possibly AVT on the RenderingControl service. It would also need to be a control point which discovers and uses MediaServer (if it was a _really_ good UPnP citizen it would also even use the CP to talk to its own MediaRenderer to control volume, etc. when a user presses a button, but this is very likely to be shortcutted). The CP would use MediaServers to find and browse content on the network using ContentDirectory.
Content play start is a mess with push/pull option and ambiguity from CM+AVT being able to be on server or renderer, but CP should be able to work out how to get the AVT in one place or the other to play the content. On wired or wireless LANs with file shares or HTTP for file fetch, the most sensible combination would be client pull - ie. ContentURI is set on AVTransport on the MediaRenderer, not AVTransport on the MediaServer. I would therefore expect most UPnP media clients to have an AVTransport on their renderer, but this could realistically be a place for significant differences among different media clients.
It would surprise me if a UPnP media client tried to not have a CP - that would really mean it would be UPnP controllable only from a remote CP (useful for perhaps central control of zoned audio, but that's it). It could be possible for it to use a completely proprietary protocol for content browsing, setting up the playback, etc. and maybe expose a token MediaRenderer for volume control, but in that case I'd say claiming UPnP compliant would definitely be false advertising. Media clients may still have plenty of other legit differences - eg. whether AVTransport was implemented on renderer or if one needs to be on server to push, whether CP can also control renderer or not - and not so legit ones - eg. misimplementations, shortcuts or proprietary extensions to ugly pieces of UPnP or the AV standards.
Aaron
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Results for OmniFi DMS1, firmware version 2.0.313
The device fails to locate the Media Center UPnP server. Here's the MC UPnP console log:
12/24/04 05:26:46 - Starting...
12/24/04 05:26:46 - Running
12/24/04 05:27:58 - SSPD Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaRenderer:1
12/24/04 05:28:03 - SSPD Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1
12/24/04 05:30:01 - SSPD Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1
12/24/04 05:32:04 - SSPD Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1
12/24/04 05:34:06 - SSPD Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1
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Aaron - you've got mail from me (at the syserror account you used to register with the forum).
bshock, thanks, I'll look at these.
j
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John,
Even though I don't currently own a Media Receiver, I'm glad to see that you've been working on making MC11 compatible with certain products. I looked into the Prismiq and HP devices a while back, but didn't buy them because they needed their own software to manage the music.
I'm much more interested in the Netgear MP101 now that I know you have been testing with it. Keep up the good work. This will definitely add value to MC11.
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Does UPnP support cover art? It looks like the Roku HD1000 will support UPnP in the near future but I'm wondering if when I browse my MC library on the Roku device if I will see cover art?
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Does UPnP support cover art? It looks like the Roku HD1000 will support UPnP in the near future but I'm wondering if when I browse my MC library on the Roku device if I will see cover art?
UPnP AV specs define containers of art associated with an album, but it would be device-dependent on whether browsing such a thing is supported. I would be surprised and impressed if any of the current crop of UPnP capable media clients actually implement that feature.
Aaron
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There was a Linksys 802.11b wireless music system under the tree - the one with built-in speakers. Some of the feedback online leads me to think that the device itself will be troublesome - there are lots of reports of the hardware freezing during playback and we've already seen some of that.
But things could only improve if we could rely on MC to serve up the files instead of the outdated and quite horrible MusicMatch Jukebox that ships with it. We're hoping that your work continues and eventually supports the Linksys. We don't do anything complex - we don't even do playlists - but boy, if we could get access to the MC library, that would be just swell. Good luck!
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The hardware freezes may be fixed by upgrading the firmware.
I'm not sure if your linksys will work or not, give it a try and let me know...
j
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Wow! At long last, a UPnP server which works with my Netgear MP101 and plays everything in my collection. I ditched the software which comes with the MP101 on day one and started using something called Twonkyvision which works very well but the MP101 doesn't like high-bitrate WMAs and Twonkyvision doesn't do on-the-fly conversion. In fact, I think Media Center's solution is the only thing I've seen which does this. It means that I have access to my whole library (just over 100 GB) from the MP101 with no additional software. So far it's been working like a charm.
Thank you very much for this,
Nick
Listening to "Some Velvet Morning" by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra on my Netgear MP101.
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I had updated the Linksys firmware. It's really slow to respond to commands to change songs and seems to lose its connection with the MM server very easily. I'm finding myself power cycling it frequently to restore its connection to the library. Can't tell if that's a hardware or software problem, but there's other people online reporting similar experiences. Scrolling is awful - it's hard to forget the elegance of browsing with the Audiotron in the next room.
I actually don't feel bad - it's less than a hundred bucks, for goodness sake, and I went into it eyes open.
I installed the MC UPNP plugin but the Linksys doesn't see the MC server and there's no indication in MC that the Linksys was inquring. . .
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GrumpyNick: glad it's working, the transcoding is really cool. Have you tried smartlists? Are they working okay?
Valisystem: I read quite a few less than good reviews on that model. The LinkSys I used was pretty terrible about finding new servers. It required hooking up a USB cable between the LinkSys and the serving machine to establish a relationship, then switching to wireless or ethernet. (I may be wrong about this, it could be some different box). Look for options to force it to find a server.
j
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UPnP AV specs define containers of art associated with an album, but it would be device-dependent on whether browsing such a thing is supported. I would be surprised and impressed if any of the current crop of UPnP capable media clients actually implement that feature.
Aaron
Thanks, Aaron. John, does the MC UPnP server supply cover art data so that if a device was looking for it it could be used?
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GrumpyNick: glad it's working, the transcoding is really cool. Have you tried smartlists? Are they working okay?
Yes, the smartlists seem fine. Thanks again,
Nick
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I couldn't get the Linksys Music Server and MC to talk to each other. FWIW, the Linksys can find the MusicMatch server on a different computer, and it found "Allegro Media Server" when I briefly fired up a demo version on the same computer as MC. http://www.allegrosoft.com/ams.html
But after a few more hours, I'm going to box up the Linksys. The software serving up the library might make a difference (if the Linksys could see MC, it could only be an improvement), but its fundamental problems seem to be hardware based. Mulling over the Netgear and some powered speakers as a replacement . . .
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A special "Test" edition of Wired Magazine reviewed some of these devices. They called them "Media Streamers". They liked (*'s are ratings):
Apple Airpot Express ****
Netgear MP101 ***
Roku Soundbridge M1000 *****
Slim Devices Squeeze3box ****
ICUBE Play@TV NMP-4000 *****
Prismiq Mediaplayer ****
They did not like Linksys Wireless B Music System or SMC SMCWAA-B or Philips Streamium.
FWIW
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Hello Everyone, I just installed MC11 and was hoping to tryout the UPnP server with my Netgear MP101, but I'm having issues.
When I start the UPnP Server, after a few seconds i get "Unknown SSDP Server method: NOTIFY" and the netgear doesn't find the server.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Doug
UPDATE: Ok, I have it connecting now, had to turn off UPnP on my NetGear Firewall. It now connects, but is not very reliable. keep getting 'Server Not Responding' errors on the MP101. I have the latest firmware.
Suggestions?
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Hi Stargazer,
Turn off the UPnP Server that came with the NetGear before using MC's UPnP server.
j
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Thanks Jim, for the post about the Wired Magazine review. I couldn't find the entire article online, but the Roku SoundBridge and SlimDevices units were among the items summarized at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/play.html?pg=13.
If anyone can test MC with the Roku SoundBridge that would be great. Looks like a nice piece of equipment. The reviews on the Netgear MP101 at Amazon weren't all that encouraging. A number of people have complained about losing the network connection.
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Hi Stargazer,
Turn off the UPnP Server that came with the NetGear before using MC's UPnP server.
j
Yes, of course i did that, niether the software nor the 'Intergrated Multimedia Server' service are running.
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Hi Stargazer,
If you are getting "Unknown SSDP Method: NOTIFY", that means there is another server somewhere nearby. The MP101 doesn't use NOTIFY methods, so someone else is generating them.
Take a look at the system tray (you may have to click the arrow key) and you will see an icon of a tiny blue ball with an orange fan coming out the upper left. This is the NETGEAR server. Right click on it, and click exit then it should be shut down.
Restart MC and the MP101, and you should be set. (It's important to restart both, and to tell the MP101 to search for servers).
j
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I have a Roku M500. It's exactly the same player as the M1000, but it has a different display (character based instead of pixel based). I currently use it with the MS Media Server, and it works great. It took about two minutes to setup, and everyone is able to use it without training. I'm still a little nervous about installing MC11 on my main media server (I have MC10 now), but I can try it with my home office machine.
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Hi Stargazer,
If you are getting "Unknown SSDP Method: NOTIFY", that means there is another server somewhere nearby. The MP101 doesn't use NOTIFY methods, so someone else is generating them.
Take a look at the system tray (you may have to click the arrow key) and you will see an icon of a tiny blue ball with an orange fan coming out the upper left. This is the NETGEAR server. Right click on it, and click exit then it should be shut down.
Restart MC and the MP101, and you should be set. (It's important to restart both, and to tell the MP101 to search for servers).
Per my UPDATE to my original message, the MP101 is now connecting to MC 11, but after browsing for a few seconds, I lose connection. There is no firewalls running. Has there been connectivity issues with the Upnp plugin? If so, I will just wait.
Doug
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This is going to sound stupid but does this actually mean that you can use the MC 11 interface to tell the NETGEAR MP101 what to play without hassles.
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after browsing for a few seconds, I lose connection.
Is the connection wireless?
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does this actually mean that you can use the MC 11 interface to tell the NETGEAR MP101 what to play without hassles.
The reverse. You can tell the MP101 what you want to play (from MC's library).
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Is the connection wireless?
Nope, hardwired Ethernet. Works fine with the Netgear software, which is installed on the same system, but not active, while trying to use MC11.
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Is the connection wireless?
Could there be an issue with MC11 and Windows Server 2003 SBS Premium? But I have not had any issues in the past.
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Don't know. Are you positive you have the latest firmware?
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Don't know. Are you positive you have the latest firmware?
Yep... did that right after opening the box, installing the software, that has a terrible database. the lastest software requires the lastest firmware.
Could the MP101 not be able to handle a large database from MC, I have 14,530 audio files.
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Possible. Can you try a smaller one? File/library manager to set up a new library. Then change the one you're sharing in options under UPnP server.
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The reverse. You can tell the MP101 what you want to play (from MC's library).
So I would still have to use the MP101's remote and tiny screen to 'browse' the music and not from MC's media browser?
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Possible. Can you try a smaller one? File/library manager to set up a new library. Then change the one you're sharing in options under UPnP server.
I set up a test library, but in the options for the Upnp server, I have two options, One is to convert files the other is the Genre Hack.
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Could the MP101 not be able to handle a large database from MC, I have 14,530 audio files.
I have 24300 audio files and the MP101 seems to be able to cope. However, I too have noticed that it is sometimes unable to find the server. A restart of both the MP101 and Media Centre (in that order) fixes it.
Nick
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I have 24300 audio files and the MP101 seems to be able to cope. However, I too have noticed that it is sometimes unable to find the server. A restart of both the MP101 and Media Centre (in that order) fixes it.
Nick
Mine is not a 'sometimes' issue. I'm not able to get to the list of artist to even start playing anything.
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I tried build 164 with my Roku, but I couldn't get the unit to find the server. At first, it kept finding my Windows Media Connect (WMC) server. Once I got that fully stopped and the Roku rebooted, my MC11 server was not found. I turned on the WMC server, and it was found immediately.
BTW, the Roku site and documentation mentions that they want to work with as many servers as possible. I think Roku and JRiver should get together because the Roku unit is very nice. I know I would rather only run one server for all my music. When I'm done with my setup, I will end up with 3 MC zones and at least 2 Roku areas.
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Re: number of files. This should not matter at all. The MP101 asks for a few files at a time, and that's all we give it.
Re: losing connections. I've had another report of this, and I'll be looking at it.
Re: Roku. I'm working on it, hopefully soon.
Re: library. The UPnP server shares the same library that Media Center is using. Just switch Media Center to the smaller library, and that will be what the server shares.
Stargazer - to make sure I understand. You can connect to the library, and you begin browsing, but you lose the connection before you are able to get very far, right?
j
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Stargazer - to make sure I understand. You can connect to the library, and you begin browsing, but you lose the connection before you are able to get very far, right?
Basicly, I start the UPnP server, power up the MP101, on the MP101 i get a "Connected (Media Center)" message on the display. Select "Browse Music", I can always get that far, from here on its not reliable. Select "Audio" then "Artist/Album" and then an artist. Somethings I can get all the way and play something but most of the time it will hang on one of the selections, and times out.
THen I have to unplug the power to the MP101, and try again.
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So I would still have to use the MP101's remote and tiny screen to 'browse' the music and not from MC's media browser?
It would depend on control point features being in MC at some point, but even more importantly on what your streamer (MP101 in your case) is capable of. As John has noted, remotely controlling your streamer from the PC is a whole different animal than the PC making content available for the streamer to pull. If your streamer is very UPnP compliant, it may theoretically be possible. There is a lot of wiggle room for streamers which are only partially or not at all remotely controllable though.
If you want to check whether your streamer could even be able to be remotely controlled, get the Intel UPnP tools (http://www.intel.com/technology/UPnP/toollicense.htm). Manually start playing some content (preferably playlist or album or something with multiple tracks) on your streamer. Then start "AV Media Controller.exe" from the Intel tools.
If your streamer is UPnP compliant, it should show up as a rendered. You can then use stop, pause, play, next/previous and volume controls to test it. You'll likely encounter one of several scenarios:
1) streamer not found at all - it is probably not UPnP compliant for control, so will not be remotely controllable (pray for a firmware upgrade)
2) found, but nothing can be controlled - UPnP implementation is broken, see above
3) volume works, but play/pause/seek/etc do not - indicates a clean but partial UPnP implementation
4) all controls work - very promising. other more esoteric Intel tools could then be checked for things like directly setting a song to play if you get this far
Actual remote control of a streamer from MC would need plenty of MC additions as well, which I think John indicated wouldn't be considered til after MC content serving is fleshed out. Using the Intel tool just allows you right now to tell if your device could even be remotely controlled at all.
Aaron
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Make sure .net is installed to run the Intel tools or you'll get an exception.
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I just tried out .168 with UPnP plugin 1.0.3.
- No SSDP advertisements seen, and no response to m-search for all, root devices, or MediaServer device; not sure if these were supposed to be present in this build or not yet.
- Previous issue of completely ignoring all requests til stopped and restarted appears fixed
- SSDP responses to m-search for ContentDirectory are very intermittent, actually seems less reliable responding than was plugin 1.0.2
- When SSDP responds, the response does not trigger either SMC EZ-Stream or Intel tools to fetch its device description. The SSDP response headers are all uppercase now, but it's missing date and has a couple typo type differences from the spec (max-age, UPnP/1.0), so SMC+Intel are probably still ignoring the response.
Aaron
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Aaron,
Thanks very much for the deep detail on what you're seeing. It will certainly make John's job easier.
Jim
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Hello!
Just noticed this topic about UPNP, really cool to see this in MC.
Till now, I don't have any compliant device for testing this, but I really would like to have a look how the library is shared. Is it possible to use a software client for testing only. Tried with Windows Media Player using OnShare, but I get error:
SSDP Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1
OnShare does work with Nero UPNP Server.
I'm interested if the library is shared with all it's subcategories I created manually, or not.
If not, I'll stick with an old laptop as client running MC :)
Thanks a lot for help
Raist
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SSDP Server requested type not found: urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:MediaServer:1
This may work in the next version I get out.
j
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not sure if these were supposed to be present in this build or not yet.
No, I got sidetracked with the Sony RoomLink so the major changes didn't make it out.
Hopefully today...
j
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I'm close, but I'm not going to make it today. Look for a new version tomorrow for sure (I hope)
j
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Here's a couple questions for those who have experience with these devices.
(1) I noticed that the Soundbridge unit has a coaxial audio jack. Does this allow for a purely digital stream of your files to your A/V receiver? Or is the stream somehow converted within the A/V receiver, so the digital jacks don't make much difference anyway?
(2) Do any of these media receivers allow you the benefit of incorporating dsp effects that I use on MC10 when playing files on my computer speakers? Or are the dsp effects lost when the audio file is streamed to the media receiver?
(3) Is there any difference (whether in the technology used or the components) between using a Tivo and any of the media receivers being discussed here? Will these units sound better than the Tivo?
Given the rapid activity in this area (hooray!), I am thinking that if I wait about six months to take the dive and buy something, I will be rewarded by being able to choose a unit that integrates seamless with my MC10/11 library and plays the files with digital quality. The big A/V receiver manufacturers may even just include an ethernet port and bypass the need to have one of these units entirely. Am I in fantasyland?
Thanks for your thoughts.
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John Gateley,
Can you tell us if your implementation of the server will support cover art for devices that want to access it? Thanks.
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I just tried the UPnP plugin with the Terratec NOXON Audio, but the NOXON doesn't recognize the MediaCenter server. In the server's log I saw the message "Unknown SSDP Server method: NOTIFY".
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Here's a couple questions for those who have experience with these devices.
(1) I noticed that the Soundbridge unit has a coaxial audio jack. Does this allow for a purely digital stream of your files to your A/V receiver? Or is the stream somehow converted within the A/V receiver, so the digital jacks don't make much difference anyway?
(2) Do any of these media receivers allow you the benefit of incorporating dsp effects that I use on MC10 when playing files on my computer speakers? Or are the dsp effects lost when the audio file is streamed to the media receiver?
(3) Is there any difference (whether in the technology used or the components) between using a Tivo and any of the media receivers being discussed here? Will these units sound better than the Tivo?
Given the rapid activity in this area (hooray!), I am thinking that if I wait about six months to take the dive and buy something, I will be rewarded by being able to choose a unit that integrates seamless with my MC10/11 library and plays the files with digital quality. The big A/V receiver manufacturers may even just include an ethernet port and bypass the need to have one of these units entirely. Am I in fantasyland?
Thanks for your thoughts.
(1) I have a Soundbridge M500. I don't use the digital out, but my understanding is that the port will output a PCM data stream such that any digital receiver can pick it up. It does not simply retransmit the WMA or MP3 stream from the server.
(2) The Soundbridge has no DSP controls. All it does is convert the digital media into something a receiver will understand. Any DSP effects will need to be done with the receiver or digital processor.
(3) I don't have a Tivo, so I can't compare. I do know that using my WMA Lossless files and a decent tabletop receiver/CD Player, the sound I get is comparable to the built-in CD player. I have not tried hooking it up to my high-end system in the HT.
So far, I am more than satisfied with the Roku. It's a great little system. Regarding A/V manufacturers adding ethernet, that's already happening. Some HK receivers include an ethernet port for connecting to Yamaha's music server system. I haven't seen one that uses UPnP, however.
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The DSP plugins do NOT affect the stream sent by UPnP Server, TiVo Server or Library Server. Interesting idea though.
There is a difference in components, but I don't know which are better. One factor often overlooked is bandwidth - if you run 802.11b wireless, you probably will be unable to stream lossless encoded files.
As of now, cover art is not supported in UPnP server, but it will be provided that it is part of the UPnP standard (not sure about this) and I can find a device that actually wants the cover art to test with.
I've added more info for NOTIFY messages in the next version of the Server, when it comes out, would you try with the NOXON and let me know?
j
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Using my Roku SoundBridge and Windows Media Connect, I stream WMA Lossless files using 802.11b all the time. I also do it using MC10 server and client. It works just fine.
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Good news & Bad News:
Good news: I've got the NOTIFY stuff working, the hanging problem fixed, and lots of cleanup of the UPnP stuff done.
Bad news: there's still two small bugs before I can release it, and it won't be done tonight.
Tomorrow...
j
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Okay, it really should be in the next build :)
I'm locking this thread and starting a new one.
j
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The reverse. You can tell the MP101 what you want to play (from MC's library).
How do I do this? I can only play on the mp101 by using the remote on the mp101. I would much rather tell it what to play from the PC...
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It would depend on control point features being in MC at some point, but even more importantly on what your streamer (MP101 in your case) is capable of. As John has noted, remotely controlling your streamer from the PC is a whole different animal than the PC making content available for the streamer to pull. If your streamer is very UPnP compliant, it may theoretically be possible. There is a lot of wiggle room for streamers which are only partially or not at all remotely controllable though.
If you want to check whether your streamer could even be able to be remotely controlled, get the Intel UPnP tools (http://www.intel.com/technology/UPnP/toollicense.htm). Manually start playing some content (preferably playlist or album or something with multiple tracks) on your streamer. Then start "AV Media Controller.exe" from the Intel tools.
If your streamer is UPnP compliant, it should show up as a rendered. You can then use stop, pause, play, next/previous and volume controls to test it. You'll likely encounter one of several scenarios:
1) streamer not found at all - it is probably not UPnP compliant for control, so will not be remotely controllable (pray for a firmware upgrade)
2) found, but nothing can be controlled - UPnP implementation is broken, see above
3) volume works, but play/pause/seek/etc do not - indicates a clean but partial UPnP implementation
4) all controls work - very promising. other more esoteric Intel tools could then be checked for things like directly setting a song to play if you get this far
Actual remote control of a streamer from MC would need plenty of MC additions as well, which I think John indicated wouldn't be considered til after MC content serving is fleshed out. Using the Intel tool just allows you right now to tell if your device could even be remotely controlled at all.
Aaron
The MP101 does not show up at all. Media Center does, though.
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BTW - Intel AV Media Controller causes Media Center to CRASH when browsing content! So I don't think the UPnP implementation is as good as it could be...
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John,
Good news & Bad News:
Good news: I've got the NOTIFY stuff working, the hanging problem fixed, and lots of cleanup of the UPnP stuff done.
Any chance your cleanup operation has improved the DSM-320 stuff as well?