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[john h]

Sonos has just announced a new system to stream music files to players around the house, that will allow for simultaneous playing in multiple zones.  The new system has digital outputs and they took out the amp from the earlier version.  Here's a link to the cnet review: http://reviews.cnet.com/Sonos_BU80_ZP80_bundle/4505-6739_7-31833037.html?tag=cnetfd.sd

I am wondering if this will recognize my playlists and smartlists that I have created with MC, just like the Roku Soundbridge does.

I emailed Sonos to ask, and this is the response I received:

Sonos supports playlists in the following formats: PLS, WPL and M3U.  It is unlikely that we will be able to recognize ‘smartlists’ and ‘ratings.’  Here is an FAQ on the subject: https://sonos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/sonos.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=55

So, I don't know which format MC uses for playlists.  Is anyone else out there familiar with this device and whether it will pick up all the hard work I have done in creating playlists and smartlists??

Thanks!

[yonkiman]

I think the question to ask them is "Does Sonos use the UPnP" protocol.  If they do, I think it will work with MediaCenter's UPnP server, and pickup (at least) all your standard playlists.   MC probably serves Smartlists as regular playlists, so you may have those as well (I don't know much about Smartlists yet - it's my next to-do with MC).

I did see on the Sonos website a few references to UPnP, so I think it supports it.  Hopefully in a standard, compatible way...

Let us know what you find out!

-Fred

[John Gateley]

Yes, please let us know if you find out anything.

I searched, but couldn't find positive confirmation. But it looks like the Sonos does NOT support UPnP unfortunately. (It uses UPnP to control the devices, but not to stream media I think).

j

[john h]

Guys, thanks for the responses.  I have had an email correspondence with Sonos's tech support folks to ask them if they think the machines will work with MC11.  I will focus with them on whether it will support  the uPNP protocol and post the results.

[Robert Taylor]

I also had asked about whether Sonos would work with uPNP (specifically with MC) for a friend of mine who was looking at the Sonos.

Here is what they said:

"Sonos does utilize UPnP, but accesses files over the network thru file sharing (CIFS or SMB). Having a media center program that supports UPNP isn't necessary in order for Sonos to access your library."

I then fired another question at them, and was a little more descriptive in what I was trying to find out, and they said:

"A note from one of my tech support people:

'No, he can't use his existing Media Center software to act as a UPnP Server in the sense that it will stream files to Sonos.  Sonos will access his files over the network via file sharing, thus requiring 1 ZP to be hardwired.  The hardwired ZP isn't a "server", every ZP is the same, but if there is only 1 hardwired ZP it will be the only ZP accessing files off the PC."

So, I told my friend, forget about the Sonos for noew (and probably forever). Here in Australia, it would cost my friend about $2500 for a wireless remote unit, and two Sonos stations.

It would be cheaper to buy two basic laptops with wireless, a license for MC 11, a license for Netremote, and a pocketPC. Then he could get assistance setting iot all up for free from me 8-)

[Peter Engrav]

I'm actually confused as to what scenario you're trying to enable that requires MC to stream over the net to the Sonos box.  You can plug a local source into any Sonos box in your house and then listen to it from any other (as a stream).  I have MC running on one machine and 4 Sonos boxes (2 with amps, 2 ZP80s hooked to stereos) throughout the house. I use MC in 2 ways.

• to maintain and administer the music library (thereafter used by the Sonos boxes as a tree of files, no MC required)
• I use MC to play complicated playlists, etc. on a PC and listen to the output on Sonos boxes as a local device attached to one of them

Oh.  Maybe I just answered my own question.  If you want from any Sonos player the ability to choose a different smartlist, you might be out of luck. In my case at least it's more than sufficient to have all the Sonos locations able to choose between albums in the library or fixed playlists or a single "our house radio station".

I must admit to being an almost irrational fan of Sonos.  I've owned 3 or 4 other "play music from PCs through stereos" devices over the last few years and they all felt like clunky rough drafts. The Sonos parts have actual design. And other folks in my household are actually using them.  Without being told how.  Miraculous. 

[Robert Taylor]

Hi Peter,

I'm curious about the second use of MC in your setup.

You say "I use MC to play complicated playlists on a PC and listen to the output on Sonos boxes as a local device"...

How does this work? Is there some sort of pseudo device installed on your PC which means you can pump the output of MC directly to one of the Sonos boxes?

cheers
Rob

[john h]

Peter, I'm also curious about your message.  I don't know the right terms for how this all works, but are you saying that you organize your music into playlists on MC, and then somehow get the same playlists on your Sonos remote control?  If that's possible, then it seems that they do work together.  Can you explain how your system works (for a layman )??

Thanks,
John

[twentworth22]

Peter, I'm also curious about your message.  I don't know the right terms for how this all works, but are you saying that you organize your music into playlists on MC, and then somehow get the same playlists on your Sonos remote control?  If that's possible, then it seems that they do work together.  Can you explain how your system works (for a layman )??

Thanks,
John

I'm also interested in getting Sonos to work w/ MC.  Sonos is able to access Rhapsody via UPNP so I can't see why it couldn't access the MC UPNP server.  I wonder if perhaps it is hard coded to only look for the Rhapsody UPNP user agent?

I want to simply be able to access my Smartlists through Sonos.  The Rhapsody client is HORRIBLE and has very limited support for playlists.  I'd love to be able to ditch Rhapsody and replace it w/ the MC UPNP server.

[pqcgebxm]

Sonos is able to access Rhapsody via UPNP so I can't see why it couldn't access the MC UPNP server.  I wonder if perhaps it is hard coded to only look for the Rhapsody UPNP user agent?

I don't know of the technical details/method, but this is essentially the feedback I received from Sonos -- their implementation of UPnP is Rhapsody-specific. I don't understand why they've made this decision, but I suspect it is marketing-driven -- i.e., a deal with the Rhapsody folks.

[John Gateley]

Thanks for the info, though it's too bad...

j

[john h]

So, I have persisted to ask Sonos if they have come up with anything that will allow their uPnP protocol to allow their machines to recognize and play the MC playlists/smartlists.  The most recent response I received is not encouraging:

"Here is the answer from my tech support:

Unfortunately it doesn't look like [Sonos will recognize the playlists].  J River uses their own playlist format which doesn't seem to be compliant with any 3rd parties (except by using its upnp server).  So it looks like he would need to recreate his playlists.
 
Here is a link that might interest you:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8268645#post8268645."

The link is to a posting on the AVS Forum by a MC user who also is using Sonos.  Interestingly, this guy seems not to use his MC playlists when streaming music to his Sonos devices.  I find this odd; I always assumed that everyone uses MC like I do, which is to create many different playlists and listen to whatever MC sends forth like a radio station.  I guess there's still folks who choose whole albums to play. 

Anyway, I continue to long for a device like the Sonos receivers (giving easy synchronous many-room playing, one universal remote) that will work with MC.  If someone came up with a plug-in that allowed these things to work together, I bet there would be lots of purchases of Sonos boxes by MC users.

[Peter Engrav]

Better late than never, I suppose.

I do periodically publish MC playlists (File / Export All Playlists as .m3u) to a share, from which the Sonos players all over the house find 'em.  But that's as static lists (no smart/dynamic bits) so it does lose something.

The other scenario is that I have a solid sound card (M-Audio Revolution, actually) in a PC in the basement that runs MC, and that sound card's output is plugged into a nearby Sonos zone player as its "line in" source. This source is then available at _any_ Sonos zone player all over the house.  Basically it's my own internet radio station.  It tends to be playing stuff all the time so I can just flip any Sonos to listen to it and viola, there's my music (coming out of MC).  And whenever I'm sitting at a PC I can remote desktop to the machine in the basement and play DJ in MC.

The one lameness to this setup is that although the sound card has exceedingly clean digital out (I once experimented by playing WAV on the PC out the Revolution's digital out (with the volume control/etc. all disabled) recording onto a DAT deck, then loading the file back off the DAT and comparing it to the original and verifying them identical - although I may well have got lost in there somewhere it appeared to work) the Sonos zone players don't have a digital _input_.  So there's a pointless conversion to analog (on the sound card) and then back to digital (in the basement zone player).

Of course what I really want is to be able to use MC to simply _be_ an internet radio station (or whatever) in a form that the Sonos can connect to.  I can't really imagine this should be hard, but I can't quite see how to get it to work yet.