Announcement: Whitebear Media Server (UPnP/DLNA) v2.0 released !!

[AndrewFG]

I have just released a much reworked version 2.0 of Whitebear Media
Server.

Whitebear Media Server is UPnP/DLNA compliant Digital Media Server. It
is a Windows application that runs on the same computer as SqueezeBox
Server. It is a "frontend" to SqueezeBox Server that adds UPnP/DLNA
Digital Media Server features on top of Squeezebox Server's normal
functionality.

You can download it on http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver

For the technically minded: Whitebear Media Server talks to SqueezeBox
Server via the latter's CLI interface to read the music database, and
it takes advantage of SqueezeBox Server's helper applications faad.exe,
sox.exe, flac.exe, (lame.exe) for serving and transcoding the music
files.

System requirements: Windows XP, Vista or W7 / Squeezebox Server v7.5.x
(or later)

Note: Whitebear Media Server has so far been tested against a handful
of UPnP Digital Media Control Points and Renderers -- namely Sony's
KDL-40Z4500 TV, Oppo's BDP-83 Blu-Ray player, Microsoft's Windows Media
Player v12, and Illustrate's Asset Control application. Please free to
try it with other Control Points and Renderers, let me know if you
encounter problems, and I will do my best to resolve them...


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[Nikhil]

Cool thanks, will test it out. Any chance of seeing this on a non
windows platform like linux or macosx? Also any chance on extending
this to serve DAAP clients as well?


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[AndrewFG]

Nikhil;564360 Wrote:
> Any chance of seeing this on a non windows platform like linux or
> macosx?

Nothing is planned for the time being. I am focussing on "perfecting"
the Windows version first.

Nikhil;564360 Wrote:
> Also any chance on extending this to serve DAAP clients as well?

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a DAAP client ??


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[pippin]

AndrewFG;564377 Wrote:
>
> Excuse my ignorance, but what is a DAAP client ??

iTunes


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[AndrewFG]

pippin;564385 Wrote:
> iTunes

Ahah!


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[AndrewFG]

I just released v2.0.1 of Whitebear Media Server
http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver.

It has many small bug fixes, and improved transcoding support.


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[AndrewFG]

I just released a new build of v2.0.1 of Whitebear Media Server
http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver.

Added: transcoding support from Monkeys APE files.

It now supports transcoding as follows:

Source: AAC, AIF, ALAC, APE, FLAC, MOV, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, WAV, WMA
and WVP
Target: PCM, MP3, WAV and FLAC.


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[MrSinatra]

i am really impressed. so many people have asked for this.

i wonder if you should should announce in the general forum as well, as
many people don't visit other forums? just link to this thread.

(i am hoping you can code this to work on a readyNAS x86 machine
eventually)


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[Metazargo]

...but I'll have to wait until someone has the patience to port it to
Linux, i.e. my QNAP NAS.

Congrats anyhow!

Have you plans to add image and video support from the filesystem?


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[AndrewFG]

Metazargo;570409 Wrote:
> ...but I'll have to wait until someone has the patience to port it to
> Linux, i.e. my QNAP NAS.

It is written in Pascal, built using the Delphi development environment
http://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi -- currently they only target
Windows platforms. They do have plans to introduce cross compiling to
Unix and Apple platforms in the future; but unfortunately they just
announced a new (delayed) roadmap where the cross platform stuff is
delayed until two years from now...

> Have you plans to add image and video support from the filesystem?

Not really. Whitebear uses Squeezebox Server to manage and query the
music database, with all the music file tags and thumbnails etc. Adding
image and video support, would mean that I would need to bolt on another
application to do for the image and video and video files what SBC does
for music files...


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[TiredLegs]

Thanks for making this available.

Does Whitebear enable DLNA players to sync with Squeezeboxes running on
the same Squeezebox server?


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[raldo]

does Whitebear implement dlna dmr, aka "play to"?


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[AndrewFG]

raldo;570577 Wrote:
> does Whitebear implement dlna dmr, aka "play to"?

Yes, it should work if you have a Control Point that supports "Play
To".

Whitebear is a DLNA DMS (Digital Media Server); it provides the
information for the ContentDirectory browsing function, and it is a
server for delivering the (transcoded) music files and thumbnail images
to whoever cares to have them.

Your Control Point is a GUI that allows you to browse to the file you
want to play. It calls on the Whitebear ContentDirectory to provide the
necessary directory information. And if the Control Point supports "Play
To" it instructs the respective player (DMR Digital Media Renderer) to
play the respective file. Basically the CP says to the DMR "here is a
URL for some music, please download that file (from Whitebear) and play
it"...


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[raldo]

AndrewFG;570627 Wrote:
> Yes, it should work if you have a Control Point that supports "Play
> To".
>

I installed SB Server, WB Server,and Softsqueeze on my laptop (winxp).

On my Win7 machine, I verified that WB server is visible in Windows
Media Player (WMP) and that I can play music on the Win7 machine by
browsing and playing from there.

However, when browsing the local library in WMP there is no "Play to"
item in the rightclick context menu. Isn't that where I should see my
Softsqueeze instance?


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[AndrewFG]

raldo;570789 Wrote:
> However, when browsing the local library in WMP there is no "Play to"
> item in the rightclick context menu. Isn't that where I should see my
> Softsqueeze instance?

I think there could be two reasons why there is no "Play To" menu on
your instance of WMP 12

1) I could be wrong, but I think that Softsqueeze is NOT a UPNP / DLNA
Digital Media Renderer ??

2) Perhaps you have not set up WMP 12 to allow streaming to 3rd party
media devices? In WMP 12 press the Stream button and check
"Automatically allow devices to play my media"...

In my case, with "Automatically allow devices to play my media"
checked, my Sony KDL-40Z4500 (DLNA compliant) TV for example does show
up under the Play To menu. BUT -- testing it just now -- I did discover
that there is a small bug that prevents Whitebear from playing the
music. => I will fix it within a couple of hours, and post back.


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[AndrewFG]

Yet another updated version has been posted

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver

Improvements are as follows:

- Fixed support for "Play To" commands. (Tested with Windows Media
Player 12 playing to a Sony KDL-40Z4500 TV)
- Added support for Wake-on-Lan via Windows Media Player 12
- Added support for Play Lists
- Fixed an issue with multi- tasking when more than one Control Point
was browse the Content Directory


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[raldo]

AndrewFG;570827 Wrote:
>
> 1) I could be wrong, but I think that Softsqueeze is NOT a UPNP / DLNA
> Digital Media Renderer ??
>
It's not, but I was hoping that WB Server would expose each SB as a DMR
unit.

AndrewFG;570827 Wrote:
>
> 2) Perhaps you have not set up WMP 12 to allow streaming to 3rd party
> media devices? In WMP 12 press the Stream button and check
> "Automatically allow devices to play my media"...
>
I have now, no luck.

Anyways, consider this a feature request!


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[AndrewFG]

raldo;570900 Wrote:
> It's not, but I was hoping that WB Server would expose each SB as a DMR
> unit. Anyways, consider this a feature request!

I don't see how that could even be possible. What you are asking for is
that Whitebear would somehow become a remote proxy for all other SB
players on the (home) network. Sorry but I can't imagine how to even
start with that...


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[amcluesent]

Hmm, no luck at all with this on Vista using Media Player or iPad apps
as clients. But when I stop Whitebear and fire-up Twonky, all the
clients are connecting to that fine.

Where can I look to see what's causing it to silently fail?


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[AndrewFG]

amcluesent;570974 Wrote:
> Hmm, no luck at all with this on Vista using Media Player or iPad apps
> as clients. But when I stop Whitebear and fire-up Twonky, all the
> clients are connecting to that fine.

Could you please be a bit more specific about what you mean by the
"this" that fails? Do you mean the "Play To" functionality?

Actually I am rather surprised that you got it to work with even Twonky
on Vista using (Windows) Media Player, because as far as I know Windows
Media Player 11 (Vista version) does not support UPnP/DLNA Digital
Media Servers; only Windows Media Player 12 (Windows 7 version) does
this. Or am I missing something here.

As far as the iPad client is concerned, I can't comment (since I don't
have one) -- but I am exceedingly envious...

amcluesent;570974 Wrote:
> Where can I look to see what's causing it to silently fail?

First, just try the latest build v2.0.1.650 from my website; the
earlier versions did not work with "Play To".

If v2.0.1.650 does not work, then install it as a Regular Application
(not as a Windows Service) and click on the tray monitor; in the
monitor application, select the "Debug Trace" tab; and check the box
"Trace TCP Server"; and look in the resulting output log file
"WhitebearMediaServerLog.txt". Note: that when Whitebear is installed
as a Windows service, the "Debug Trace" tab is not available...


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[AndrewFG]

AndrewFG;570922 Wrote:
> What you are asking for is that Whitebear would somehow become a remote
> proxy for all other SB players on the (home) network. Sorry but I can't
> imagine how to even start with that...

Actually, I was thinking about it almost all of last night (no
sleep)...

And now it seems to me entirely feasible for Whitebear to implement an
embedded UPnP/DLNA Digital Media Renderer for each SB player on the
network. And the DMRs would control the SB players via the SBC CLI
interface.

So I spent most of today "heroic" coding it, and have probably already
broken the back of the challenge. However it will take me a few more
days to test it, and then I will post an updated version of Whitebear.


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[raldo]

AndrewFG;571228 Wrote:
>
> So I spent most of today "heroic" coding it, and have probably already
> broken the back of the challenge.
Sweet!


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[AndrewFG]

TiredLegs;570410 Wrote:
> Does Whitebear enable DLNA players to sync with Squeezeboxes running on
> the same Squeezebox server?

Sorry, but no.

Whitebear delegates all its music library browsing requests and album
artwork requests to the Squeezebox Server application; so the "look and
feel" of your music library browsing experience will be very close to
what you see when use use one of the Squeezebox UIs.

But for reasons of speed and responsivity, Whitebear serves the music
stream directly(*) to the UPnP player (aka renderer). So therefore it
is not possible to sync with other players.

(*) although if the music is being transcoded, then Whitebear uses the
Squeezebox Server transcoder helper applications to do it...


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[adonishong]

Hi,

At first, thank you so much for this great work, help us so much.

However, does it possible to do us a favor to add the function of
"browse by folder" in the near future?

BTW, under transcode situation, what is the compress paramter r u
using? Does it possible to make it configurable in the server panal?

Thank you again, so appreciate for your brilliant work. :)

Best Regards,
Kai


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[AndrewFG]

adonishong;571487 Wrote:
> However, does it possible to do us a favor to add the function of
> "browse by folder" in the near future?

This is on the "To Do" list.

Also on the "To Do" list is "Browse Album by Alphabet" and "Browse
Artist by Alphabet" because when you have (say) 600 Albums, the content
directory can take far too long to load. (Depends on whether your
particular control point tries to download the whole content directory
in one go, or whether it tries to download page by page...)

adonishong;571487 Wrote:
> BTW, under transcode situation, what is the compress paramter r u using?
> Does it possible to make it configurable in the server panal?

In the UPnP Media Architecture, the Server (in this case Whitebear)
must "offer" a list of all the music formats that it is able to
deliver. And the Client selects from the "offered" list, the format
that it wants to have delivered.

By law in the UPnP/DLNA Specifications, a Server must offer LPCM as an
absolute minimum. Whitebear offers the basic minimum LPCM, plus WAV,
MP3 and FLAC formats; and in this offer it also indicates which of
those formats are "native" and which are transcoded.

Now -- depending on the client you are using -- it is possible that the
client says to itself "LPCM is uncompressed audio, so it must be good"
and it therefore asks Whitebear to deliver the media in LPCM format
(the basic standard). This can lead to the odd consequence that
Whitebear is required to deliver an LPCM up-converted version of an
originally compressed music file. Obviously such up conversion of a
compressed audio file is a complete waste of time and band- width. But
if the client asks for LPCM then Whitebear will deliver it ("the
client/customer is always right")...

Examples:

In your example case of APE files, the situation is as follows:

A1) Whitebear offers the following formats:
1) APE Trancoded to LPCM (must offer)
2) APE Trancoded to WAV
3) APE Trancoded to FLAC
4) APE Trancoded to MP3

B1) Your client asks for (1) => so the APE file is up-converted to LPCM
(with the consequent high bit-rate)

In the example case of MP3 files, the situation is as follows:

A2) Whitebear offers the following formats:
1) Native MP3
2) MP3 Trancoded to LPCM (must offer)
3) MP3 Trancoded to WAV
4) MP3 Trancoded to FLAC

B2) Your client asks for (1) => so the MP3 file is delivered in native
MP3 (with the consequent low bit-rate)

adonishong;571487 Wrote:
> When browse by "album", all the files under "No Album" generates
> 120-140K Bytes Per Second send rate. However, if the APE file could be
> browsed by the album name of itself, the send Bytes rate only 29K
> Bytes Per Second, around 240Kbps, seems like "transcode" function works
> under this case.

Sorry, but I did not really understand what you are saying here. Can
you please re-phrase it?


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[adonishong]

AndrewFG;571667 Wrote:
>
> Sorry, but I did not really understand what you are saying here. Can
> you please re-phrase it?

Sorry for my poor language. In one word, from the send rate in my PC,
part of APE could be transcoded to MP3, part of APE will be transcoded
to LPCM.

By the way, my client is plugplayer in an iphone 4.

The APE will be transcoded to LPCM:
These APE files could not be identified "correctly", there is no album
information for them. So, if I browse by album, these files will be
found under "No Name".

The APE will be transcoded to MP3:
These APE files could be identified correctly, at least, the album
information could be showed correctly. I could find out them under
correct album name.

Does this expression clear enough now? :)

Thank you for your hard work again.

Regards,
Kai


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[amcluesent]

>Could you please be a bit more specific about what you mean by the
"this" that fails? <

OK, what I mean is that Media Player 11 on Vista and PlugPlayer on iPad
are both working fine with TwonkyMedia server on the Vista machine.
Windows Firewall is switched off.

If I stop Twonky and start Whitebear, then neither client detects a
media server despite rescans.


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[AndrewFG]

amcluesent;571848 Wrote:
> OK, what I mean is that Media Player 11 on Vista and PlugPlayer on iPad
> are both working fine with Twonky Media Server on the Vista machine.
>
> If I stop Twonky and start Whitebear, then neither client detects a
> media server at all, despite rescans.
>
> Windows Firewall is switched off.
>

There are four fundamental things that Whitebear needs:
1) It must be running
2) It must be permitted through the firewall on that PC (by default
ports 31415 and 31416)
3) Squeezebox server must be running on the same PC
4) Squeezebox server must be permitted through the firewall on that PC

But, from what you say, these requirements are fulfilled.

amcluesent;571848 Wrote:
> Just a thought, my machine as multiple Ethernet adaptors (some virtual
> for VPN). Could WhiteBear be binding to one of these and hence missing
> traffic?

That would do it!!

As I recall it (without digging into the code), if there is more than
one Ethernet adapter, the UPnP discovery and UPnP server parts of
Whitebear assume that the first is a VPN, and so it binds to the second
non VPN one. However, for the file server parts of Whitebear, again as I
recall, it just binds to the first adapter. Facit: if you have more than
one adapter, it will definitely be confused !!


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[AndrewFG]

adonishong;571757 Wrote:
> The APE will be transcoded to LPCM:
> These APE files could not be identified "correctly", there is no album
> information for them. So, if I browse by album, these files will be
> found under "No Name".
>
> The APE will be transcoded to MP3:
> These APE files could be identified correctly, at least, the album
> information could be showed correctly. I could find out them under
> correct album name.

Ok thank you. It is clear now. And it is an interesting observation
too. I don't know if this is an artefact of Whitebear or of PlugPlayer.
But I will look into it...

BTW last night I wrote the code for your requested "Browse by File
System" function. As you can see from this thread, I am working also on
a few other issues, so it may take a few more days to get it all
together before I make a new release...


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[amcluesent]

>That would do it!!<

Yes, that was the problem. After disabling my Hamichi VPN interface,
Whitebear was visible to clients on the LAN.

Some mixed results on the iPad -

PlugPlayer app crashes trying to create a playlist
MPPlayer Lite plays fine


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[AndrewFG]

amcluesent;572085 Wrote:
> Yes, that was the problem. After disabling my Hamichi VPN interface,
> Whitebear was visible to clients on the LAN. Any chance of a config
> option or command line switch to set the interface binding?

Yes. I would like to do this. I am just struggling with what the config
option list should offer i.e. how it should look. You obviously have
more experience than me with such configurations, so I wonder if you
can suggest how you would like it to be?

amcluesent;572085 Wrote:
> Some mixed results with clients

Thanks for the brilliant feedback. It is exactly what I wanted !!

amcluesent;572085 Wrote:
> PlugPlayer app crashes trying to create a playlist from content served
> by Whitebear

That's cool ;-/
Any chance of running a log on PlugPlayer to trace what failed?

amcluesent;572085 Wrote:
> Sony BD-S370 disk player
> MP3 played fine, FLAC were shown as LPCM but always reported as corrupt
> when tried to play

It is normal that Flac would appear as LPCM since the Sony's don't
support FLAC and transcoding is therefore needed. But can you perhaps
tell me something about the Flacs that caused the error? Specifically
do you have 44kbps sampling or 48k or 96k higher? Could you send me one
of the failing Flac files?

amcluesent;572085 Wrote:
> Sony Bravia KDL22E5300 TV
> Seems to play everything, inc. the transcoded FLACs which tripped up
> the BD-S370

This confirms my experience with Sony TVs. I have a Sony KDL-40Z4500
which also works a treat. Frankly I am a bit surprised that the Sony
Blu-Ray player tanks; you would expect them to use the same firmware...


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[farope]

Andrew,

Reading through the rest of this thread, I wondered if you ever got the
UPnP Renderer functionality working? Am I correct in thinking that this
would allow a UPnP Controller to determine what is played by the
Squeezebox? I am hoping that I will be able to use XBMC (which is
shortly due to gain a UPnP Controller service) to control my
squeezebox, with the squeezebox doing the actual playing.

Thanks for all the hard work!


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[MrSinatra]

i want to join the AndrewFG fan club, where do i sign up?

:)


--
MrSinatra

www.lion-radio.org
using:
sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbrec & ipeng (parent's home) - sbs 7.5.2b - win
xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz, 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link
dir-655 - 43k+ mp3
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[AndrewFG]

farope;573455 Wrote:
> I wondered if you ever got the UPnP Renderer functionality working?

Yes. I got it working. And -- even though I say it myself -- it IS
really cool!! But I did not yet post it on my web site, since I still
need to do some more testing to ensure nothing got broken in the
orginal functionality. I estimate that in 1..2 days it should be ready
;-)

farope;573455 Wrote:
> Am I correct in thinking that this would allow a UPnP Controller to
> determine what is played by the Squeezebox? I am hoping that I will be
> able to use XBMC (which is shortly due to gain a UPnP Controller
> service) to control my squeezebox, with the squeezebox doing the actual
> playing.

Correct. I don't have XBMC (actually I don't even now what it is). But
as an example, with Windows Media Player 12 on a PC, you can see and
browse your SBC library in WMP12 via Whitebear Media Server, and when
you find what you want, you right click on the item in WMP12 and select
"Play To", and Whitebear Media Renderer will start playing the
respective track on the respective SB player.

Also in the WPM12 player, you can issue player control commands
[Play/Pause/Stop/Previous/Next/Volume/Mute] through Whitebear Media
Renderer to the respective SB player.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[MrSinatra]

can you guys explain a bit?

what is it that WMP12 and XMBC have, DLNA-wise, that allow them to be
able to control and play tunes via slim hardware? what is the features
proper name?

i am asking b/c i VERY MUCH want to be able to play/control my music
with winamp over my slim hardware, (i don't like SBS). the problem is
i don't know if winamp has what dlna features it needs, (or if it does
DLNA at all).

if it doesn't, i need to know what EXACTLY to request in their wishlist
forums.

am i correct in thinking that winamp wouldn't actually be playing the
music, but rather that it would just be controlling SBS? what lag
time, if any, would this entail?


--
MrSinatra

www.lion-radio.org
using:
sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbrec & ipeng (parent's home) - sbs 7.5.2b - win
xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz, 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link
dir-655 - 43k+ mp3
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[lrossouw]

foobar2000 can also be a renderer \ controler via the upnp component.
Haven't tested it yet.


--
lrossouw

Louis
'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/lrossouw)
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[lrossouw]

MrSinatra;573693 Wrote:
> can you guys explain a bit?
>
> what is it that WMP12 and XMBC have, DLNA-wise, that allow them to be
> able to control and play tunes via slim hardware? what is the features
> proper name?

I thought the name would be upnp and\or dlna. Winamp should have
something either by default or via a plugin.


--
lrossouw

Louis
'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/lrossouw)
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[AndrewFG]

MrSinatra;573693 Wrote:
> can you guys explain a bit?
> what is it that WMP12 and XMBC have, DLNA-wise, that allow them to be
> able to control and play tunes via slim hardware? what is the features
> proper name?

Actually WMP12 and XMBC have NOTHING that allows them to play tunes via
Slim hardware!! What they DO have is the ability to talk to two things
called respectively Digital Media Servers (DMS) and Digital Media
Renderers (DMR). A piece of software (like WMP12 and XMBC) that has
this capability to talk to a DMS and/or a DMR, is itself called a
Digital Media Controller (DMC) or Control Point (CP).

The "language" (protocol) that allows communication between
DMC/CP/DMS/DMR, is called Universal Plug & Play (UPnP). The basic
specifications of the UPnP protocol for DMC/DMS/DMR is slightly unclear
in some respects, so the home electronics companies (like Sony)
established a group called Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) that
adds more precision to the UPnP protocol specification. Software (like
WMP12, XMBC etc.) and hardware (like TVs, Blu-Ray players etc.) are
tested and certified to be UPnP/DLNA compliant. This means that their
respective DMC/CP/DMS/DMR can (in principle) talk to ANY other tested
and certified DMC/CP/DMS/DMR in a reliable and predictable manner.

The DMS and the DMR have different functions. A DMS is something that
provides a "Content Directory" of audio visual media. The Content
Directory is usually structured in some way like
Albums/Artists/Folder/Genres etc. The DMC/CP talks to the DMS in order
to browse Content Directory structure or to search for specific media
items. The DMS also informs the DMC/CP about the media content tag data
and its supported encoding format(s) and it also provides a URL where
the actual media can be downloaded from. And a DMR is something that
can play audio visual media. It is an interface to a physical or
software based media player of some sort. The DMR supports commands
like play/stop/next/back/volume/mute etc.

So if you have a DMC (like WMP12 or XMBC), then it is able to browse
and find music via the Content Directory on any DMS that it can find on
the network, and it is able to play that music to any other DMR that it
can find on the network. The clever thing is that you can have any
combination of DMC/DMS/DMR from many different suppliers, and the whole
thing should just work together. Obviously this requires DMC/DMS/DMR to
strictly adhere to the UPnP/DLNA specifications.

On a side note, you may be interested to know that WMP12 actually
implements the DMC functionality and the DMS functionality and the DMR
functionality. So WMP12 can talk to other instances of itself on other
computers on the network, in order to browse (share), control and play
music across any combination of PCs. It's rather cool...

Now you might ask where does Squeezebox fit into this picture? Well, to
be blunt, it does NOT. The Squeezebox server software does NOT support
either DMC or DMS functionality. And the Squeezebox players do NOT
support DMR functionality. Slim Devices / Logitech chose (for whatever
reason) to go for a proprietary system that is not based on UPnP/DLNA.
However, to their credit, even though it is a proprietary system, it is
at least an open one, and it is well documented too...

Now your final question might be: How to bridge the gap between the
world of UPnP/DLNA DMC/DMS/DMR on one side, and the Squeezebox world on
the other? And the answer is - ta-da - WHITEBEAR!! Indeed Whitebear
implements two bridges: 1) UPnP/DLNA DMS <=> Squeezebox Server, and 2)
UPnP/DLNA DMS <=> Squeezebox Players (I am bending the truth for
simplicity here, since it actually commands the players via the server
CLI...)

MrSinatra;573693 Wrote:
> i am asking b/c i VERY MUCH want to use winamp to be able to
> play/control my music over slim hardware, (i don't like SBS). the
> problem is i don't know if winamp has what dlna features it needs, (or
> if it does DLNA at all).

I know nothing about WinAmp. In particular I don't know it implements
DMC/CP functionality. But -- if it did -- then it would be able to: 1)
talk with the Whitebear DMS and thus browse your Squeezebox server
library, and 2) talk with the Whitebear DMR and thus play the music to
your Squeeze players. (But please note that there is one big "but" in
the middle of this paragraph...)


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[siam6606]

AndrewFG;573742 Wrote:
> I know nothing about WinAmp. In particular I don't know if it implements
> DMC/CP functionality. But -- if it did -- then it would be able to: 1)
> talk with the Whitebear DMS and thus browse your Squeezebox server
> library, and 2) talk with the Whitebear DMR and thus play the music to
> your Squeeze players. (But please note that there is one big "but" in
> the middle of this paragraph...)

the pluging ml_upnp for winamp can browse Squeezebox server library :)
. But can't send command to play music... :(


--
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[MrSinatra]

siam6606;574263 Wrote:
> the plugin ml_upnp for winamp can browse Squeezebox server library :) .
> But can't send command to play music... :(

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?p=2694577

what is missing from the plugin to be able to do it? it would be
awesome to be able to control SBS/squeezeboxes with winamp using
whitebear and your plugin.

the freedom to not use a slim control interface, while also being able
to use any upnp/dlna hardware for playback, is slowly turning from
dream to reality.


--
MrSinatra

www.lion-radio.org
using:
sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbrec & ipeng (parent's home) - sbs 7.5.2b - win
xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz, 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link
dir-655 - 43k+ mp3
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[AndrewFG]

MrSinatra;570349 Wrote:
> i wonder if you should should announce in the general forum as well, as
> many people don't visit other forums? just link to this thread.

Thanks for the suggestion.

MrSinatra;570349 Wrote:
> i am hoping you can code this to work on a readyNAS x86 machine
> eventually

Hmmm. It is about 19'000 lines of code. So -- to be blunt -- I am not
even thinking about recoding it.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG
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[Phil Meyer]

Discovered a cosmetic issue today. I played a song from Foobar, sending it to play on a Squeezebox via Whitebear.

There was more than one artist tag associated with the track. ARTIST=Anneke Van Giersbergen and ARTIST=Danny Cavanagh. This was reported on the Squeezebox Touch as "ARRAY(0x118ce174)".

Phil

[AndrewFG]

Philip Meyer;592951 Wrote:
> There was more than one artist tag associated with the track.
> ARTIST=Anneke Van Giersbergen and ARTIST=Danny Cavanagh.I don't understand why you see this as a problem. Most tagging models
allow more than one artist tag. Think of classical opera whre you may
have an opera company, various soloists plus a muscial director
(say)...

Basically Whitebear passes on whatever artist value(s) that Squeezebox
Server gives to it.

{ But admittedly Squeezebox Server has a bug insofar as the list of
artist value(s) are sent in comma delimited format, and thus if an
artist name includes a comma in it, it will be wrongly interpreted as
two names... }


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

Try out Whitebear. The middleware that joins the two worlds of:
1. UPnP/DLNA media clients and media players, and,
2. Squeezebox Server and Squeeze Players
Download it for free here: http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[Phil Meyer]

>Basically Whitebear passes on whatever artist value(s) that Squeezebox
>Server gives to it.
>
My problem was the other way round though. I loaded music into Foobar, and was using the UPnP Controller to play music via WhiteBear on a Squeezebox. i.e. the music wasn't in the Squeezebox library.

This was an mp3 file with id3v2.4 tags. There were two ARTIST tags shown in Foobar song properties.

[Phil Meyer]

>I have just released a much reworked version 2.0 of Whitebear Media
>Server.
>
>You can download it on http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
>
Thought I'd try this out, but I'm having a hard time with it at the moment.

Installed 2.0.1.650 in application mode, and when it ran up, it continued to open up modal alert dialogs (several dialogs a second, beeping away): "Socket Error # 10053 - Software caused connection abort.". Can't close them due to the rate that they are generated at, so I wasn't able to get into the application settings to change anything - only option is to kill the process.

[AndrewFG]

Philip Meyer;573869 Wrote:
> Installed 2.0.1.650 in application mode, and when it ran up, it
> continued to open up modal alert dialogs (several dialogs a second,
> beeping away): "Socket Error # 10053 - Software caused connection
> abort.". Can't close them due to the rate that they are generated at,
> so I wasn't able to get into the application settings to change
> anything - only option is to kill the process.

I apologise. The modal dialogs are a PITA. In a later version, I will
try to eliminate them.

However, the first challenge is to get Whitebear working on your system
so no errors are raised in the first place: Something on your PC is
preventing Whitebear from connecting to the network. I wonder if your
firewall is blocking Whitebear? Or is your network card disabled? Do
you have anything else unusual concerning your network environment
(external/active firewall, dual NICs or whatever)?


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[Phil Meyer]

>However, the first challenge is to get Whitebear working on your system
>so no errors are raised in the first place: Something on your PC is
>preventing Whitebear from connecting to the network. I wonder if your
>firewall is blocking Whitebear? Or is your network card disabled? Do
>you have anything else unusual concerning your network environment
>(external/active firewall, dual NICs or whatever)?
>
I use Comodo Firewall/Defence+.

This reported that Whitebear was asking for a connection, and blocked until I accepted. I accepted this request, but Whitebear still kept raising the dialogs. I closed Whitebear down and restarted, but it still reported the error.

Looking in my Firewall log, I can see that it asked for a UDP connection from port 4355 to 239.255.255.250 port 1900. I have allowed all outgoing UDP traffic on any port for this application.

Phil

[AndrewFG]

Philip Meyer;573930 Wrote:
> I use Comodo Firewall/Defence+.
>
> This reported that Whitebear was asking for a connection, and blocked
> until I accepted. I accepted this request, but Whitebear still kept
> raising the dialogs. I closed Whitebear down and restarted, but it
> still reported the error.
>
> Looking in my Firewall log, I can see that it asked for a UDP
> connection from port 4355 to 239.255.255.250 port 1900. I have allowed
> all outgoing UDP traffic on any port for this application.
>
> Phil

Thanks for the feedback. I need to dig into this a bit more. But you
probably need to do more than just open up for UDP traffic.

Whitebear is quite a complex animal: It has two HTTP servers (on ports
31415 and 31416) and the respective HTTP requests are accepted on to
random ports. It has one UDP server on port 1900 for receiving UPnP
search requests, and it responds by UDP Unicast to the searcher's IP
and Port. Also it sends UDP multicast broadcasts to 239.255.255.250
port 1900 for UPnP alive and byebye notifications. It talks to
Squeezebox server via a TCP connection on port 9090. And it sends UPnP
Subscription Notify messages to whatever address and port the
subscriber asks for.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[Phil Meyer]

>Thanks for the feedback. I need to dig into this a bit more. But you
>probably need to do more than just open up for UDP traffic.
I accepted all of the alerts that the firewall presented, so I think it's not getting as far as opening other TCP connections (i.e. all outgoing UDP packets on any port would be okay).

[AndrewFG]

Philip Meyer;574181 Wrote:
> I accepted all of the alerts that the firewall presented, so I think
> it's not getting as far as opening other TCP connections (i.e. all
> outgoing UDP packets on any port would be okay).

You need to tell me more about how your network is configured.

If you want to check it yourself, you could dowload and run some of the
UPnP test tools from http://opentools.homeip.net/dev-tools-for-upnp (the
Device Sniffer tool would tell you if Whitebear is being discovered).


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[AndrewFG]

Finally, I released the new version http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver

In this version, I added "Play To" support for Squeezebox music
players. And it not only supports "Play To" of native files from the
Squeezebox server library to your Squeezebox players, but it also
supports "Play To" of any other url that your UPnP Control Point can
serve. (Whitebear! He's cool...)

Summary of key features:

- You can browse your Squeezebox server library from any UPnP/DLNA
Control Point.
- If the Control Point is also a player, you can play the music from
the Squeezebox server library on it.
- If the Control Point supports "Play To", you can play any music url
-- be it a Squeezebox server native file or a third party url -- to any
Squeexebox player.
- And indeed you can "Play To" the same url -- be it SBC native or
third party -- to any other third party UPnP/DLNA compliant player.

Summary: from anything, to anthing...

In this version, I have improved the setup application, so that the
service is installed with a dependency on Squeezebox server. I fixed a
bug in the port configuration settings box. I improved network fault
handling. And a whole bunch of other quality improvements.

Enjoy!


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[Phil Meyer]

Tried this version; seems better, but can't play music yet.

Some observations:

1. Installer defaults to C:\Program Files\ path; can't select an alternative folder.
2. If I select different trace option checkboxes, the Apply button is not enabled. It appears that I have to alter something else (eg. trace path) before I can apply changes.


In SBS, I can see "Unknown SBC Music Library (served by Whitebear)", but don't see any content. I assume "Unknown SBC Music Library" suggests a problem with the CLI connection.

I can also see this from within Foobar 2000.

NB. I have password protection enabled within SBS, so any CLI commands must first issue the authentication command - perhaps this is the problem, because I can't see anywhere within Whitebear Server to configure the username/password for SBS?

In SBS log file, I see the following when I try to browse albums:

[18:37:08.2670] Slim::Networking::SimpleAsyncHTTP::onError (230) Failed to connect to http://192.168.1.2:31416/e52190bf-153a-4f5e-8045-f25cd592943a/ContentDirectory/control (500 Internal Server Error)
[18:37:08.2681] Slim::Networking::UPnP::ControlPoint::gotError (365) Error retrieving http://192.168.1.2:31416/e52190bf-153a-4f5e-8045-f25cd592943a/ContentDirectory/control: 500 Internal Server Error

[Phil Meyer]

I removed SBS password protection as a temporary experiment. Didn't work. I restarted SBS, still didn't work.

I stopped Whitebear and restarted - partial success!

I can now browse items, but can't play anything.

In SBS Web UI, it still appears as "Unknown SBC Music Library (served by Whitebear)", but I can browse the content.
In Foobar, it appears correctly as "Main Music Library (served by Whitebear)", and I can browse the content.

I can queue music up to play, but it fails to play anything (either SBS or Foobar).

Phil

[AndrewFG]

Philip Meyer;574526 Wrote:
> In Foobar, it appears correctly as "Main Music Library (served by
> Whitebear)", and I can browse the content.
> I can queue music up to play, but it fails to play anything
> (...Foobar).

Same point as mentioned by csimon. See my response to him. I will get
fooBar and test it myself...

Philip Meyer;574526 Wrote:
> In SBS Web UI, it still appears as "Unknown SBC Music Library (served by
> Whitebear)", but I can browse the content.

Aha! Now I understand your previous post. You are talking about an
addin UPnP Control Point inside SBS. Here unfortunately you are
destined to fail. You are asking SBS to display and play music from
Whitebear. And Whitebear is asking SBS to provide the content data and
play the files. So basically SBS end up trying to talk to itself!! This
would be a highly recursive process, with something eventually
disappearing up its own tail pipe...


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[AndrewFG]

Philip Meyer;574504 Wrote:
> 1. Installer defaults to C:\Program Files\ path; can't select an
> alternative folder.

Correct. (Is that a problem?)

Philip Meyer;574504 Wrote:
> 2. If I select different trace option checkboxes, the Apply button is
> not enabled. It appears that I have to alter something else (eg. trace
> path) before I can apply changes.

Well actually, as soon as you check the boxes, the logging is enabled.
(No need to press Accept). I realise that is counter intuitive. (Next
version). But anyway when you check the boxes, just look for the
"WhitebearMediaServerLog.txt" log file in your My Documents folder.

Philip Meyer;574504 Wrote:
> In SBS, I can see "Unknown SBC Music Library (served by Whitebear)", but
> don't see any content. I assume "Unknown SBC Music Library" suggests a
> problem with the CLI connection.

Indeed. It means Whitebear can't talk to SBC. Either because its not
running, or because its on a different port, or (as you say) because it
is protected by a login/password. Whitebear does not supoort a
login/password. (Next version).

Philip Meyer;574504 Wrote:
> In SBS log file, I see the following when I try to browse albums:
>
> [18:37:08.2670] Slim::Networking::SimpleAsyncHTTP::onError (230) Failed
> to connect to
> http://192.168.1.2:31416/e52190bf-153a-4f5e-8045-f25cd592943a/ContentDirectory/control
> (500 Internal Server Error)
> [18:37:08.2681] Slim::Networking::UPnP::ControlPoint::gotError (365)
> Error retrieving
> http://192.168.1.2:31416/e52190bf-153a-4f5e-8045-f25cd592943a/ContentDirectory/control:
> 500 Internal Server Error

This looks like complete nonsense. Your log file says that something in
Squeezebox server is trying to do an HTTP GET on Whitebear's control
URL. Whitebear is -- correctly -- refusing this connection. This is
completely wrong. (A valid UPnP Control Point would know that you can
only talk to a Control URL using HTTP POST). Anyway, I cannot see why
SBC would even be trying to play like a Control Point. What do you have
running in Squeezebox server (add-on?) that would be trying to do a GET
on my Control URL? Whatever it is, it is clearly broken, and it needs
some serious debugging, so please disable it for the time being ;-)


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[MrSinatra]

Andrew, thanks for your excellent explanation to me earlier in the
thread.

however, when you say "SBC" in the previous post, what do you mean?

i know the slim software to be called SBS or SbS. to me, SBC is the
controller part of the Duet. is that what you meant?

also, unrelatedly, would it be possible to run Whitebear on a windows
machine, yet have it work with a SBS running on a different machine,
possibly a different OS? (meaning, if whitebear "knew" where the SBS
install was on the LAN, even if it were on a different machine and a
different OS, could it be made to work with it anyway? like another
poster said, perhaps think of this as a feature request? ;)


--
MrSinatra

www.lion-radio.org
using:
sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbrec & ipeng (parent's home) - sbs 7.5.2b - win
xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz, 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link
dir-655 - 43k+ mp3
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[Phil Meyer]

>> 1. Installer defaults to C:\Program Files\ path; can't select an
>> alternative folder.
>
>Correct. (Is that a problem?)
>
When given the opportunity, I install applications to another partition, in an attempt to keep my Windows partition small (and thus quicker to defrag).

It's not a problem, just an observation ;-)

[AndrewFG]

Philip Meyer;574583 Wrote:
> It's not a problem, just an observation ;-)

Ok, it would not be a big deal to do it. Its on the list :-)


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[csimon]

I'm afraid I'm still having no luck! My experiences with various
control points and media players as as follows.

WD HD TV Live box as a control point/player: I can browse the Squeeze
library but selecting an item to play brings up the Now Playing screen
briefly and then returns to the menu without playing. It works with
another UPnP server (the one built into Synology NAS units).

foobar2000: I can browse the Squeeze library but when I select an item
to play on a renderer (either the WD HD TV box as a renderer or the
Intel UPnP Developer tools Renderer) the item doesn't get queued. It
works with the Synology server.

eezUPnP: The Whitebear server appears in the list of servers but when I
click on it no menu tree appears. The Synology server appears and I can
browse the tree but I cannot queue any items.

Intel UPnP Dev Tools (using the Controller & Renderer): Whitebear does
not appear in the list of servers. I have started and stopped
Whitebear while Intel is running to ensure that it gets spotted, but it
never appears.

Cidero: I can browse the menu and can queue an item but the item
doesn't play. It works with the Synology server.

All my files are MP3, and all my renderers can play MP3, there can't be
any transcoding issues, I've put lame.exe in the relevant directory
anyway.

I have UPnP Framework enabled in Windows Firewall on ports TCP 2869 &
UDP 1900, and have changed Whitebear's UPnP port to 2869.

Maybe it's just my combination of things that doesn't work!


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[AndrewFG]

csimon;574505 Wrote:
> I'm afraid I'm still having no luck! My experiences with various
> control points and media players as as follows.

Brilliant feedback! Just what I need. You have a completely different
set of CPs than me, (and mine all work), whereas yours don't ;-) Please
keep up the feedback.

General question: are you using latest v2.0.1.803 ??

csimon;574505 Wrote:
> WD HD TV Live box as a control point/player: I can browse the Squeeze
> library but selecting an item to play brings up the Now Playing screen
> briefly and then returns to the menu without playing. It works with
> another UPnP server (the one built into Synology NAS units).

This could be a firewall issue. Is your firewall open for incoming HTTP
requests on both of Whitebear's server ports 31415 and 31416?

Or it could be an issue with Whitebears' Content Directory Browse
responses. Perhaps it is offerring the wrong media formats. Perhaps you
could be kind enough to run me a trace from Whitebear (check the boxes:
Trace Tcp Server, and Trace Media Server)? Thanks in advance.

csimon;574505 Wrote:
> foobar2000: I can browse the Squeeze library but when I select an item
> to play on a renderer (either the WD HD TV box as a renderer or the
> Intel UPnP Developer tools Renderer) the item doesn't get queued. It
> works with the Synology server.

Probably ditto to first point above...

csimon;574505 Wrote:
> eezUPnP: The Whitebear server appears in the list of servers but when I
> click on it no menu tree appears. The Synology server appears and I
> can browse the tree but I cannot queue any items.

Sounds like eezUPnP is (also) a bit buggy ;-)

csimon;574505 Wrote:
> Intel UPnP Dev Tools (using the Controller & Renderer): Whitebear does
> not appear in the list of servers. I have started and stopped
> Whitebear while Intel is running to ensure that it gets spotted, but it
> never appears.

Yes, I noticed that too. But it does appear in the Intel Dev Tools
Device Sniffer and Device Validator applications. So far it is a
mystery to me. But I am working on it...

csimon;574505 Wrote:
> Cidero: I can browse the menu and can queue an item but the item doesn't
> play. It works with the Synology server.

Probably ditto to first point above...

csimon;574505 Wrote:
> Maybe it's just my combination of things that doesn't work!

My current test applications are WMP12 (CP/DMS/DMP/DMR), Sony TV (DMP),
Oppo Blu-Ray (DMP), and Asset Control (CP). But I will download some of
the software CPs you mention above, and test with them too...


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[csimon]

I'm afraid I won';t be able to do any more testing and tracing until at
least Tuesday night, but just some quick answers for now...

AndrewFG;574584 Wrote:
> General question: are you using latest v2.0.1.803 ??

Yes. I downloaded it this evening when I saw your latest announcement
and the version number is displayed on the control panel.

> This could be a firewall issue. Is your firewall open for incoming HTTP
> requests on both of Whitebear's server ports 31415 and 31416?

Well...

I have changed the Whitebear UPnP server port to 2869 as that is the
port used by UPnP Framework. Until I did that, I couldn't get the
Whitebear server to appear in any of my control points/renderers. Was
it OK to do this or is this messing up something else?

To open up port 31415, I guess I have to go into Windows Firewall and
open up TCP port 31415? If this port is already open, it will tell me
so. If it wasn't open, I guess this could indeed be the problem if,
when I try to play an item, Whitebear doesn't actually receive the
request?
> Sounds like eezUPnP is (also) a bit buggy ;-)
To be honest, finding a control point that is not buggy is extremely
difficult! They all behave differently and you don't know whether to
blame the server, the control point, or the renderer.


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[AndrewFG]

csimon;574606 Wrote:
> I have changed the Whitebear UPnP server port to 2869 as that is the
> port used by UPnP Framework. Until I did that, I couldn't get the
> Whitebear server to appear in any of my control points/renderers. Was
> it OK to do this or is this messing up something else?

Yes, it should be Ok. (But I am wondering why it was necessary for you
to change it in the first place, since 1900 is the official port of
UPnP, so this could be a sign that you do have something else blocking
the comms...)

csimon;574606 Wrote:
> To open up port 31415, I guess I have to go into Windows Firewall and
> open up TCP port 31415? If this port is already open, it will tell me
> so. If it wasn't open, I guess this could indeed be the problem if,
> when I try to play an item, Whitebear doesn't actually receive the
> request?

If the setup worked Ok, then in Windows Firewall, you should see an
entry for Whitebear Application and Whitebear Service, and they both
should be checked. If you don't see them, you need to add those
applications by hand (Add Program | Browse for the Exe...)

csimon;574606 Wrote:
> To be honest, finding a control point that is not buggy is extremely
> difficult! They all behave differently and you don't know whether to
> blame the server, the control point, or the renderer.

Indeed. Of course, if software writers would submit their products to
DLNA.ORG for official certification tests, then things would be much
better. But the problem is that this is very expensive, so most people
(like me) prefer to reverse engineer it. Which means making assumptions
about the standard that may or may not be officially correct...

csimon;574606 Wrote:
> I will try to have a go with WMP12 to see if that will work in my
> system. I did have Asset UPnP once but removed it when I couldn't get
> it to work with anything! But that was right at the start of my
> experiments with UPnP a few months ago and didn't really know what I
> was doing...

IMHO WMP12 is very nice; whereas Asset Control is still rather
work-in-progress...


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[csimon]

AndrewFG;574661 Wrote:
> Yes, it should be Ok. (But I am wondering why it was necessary for you
> to change it in the first place, since 1900 is the official port of
> UPnP, so this could be a sign that you do have something else blocking
> the comms...)
This is where I get confused!

UPnP Framework opens up TCP port 2869 and UDP port 1900.

Whitebear's default ports are HTTP 31415 and UPnP 31416. Do either of
these relate to the UPnP framework ports?

As mentioned, I couldn't get Whitebear to appear anywhere so I changed
its UPnP port to 2869 from 31416.

Where does port 1900 come into it? There is nowhere in Whitebear that
displays 1900 in order for me to change it. What I've changed is port
31416.

> If the setup worked Ok, then in Windows Firewall, you should see an
> entry for Whitebear Application and Whitebear Service, and they both
> should be checked.
Yes, they are both there. Does this mean that the ports specified in
Whitebear's configuration have automatically been opened?


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[AndrewFG]

csimon;574666 Wrote:
> This is where I get confused!
> UPnP Framework opens up TCP port 2869 and UDP port 1900.

It is like this:

1) When a UPnP device connects / disconnects to a network, it announces
this via a UDP multi-cast message "NOTIFY" Alive/ByeBye to the UPnP
reserved destination port 1900

2) When a UPnP control point is searching for a UPnP device, it sends a
UDP multi-cast message "M-SEARCH" to the UPnP reserved destination port
1900. And the respective device replies back via a a UDP uni-cast
message to whatever was the origin port of the M-SEARCH request (often
also port 1900).

3) In it's NOTIFY and M-SEARCH responses, the UPnP device provides a
url where the control point can download a Device Descriptor Document
(DDD). And the DDD provides additional urls for describing and
commanding the UPnP services that the specific device supports.
Basically all of these urls are "free choice" determined by the device
manufacturer.

4) When a UPnP control point wants to subscribe to receive event
notifications from a UPnP device, it sends a SUBSCRIBE request to one
of the urls mentioned in 3) above. The SUBSCRIBE request includes a
"callback" url, to which the device, whenever there is an event, sends
the event notification. A subscription event message is also a NOTIFY
message, but a subscription NOTIFY must be sent using TCP (unlike the
Alive, ByeBye and M-SEARCH NOTIFY messages above). The callback url is
"free choice" of the Control Point manufacturer; whereby in the case of
Windows, Microsoft's choice is to use TCP port 2869 as the callback
address for all event NOTIFY messages. (Nota Bene: the choice of 2869
is specific only to Microsoft CPs).

See also the article on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886257

csimon;574666 Wrote:
> Whitebear's default ports are HTTP 31415 and UPnP 31416. Do either of
> these relate to the UPnP framework ports?

Not at all. These are the free choice ports that Whitebear uses for 3)
above.

csimon;574666 Wrote:
> As mentioned, I couldn't get Whitebear to appear anywhere so I changed
> its UPnP port to 2869 from 31416.

This means Whitebear UPnP server (free choice in item 3) above) is
trying to connect on the same port as Microsoft has chosen for its CP
event callback server. There will undoubtedly be a conflict! Set it
back to 31416 (or something else not already used by someone else)

csimon;574666 Wrote:
> Where does port 1900 come into it? There is nowhere in Whitebear that
> displays 1900 in order for me to change it. What I've changed is port
> 31416.

It sounds like you have all your ports mixed up. I suggest to do a
complete un-install of Whitebear. Followed by a clean install...

csimon;574666 Wrote:
> Yes, they are both there. Does this mean that the ports specified in
> Whitebear's configuration have automatically been opened?

Yes. Actually it says "allow all ports which that application needs"...


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[csimon]

OK, will try that asap.


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[nik8]

Quick question, would this work with Triode's Spotify plugin?

thanks


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[AndrewFG]

nik8;574748 Wrote:
> Quick question, would this work with Triode's Spotify plugin?

I don't really understand the question. Would what work? With what? Can
you please be more precise about what you want to achieve?


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[nik8]

AndrewFG;574928 Wrote:
> I don't really understand the question. Would what work? With what? Can
> you please be more precise about what you want to achieve?

sure thing. I haven't installed the Spotify plugin yet but from the
notes provided by Triode on it's usage: Go to the "radio" menu on one
of your hardware players and you should be able to browse and play
tracks from Spotify..

So I was wondering if I installed WBMS and the Spotify plugin, could I
access Spotify (Radio) content with my uPnP device? Does WBMS support
radio streams through SBS ?

thanks


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[AndrewFG]

nik8;574941 Wrote:
> So I was wondering if I installed WBMS and the Spotify plugin, could I
> access Spotify (Radio) content with my uPnP device? Does WBMS support
> radio streams through SBS ?

At this time, Whitebear does not support browsing or playing of streams
from plug-ins. It would be an interesting feature request. But at the
moment I have no idea if it can be done. Anyway, for the time being, I
think my main task is to get the current features running perfectly,
before I add new features...


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[Triode]

nik8;574941 Wrote:
> sure thing. I haven't installed the Spotify plugin yet but from the
> notes provided by Triode on it's usage: Go to the "radio" menu on one
> of your hardware players and you should be able to browse and play
> tracks from Spotify..
>
> So I was wondering if I installed WBMS and the Spotify plugin, could I
> access Spotify (Radio) content with my uPnP device? Does WBMS support
> radio streams through SBS ?
>
> thanks

Won't work due to restrictions in the spotify plugin. This is careful
to ensure it stays within the spotify licensing requirements to not
allow any form of stream ripping by only streaming via hardware
squeezebox players. So don't waste any time looking at this...


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[AndrewFG]

Triode;575062 Wrote:
> ... don't waste any time looking at this...
Thank you my friend ;-)


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[csimon]

I may be onto something...

I've done a complete uninstall and reinstall of Whitebear, and left the
ports as default and it still didn't work. I can browse the tree on my
WD HD TV Live box but cannot play anything.

HOWEVER...my media files are all on a NAS server (Synology) and NOT on
the local PC that is running Squeeze & Whitebear. I changed Squeeze to
look at a directory on the local PC instead and it worked.

The network share on the NAS unit has read privileges to the Guest
account and I can access the share from another PC without giving a
username/password to log in, so I would have thought that anything
should be able to access that share.

Do you think it's therefore an access privileges problem in my setup or
will Whitebear only work with files ont he PC it is running on?

The Synology has its own internal DLNA server and that serves files OK
to the WD box, but then again it's serving them from itself rather than
from somewhere else on the network.


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[AndrewFG]

csimon;575278 Wrote:
> Do you think it's therefore an access privileges problem in my setup or
> will Whitebear only work with files on the PC it is running on?

Well, I only wrote Whitebear to work with files on the PC it is running
on.

I guess that the reason why it does not work on remote shared drives is
something to do with UNC path names. I only tested it on local folders
which have a drive letter...

So, one possible (interim) solution could be to map your UNC drive on
to a local drive letter. But, you would have to make sure that your SBS
library is also configured to use the mapped drive letter instead of the
UNC path. This means you would have to do a full clear database and
rescan...


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[csimon]

AndrewFG;575299 Wrote:
> This means you would have to do a full clear database and rescan...
All in a day's work. :-)

I'm regularly doing rescans anyway while trying out various
configurations of the Squeeze options. Will have a go now.


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[csimon]

OK, latest news...

Yes, it worked by mapping a drive letter instead of using a UNC path.
But it's still not perfect...

Songs stop after while on their own. The symptom of the WD HD TV Live
box is that it halts and skips to the next track. It's random where
they stop, it can be after a few seconds or it can be a minute or two.
But it's always in the same place for each song.

I was suspecting my PC - it has a gigabit network card in it but it
blew during an electric storm 2 months ago and I replaced it with a
cheap one, however I don't think I'm getting good performance out of
the new one, it's quite dismal in fact. Perhaps it was too cheap! So
maybe its network is dropping out. So I decided to install Squeeze and
Whitebear on my second PC which is more modern and fast and has a decent
network card...

Initially, songs wouldn't play at all until I copied lame.exe into the
Squeeze program directory. That's odd - isn't that only needed if
there is transcoding?? All my files are MP3s and the media box
supports MP3s. However they are variable bit rate - I wonder if that
makes a difference?

Anyway, I got that working but I had exactly the same symptoms on this
PC. The same songs stop in exactly the same place.

These MP3s play perfectly on the WD box via the UPnP server in my NAS
unit.

It's really weird isn't it!

Seek also doesn't seem to be implemented yet in Whitebear? I can't fast
forward or rewind.

Back to the original PC, and the software control points, using the
Intel Media Renderer...

foobar2000: Can select an item to play on the renderer but it doesn't
start.

eezUPnP: Discovery works but cannot browse.

Intel controller: Discovery doesn't work.

Cidero: Discovery & browsing works (although strangely, the Artist menu
isn't populated, only the Albums menu), can play an item on the renderer
and it plays through to completion. So this is the only combination
that works so far for me!


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[AndrewFG]

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> Yes, it worked by mapping a drive letter instead of using a UNC path.
> But it's still not perfect...

Mapping to a drive letter is only a temporary fix; and I think I know
what to do to make a "proper" fix...

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> Initially, songs wouldn't play at all until I copied lame.exe into the
> Squeeze program directory. That's odd - isn't that only needed if
> there is transcoding?? All my files are MP3s and the media box
> supports MP3s. However they are variable bit rate - I wonder if that
> makes a difference?

According to the DLNA specification, the single default "must support"
audio format is 16 bit LPCM. All other formats like MP3, FLAC, or
whatever, are optional. According to the DLNA specification, the server
must "offer" all media formats that it can support (and currently
Whitebear offers LPCM, MP3, FLAC, WAV, and native formats). And the
player must select from the offerred list the one it chooses to
download. -- That is the theory. -- Now in practice, I discovered that
many players are lazy and just choose the first offerred format, namely
the LPCM "must offer" format. => So I guess your players are asking
Whitebear for LPCM. => Which means that Whitebear must transcode the
MP3 files to LPCM. => Which means that you need Lame.exe installed. (In
my opinion, this is a complete waste of bandwidth and CPU cycles, but
that is just the way DLNA specification works...)

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> Songs stop after a while on their own. The symptom of the WD HD TV Live
> box is that it halts and skips to the next track. It's random where
> they stop, it can be after a few seconds or it can be a minute or two.
> But it's always in the same place for each song.
>
> Anyway, I got that working but I had exactly the same symptoms on this
> PC. The same songs stop in exactly the same place.
>
> These MP3s play perfectly on the WD box via the UPnP server in my NAS
> unit.
>
> It's really weird isn't it!

Well, given the above, it is not really weird at all. I guess that what
is happening is that the Lame transcoder may be encountering something
in your MP3 files that it does not like, and this causes Lame to
terminate at that point. => Perhaps you can give me a link to one of
your MP3 files so I can test and confirm this diagnosis? (I dont have
many MP3s myself because I prefer lossless formats..)

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> Seek also doesn't seem to be implemented yet in Whitebear? I can't fast
> forward or rewind.

Correct. Seek is not yet supported when playing to non native players.
It is a question of programming the various command line switches for
the transcoders. (This is work-in-progress.) But seek DOES work 1) when
you Play To a Squeeze player, and 2) when the player does its own local
buffering (as for example WMP12 does).

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> foobar2000: Can select an item to play on the renderer but it doesn't
> start.

I was testing it with my development snapshot last night, and fooBar
does now work fine. I will release the development snapshot soon (but
preferably after I have had a chance to look at the above mentiond UNC
issue and eventually the MP3 transcoding (assuming that is indeed the
problem).

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> eezUPnP: Discovery works but cannot browse.

As mentioned, my A/V does not trust this software, so I am not letting
it anywhere near my PC...

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> Intel controller: Discovery doesn't work.

I am in contact with Ylian Saint-Hilaire (the author of the Intel
Tools).

csimon;575328 Wrote:
> Ciderio: Discovery & browsing works (although strangely, the Artist menu
> isn't populated, only the Albums menu), can play an item on the renderer
> and it plays through to completion. So this is the only combination that
> works so far for me!

In my tests, on some native players (like the Intel one), Ciderio fails
to show the track tag data and play position; also the volume and mute
controls don't work.

Concerning the Artist menu: can you confirm that with your MP3s, the
Artist menu does work on Squeezebox native players and UIs? i.e. Maybe
this is a tagging issue rather than a functionality issue?


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[csimon]

AndrewFG;575420 Wrote:
> So I guess your players are asking Whitebear for LPCM.
I'm not sure if my Synology transcodes, I will check the settings
tonight, but all the MP3s play fine when serverd by the Synology.

Hmmm, I know it might probably go against DLNA spec, but (for
testing/debugging purposes only...) could you provide an option in
Whitebear to force no transcoding and therefore to send the file as-is?
Even if my WD box is asking for LPCM, I guess it should still play MP3
if it receives it? This would prove what's happening I guess.

> Perhaps you can give me a link to one of your MP3 files so I can test
> and confirm this diagnosis?
I'll send you a link later tonight.

> As mentioned, my A/V does not trust this software, so I am not letting
> it anywhere near my PC...
LOL!

> Concerning the Artist menu: can you confirm that with your MP3s, the
> Artist menu does work on Squeezebox native players and UIs? i.e. Maybe
> this is a tagging issue rather than a functionality issue?
I don't have any Squeezebox hardware (this is why I'm so interested in
the UPnP capability!), but I can browse the menus via the Squeeze web
interface and the Artist menu is correctly populated. In fact, it's
correctly populated in all the Control Points I've tried (which have
been able to discover the server...) it was only Cidero that didn't do
it. Perhaps it just timed out or something. I can try it again.

As you said too, the ability of control points to receive track
position data and implement other controls seems to be very variable.


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[AndrewFG]

csimon;575427 Wrote:
> Hmmm, I know it might probably go against DLNA spec, but (for
> testing/debugging purposes only...) could you provide an option in
> Whitebear to force no transcoding and therefore to send the file as-is?
> Even if my WD box is asking for LPCM, I guess it should still play MP3
> if it receives it? This would prove what's happening I guess.

Perhaps the easiest way would be to NOT offer LPCM if the respective
transcoder (in this case Lame.exe) were not there. At the moment
Whitebear always offers LPCM, so it fails to work if Lame.exe is not
there.


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[csimon]

AndrewFG - PM sent with links to MP3s I'm having trouble with, and the
results of a few more tests tonight.


--
csimon
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[AndrewFG]

csimon;575541 Wrote:
> AndrewFG - PM sent with links to MP3s I'm having trouble with, and the
> results of a few more tests tonight.

Thanks, I got the PM and the files. In the meantime, I think I found a
way to "trick" the players into accepting the original format MP3s
instead of forcing a transcoding to L16. (So I will not solve the
problem, but rather avoid it entirely...)


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[MrSinatra]

i don't have much exp with DLNA, but i always thought that way it was
supposed to work, most of the time, was without transcoding.
transcoding would only be necessary if the player device didn't
natively support the format. where is the transcoding taking place?
like whats the full signal handling path?

personally, i wouldn't want anything but the player hardware, (whatever
that may be) to decode the mp3 or whatever one sends it. thats how i
thought it always worked.


--
MrSinatra

www.lion-radio.org
using:
sb2 & sbc (my home) / sbrec & ipeng (parent's home) - sbs 7.5.2b - win
xp pro sp3 ie8 - p4(ht) 3.2ghz, 2gig ram - 1tb wd usb2 raid1 - d-link
dir-655 - 43k+ mp3
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[AndrewFG]

MrSinatra;575710 Wrote:
> i don't have much exp with DLNA, but i always thought that way it was
> supposed to work, most of the time, was without transcoding.
> transcoding would only be necessary if the player device didn't
> natively support the format. where is the transcoding taking place?
> like whats the full signal handling path?

Not really. In DLNA the server MUST offer LPCM format, and it MAY in
addition offer others format like MP3, FLAC or whatever.

But if the client selects the LPCM offer, the server must deliver LPCM,
so it must transcode from whatever format the source file is in, to
LPCM.

Many clients do support MP3, so if they ask for MP3 from the server,
and the original source file is in MP3 format, then no transcoding is
done.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[AndrewFG]

A new thread has been started:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82399


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[pointbar]

AndrewFG;575420 Wrote:
> Mapping to a drive letter is only a temporary fix; and I think I know
> what to do to make a "proper" fix...

Do you have any timeframe for when you will add support for UNC paths?
I have SBS installed on a Windows Home Server box which doesn't support
mapped drives so my music directory is \\home\Music.

mgm


--
pointbar
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[AndrewFG]

pointbar;585727 Wrote:
> Do you have any timeframe for when you will add support for UNC paths? I
> have SBS installed on a Windows Home Server box which doesn't support
> mapped drives so my music directory is \\home\Music.

I think that was fixed already some time ago. Please try out the
current version, and let me know.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

Try out Whitebear. The middleware that joins the two worlds of:
1. UPnP/DLNA media clients and media players, and,
2. Squeezebox Server and Squeeze Players
Download it for free here: http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[AndrewFG]

AndrewFG;574584 Wrote:
> I will download some of the software CPs you mention above, and test
> with them too...

Following are the results of some quick testing I did just now. I did
not test all combinations because, well, its boring.

Ciderio with Whitebear

-Discovery: Ok
-Browse: Ok
-Play To Squeezebox: Ok (problems with Volume & Mute)
-Play To Windows Media Player 12: Fails
-Play To Intel AV Renderer: Ok

fooBar2000 with Whitebear

-Discovery: Ok
-Browse: Ok
-Play To Squeezebox: Ok
-Play To Windows Media Player 12: Ok
-Play To Intel AV Renderer: Ok

Windows Media Player 12 with Whitebear

-Discovery: Ok
-Browse: Ok
-Play To Squeezebox: Ok
-Play To self (Windows Media Player): Ok
-Play to Sony KDL TV: Ok
-Play To Intel AV Renderer: Ok

Sony KDL TV with Whitebear

-Discovery: Ok
-Browse: Ok
-Play To self (Sony TV): Ok

Oppo Blu-Ray Player with Whitebear

-Discovery: Ok
-Browse: Ok
-Play To self (Oppo): Ok (but music tags and album art not shown)

Asset Control with Whitebear

-Discovery: Ok
-Browse: Ok
-Play To Squeezebox: Ok (problems with status display)
-Play To Windows Media Player 12: Fails
-Play To Intel AV Renderer: Ok

Intel AV Controller with Whitebear

-Discovery: Fails

eezUPnP

-Reported as "suspicious behaviour" by Norton AV => file deleted !!


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[csimon]

I've been looking for a long time for the "ideal" media playing system,
I settled on Meedio with a dual-monitor setup (one is a small
touchscreen), but it has limitations. UPnP/DLNA is now taking off in a
big way and this is exactly what I wanted to do 4 years ago!

1. Cataloguing my collection in the way I want it.
2. Control from a hand-held touch-screen device.
3. Multi-zone control.

I have exhausted many trials of downloadable media servers. Even
high-end custom multimedia installations fail on the most basic premise
that they can't categorise your music in any other way than by Track
Artist, Album Title or Genre.

Meedio's library handling is absolutely fantastic, possibly the only
one that is completely flexible is organising menus, sub-menus, steps,
lebves, drill-downs, sorting orders etc. But it fails on 2 and 3 and
jhas other limitations and bugs. It is now obsolete. The revamped
MeediOS is still under development and can't be considered production
software. It has a UPnP module under development (to publish the
Meedio library via UPnP), but it doesn't appear to work very well and
is still a way off.

I have started to use Synology NAS units for data storage and backup
and they have a built-in UPnP server which works extremely well, but it
can only do Artist, Album and Genre. What about Album Artists,
Compilations, multi-disc sets etc, sorting albums by year, etc?? Most
media servers mangle my correctly-tagged music and render it
unbrowsable. What's the point of having a powerful media database and
not being able to specify how to catalogue it?

I've now come across Squeeze Server. Of course, I always overlooked it
at first becuase it's a proprietary system and will only work with
Squeezeboxes, and of course will not do photos and videos. But I was
intrigued as to its more flexible tag recognition and also the Custom
Browse plugin. And now, I've come across the Whitebear UPnP server.
Wow! Is this the software of my dreams - a flexible database,
catalogued how I want it, and published via UPnP to allow playing on
any device around my house?

I was playing around withit last night and I'm extremely impressed. I
haven't got it completely working yet but it shows great promise. The
two major problems I've found are as follows:

1. I can't actually play anything! (I'm browsing via a WD HD TV Live
box, but will eventually use a UPnP control point on an iPad to push
media to the renderers). I can drill down to individual tracks and
press Play, the Now Playing screen will come up and display the album
art, but the track doesn't actually start. If it can display the album
art, there can't be any permission problems to the media directory.
I've changed the default UPnP port to 2869 as originally I couldn't get
the WD box to discover the Whitebear server.

2. I've altered the settings in the Squeeze server which are supposed
to enable multi-disc sets and album artists, however the menus I get
via Whitebear don't change - they seem like the default Squeeze menus.
Does Whitebear just use the default menus or will it honour the settings
and configurations you've made within Squeeze and indeed the Custom
Browse plugin if you've got it installed?

Many thanks for keeping my dream alive!


--
csimon
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[AndrewFG]

csimon;573994 Wrote:
> 1. I can't actually play anything! (I'm browsing via a WD HD TV Live
> box, but will eventually use a UPnP control point on an iPad to push
> media to the renderers). I can drill down to individual tracks and
> press Play, the Now Playing screen will come up and display the album
> art, but the track doesn't actually start. If it can display the album
> art, there can't be any permission problems to the media directory.
> I've changed the default UPnP port to 2869 as originally I couldn't get
> the WD box to discover the Whitebear server.

It may be a transcoding issue. What is the music format of your
library, and what are the music formats that your renderer supports? If
you are transcoding to, or from MP3 then you may need to download the
LAME.EXE transcoder (e.g. from Rarewares) and save it into the Squeeze
box server binary folder "C:\Program Files
(x86)\Squeezebox\server\Bin\MSWin32-x86-multi-thread".

csimon;573994 Wrote:
> 2. I've altered the settings in the Squeeze server which are supposed to
> enable multi-disc sets and album artists, however the menus I get via
> Whitebear don't change - they seem like the default Squeeze menus.
> Does Whitebear just use the default menus or will it honour the
> settings and configurations you've made within Squeeze and indeed the
> Custom Browse plugin if you've got it installed?

It tries to honour the Squeeze settings wherever it can. If your
changes are not reflected, you probably have to get Squeezebox Server
to do a "Clear Database and Rescan".

One area where I admit to encountering a problem is the Squeeze setting
"Treat multi disk sets as one"; the problem is that when you do this,
the tracks of the merged disk are displayed sorted with all the track
#1's followed by all the track #2's etc. which is not really user
friendly.

It does not support the custom browse menus at this time. )But that
might be fun for a future release).


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[erland]

AndrewFG;574049 Wrote:
>
> It does not support the custom browse menus at this time. )But that
> might be fun for a future release).
>
I would suggest that you don't do any integration specifically with
Custom Browse plugin at the moment, the reason is that at the moment I
think it's probably going to be replaced with something else during the
next 6-12 months. Anyone that wants more information about the
replacement can take a look at the following thread to get a feeling
what I'm talking about:
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80910

If you like to do an integration soon, you could do an integration with
the JSON protocol for menus which SqueezePlay uses, if you do this it
will work with current Custom Browse, the replacement, and also with
all other third party plugins supported on the Touch/Radio/Controller.


--
erland

Erland Isaksson ('My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info))
(Developer of 'many plugins/applets'
(http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/User:Erland). If my answer
helped you and you like to encourage future presence on this forum
and/or third party plugin/applet development, 'donations are always
appreciated' (http://erland.isaksson.info/donate))
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[raldo]

csimon;573994 Wrote:
> I've been looking for a long time for the "ideal"
> 1. Cataloguing my collection in the way I want it.
> 2. Control from a hand-held touch-screen device.
> 3. Multi-zone control.
>

You can do 2. and 3. with J.River Media Center. 1. can be done even
better than ANY other media center app, trust me.

And if AndrewFG expands WBMS to support DMR for each SB, the cirle is
complete!


--
raldo
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[AndrewFG]

raldo;574221 Wrote:
> And if AndrewFG expands WBMS to support DMR for each SB, the circle is
> complete!

Its close. Its real close. :-)


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[MikeDC]

If I have Squeezebox Server running on a Windows PC and I install the
Whitebear Media Server, will I be able to control a DLNA-compatible
player/renderer from the Squeezebox Server web interface (or better yet
iPeng)?

Basically, that is my "life with a digital music server" goal. I want
to use Squeezebox Server and iPeng to play music on my
non-squeezebox/but DLNA-compatible player. Can it be done?


--
MikeDC
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[AndrewFG]

MikeDC;586582 Wrote:
> Will I be able to control a DLNA-compatible player/renderer from the
> Squeezebox Server web interface (or better yet iPeng)?

Sorry but no, Whitebear does not enable you to control other
DLNA-compatible players/renderers. Whitebear works the other way round:
it makes your Squeezeplayers appear as DLNA-compatible
players/renderers, which means that they can be controlled from (non
Squeezebox) UPnP/DLNA Control Points.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

Try out Whitebear. The middleware that joins the two worlds of:
1. UPnP/DLNA media clients and media players, and,
2. Squeezebox Server and Squeeze Players
Download it for free here: http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[infinityplus1]

Whitebear sounds great! Ive been looking for this! Very nice work!
Thanks!!

However, I cant see to get it to work...
Ive installed it and it all seems to have configured itself and my
windows firewall fine. Im running XP and WMP11. Whitebear is up and
the status says it can see all of my Squeezebox players. But I cant
seem to see whitebear from WMP11, XBOX360, or itunes... Is there
something I need to do for those control points? Or is it not possible
to get them to "Play To"?

Thanks again for a great product!!
k


--
infinityplus1
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[AndrewFG]

infinityplus1;591271 Wrote:
> But I cant seem to see whitebear from WMP11, XBOX360, or itunes... Is
> there something I need to do for those control points? Or is it not
> possible to get them to "Play To"?My goodness, what bad luck!! You seem to have chosen THE three clients
that don't work:

Windows Media Player 11 is NOT a UPnP media client or control point; it
is ONLY a UPnP Media Server. This means it can make its own music
library available to other control points, but it cannot read a music
library published by another Media Server (such as Whitebear). And it
can play music to itself, but it cannot "Play To" UPnP Media Renderers
(such as Whitebear). In other words, WMP11 is more-or-less useless in
the UPnP Media world...

Windows Media Player 12 is by contrast a full featured UPnP Media
Server, UPnP Media Control Point and UPnP Media Renderer, but
unfortunately it is NOT available on Windows XP. I suppose MS hope to
"motivate" you to upgrade your O/S...

iTunes simply does not support open standards; this is Apple's policy.
People often complain about Microsoft, but really Apple is far far
worse...

XBox 360 ought to work with Whitebear; but it is notorious for being
ultra- picky about the UPnP servers it will talk to. Unfortunately I
don't have an XBox for testing, so I have not been able to tweak
Whitebear sufficiently to get it working. => However, if you are
willing to be my guinea pig for testing it, then we could together try
out a few tweaks on Whitebear until we get it working. Please let me
know if you are interested.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

Try out Whitebear. The middleware that joins the two worlds of:
1. UPnP/DLNA media clients and media players, and,
2. Squeezebox Server and Squeeze Players
Download it for free here: http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[infinityplus1]

Yes, Id be interested in helping to debug Xbox360.

Additionally, can I ask what other clients whitebear supports that run
on XP?

thanks,
k


--
infinityplus1
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[AndrewFG]

infinityplus1;591729 Wrote:
> Yes, Id be interested in helping to debug Xbox360.
> Additionally, can I ask what other clients whitebear supports that run
> on XP?I appreciate your help. I will get back to you with a new (test) version
by the end of this week. The clients that I know that work on XP are
FooBar (with foo_upnp plug in), Cidero and Asset Control (although the
latter is a bit dodgy...)


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

Try out Whitebear. The middleware that joins the two worlds of:
1. UPnP/DLNA media clients and media players, and,
2. Squeezebox Server and Squeeze Players
Download it for free here: http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[slinkeey]

Well I have more information on the Sherwood R904N -- I think the
answer was very generic from Sherwood. I think they threw in the
codecs that have nothing to do with UPnP as part of their answer.

Container: AVI, DivX 3.x/4.x/5.x, Xvid, MOV,
MP4, MPEG 2 PS & TS, FLV, Matroska, ASF,
M4V, VOB, M2TS/MTS, TRP, TP/TS, DVR-MS,
M4A (audio only), MP4A (audio only),
WMV, .mkv, .ifo

Video: WMV9, VC1, MPEG1/2/4, H.264, Microsoft
MPEG4, ON2 VP6, Sorenson H.263

Audio: MP1/2/3 (2.0), MP2.5, WMA9 2.0, AAC
LC 5.1, AAC HE 5.1 (aacPlus), WMAPro 5.1,
ATRAC3 2.0, MPEG4 BSAC 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1
(AC3), WAV/LPCM/PCM, DTS, Ogg Vorbis

Image: JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIFF

Playlists: PLS, M3U, WPL

Subtitles: SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1


--
slinkeey
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[AndrewFG]

slinkeey;592147 Wrote:
> Well I have more information on the Sherwood R904N -- I think the
> answer was very generic from Sherwood. I think they threw in the
> codecs that have nothing to do with UPnP as part of their answer.Following is a list of the UPnP SourceProtocolInfo values that Whitebear
offers in response to the GetProtocolInfo() command. Perhaps you can ask
Sherwood 1) which of these protocols it supports, and 2) in which order
of preference?

http-get:*:audio/L16;rate=44100;channels=2:DLNA.ORG_PN=LPCM,
http-get:*:audio/L16;rate=48000;channels=2:DLNA.ORG_PN=LPCM,
http-get:*:audio/L16;rate=44100;channels=2:*,
http-get:*:audio/L16;rate=48000;channels=2:*,
http-get:*:audio/L16:*,
http-get:*:audio/mpeg:DLNA.ORG_PN=MP3,
http-get:*:audio/mpeg:*,
http-get:*:audio/x-flac:*,
http-get:*:audio/flac:*


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

Try out Whitebear. The middleware that joins the two worlds of:
1. UPnP/DLNA media clients and media players, and,
2. Squeezebox Server and Squeeze Players
Download it for free here: http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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[AndrewFG]

infinityplus1;591729 Wrote:
> Yes, Id be interested in helping to debug Xbox360.I have sent you a PM with a link where you can download test version,
that should hopefully support XBox360. Please give me feedback if it
works.


--
AndrewFG

Regards,
AndrewFG

Try out Whitebear. The middleware that joins the two worlds of:
1. UPnP/DLNA media clients and media players, and,
2. Squeezebox Server and Squeeze Players
Download it for free here: http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver
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