DLNA

[phdavy]

when is this going to happen?
If it is to be included on version 4, when are we likly to see a release date.
My own preference is to use a Linn DS player or a Pioneer LX 81 AV Amp as the renderer.
MM does everything else exceptionally well, but this is an area that is saddly lacking and would make MM a fabulous product

[botijo]

Ehem,
I sort of created an UPNP A/V server and client for MM, just check my signatures. It kind of works, beware that there is no transcoding and I have not been coding for a loooong time, so do not expect any updates.
Regards.

[Robbie]

I strongly support this request for DLNA in MM, ie MMonkey as a server on the (wireless) network. I love the user-interface and database functionality of MM but fact remains it's just a standalone player with its sound output limited to the local PC's soundcard. Nowadays that's no longer enough to face competion (which provide the emerging DLNA standard) even if they have lesser functionality and a poorer user-interface. I am a gold user of MM up till now but not sure for how long. I presently only use MM to rip cd's and manage my audio-files on a NAS. For playing my music I use a Logitech Squeebox Duet, which offers good sound quality and great network connectivity but a lousy management functionality. DNLA support would offer a giant leap in functionality and bring you many many more users.

[Melloware]

I am positive DLNA support is in MM4.

[stephanvdplas]

2 days ago, I found a nice workaround in using MM with my uPNP/DLNA devices: The Virtual Sound Card function of LabCast. This VSC function send the stereo mix a.k.a. "what u hear" of the computer to the uPNP/DLNA renderer.

[Kos]

I strongly support this request for DLNA in MM, ie MMonkey as a server on the (wireless) network. I love the user-interface and database functionality of MM but fact remains it's just a standalone player with its sound output limited to the local PC's soundcard. Nowadays that's no longer enough to face competion (which provide the emerging DLNA standard) even if they have lesser functionality and a poorer user-interface. I am a gold user of MM up till now but not sure for how long. I presently only use MM to rip cd's and manage my audio-files on a NAS. For playing my music I use a Logitech Squeebox Duet, which offers good sound quality and great network connectivity but a lousy management functionality. DNLA support would offer a giant leap in functionality and bring you many many more users.

Agree. I have the exact same setup - except I have Sonos instead of Logitech. I do remember finding some web pages half a year ago (wiki?) where MM developers were discussing the DLNA progress (starting 5 years ago I think). They are onto it I am sure - and 4.0 will be the one!

/Kos

[RobinGB]

Hi stephanvdplas,

I have been looking for the LabCast Virtual Sound Card you mention but appart from your post google can't find it. Do you have a link please? I have tried Windows Media Encoder in the past which is another option but the quality wasn't very good for me, but it might be a setting on my laptop as other state it works well?

Thank you,

[gustas80]

I really need something like MM to hold and stream music to my Denon3808.
I would pay for that. Strong demand!

[Tbubbi74]

Hallo ihr alle,

also ich habe mal nachgedacht, was ich eigentlich will. Ich will die tollen Funktionen, um in Mediamonkey die Musik zu organisieren, zu suchen, zu stöbern, Playlisten zu verwalten usw. - und auch die hohe Geschwindigkeit und Bildschirmaufteilung usw.

Ich habe einen reinen Software-DLNA-Renderer auf meinem Linux-Mediacenter-PC laufen, der über ein optisches Kabel mit dem AV-Receiver verbunden ist. Ich möchte eigentlich gar nicht am Mediacenter-PC in der Musik stöbern. Ich will einfach nur die Date, die Mediamonkey gerade spielt, statt auf den Boxen auf dem Renderer hören.

Die Files liegen übrigens auch auf dem Mediacenter, einen lizenzierten Twonkyserver habe ich dort auch laufen.

Also müsste man doch im einfachsten Fall nur die URL des jeweils abzuspielenden Titels irgendwie an den Media Renderer schicken. Der kann sich die eigentliche Datei ja dann im einfachsten Fall sogar vom Twonkyserver streamen lassen.

Dafür müsste man doch nur
- ein Plugin schreiben, das jeweils den abzuspielenden Titel gesendet bekommt. So wie der LastFM-Scrobbler, den ich eh schon laufen habe.
- verhindern, dass der Titel wirklich gespielt wird, statt dessen die Meldung vom Renderer abwarten, dass er fertig ist und neues Futter braucht...
- irgendwie die Stopp-Taste und Pause-Taste abfangen und an den Renderer weiterleiten...

Für die Ansteuerung eines DLNA-Renderers gibt´s ja sicher irgendwelche Open Source Libraries oder sogar eine Sofware, die man über Kommandozeile oder sonst irgendwie ansteuern kann...

Oder verrenne ich mich da in eine blöde Idee?

Die gute Organisation und das performante Browsen der Library und das komfortable integrierte Tagging sind doch die Features, die bei Mediamonkey ungeschlagen sind.

"LabCast" habe ich übrigens auch nicht im Netz gefunden...

[Tbubbi74]

oh sorry, wrong language...

So I thought about what I actually want. I want the cool features to organize the music in MediaMonkey, seeking, browsing, playlists management, etc. - and also the high speed and the good screen layout, etc.

I have a pure software DLNA renderer running on my Linux Media Center PC that is connected via an optical cable to the AV receiver. I do not really want to browse the library on the Media Center PC. I just want exactly the file that shall be played by MediaMonkey streamed to the renderer - instead of listening to the local speakers.

BTW, the music files are also on the Media Center, I am running a licensed Twonkyserver and a MythTV UpNp Server, too.

So i thought one would need only the URL of each title to play, then somehow send it to the Media Renderer. The actual file can then be streamed either from the MediaMonkey or even from the TwonkyServer...

That could possibly be just
- Write a script that gets events for every track that is to be played and sends an appropriate play command with the file "URL?" to the renderer
- avoid that the title is actually played locally - instead, wait for the news of the renderer that the track is done and the renderer needs a new food ...
- somehow catch events for the Stop button and pause button as well, and pass them to the renderer ...
- skip fwd/back does not need to be handled, because it will automatically lead to a new "track starting" event
- playlist management, showing the current track, etc, would perform just as when playing locally

Or am I getting bogged me in a stupid idea?

The good performance of the organization and browsing of the library and the built-in tagging are comfortable, these are the features that are unbeaten in MediaMonkey.

I recently experimented with shoutcast/icecast instead, but
- client has always to start listening to the stream, there was no way to push things to the waiting client (OK, a polling script would possibly be a workaround, but not very elegant)
- there always was a large delay between what Mediamonkey sent and what the client received. Stopping playback or changing tracks was a horror
"LabCast", I have not found on the net ...

@botjo, do you think my idea would be possible to realize, starting with your source code? I just downloaded it and a free Visual Studio C# 2008 from Microsoft...

[botijo]

oh sorry, wrong language...

So I thought about what I actually want. I want the cool features to organize the music in MediaMonkey, seeking, browsing, playlists management, etc. - and also the high speed and the good screen layout, etc.

I have a pure software DLNA renderer running on my Linux Media Center PC that is connected via an optical cable to the AV receiver. I do not really want to browse the library on the Media Center PC. I just want exactly the file that shall be played by MediaMonkey streamed to the renderer - instead of listening to the local speakers.

BTW, the music files are also on the Media Center, I am running a licensed Twonkyserver and a MythTV UpNp Server, too.

So i thought one would need only the URL of each title to play, then somehow send it to the Media Renderer. The actual file can then be streamed either from the MediaMonkey or even from the TwonkyServer...

That could possibly be just
- Write a script that gets events for every track that is to be played and sends an appropriate play command with the file "URL?" to the renderer
- avoid that the title is actually played locally - instead, wait for the news of the renderer that the track is done and the renderer needs a new food ...
- somehow catch events for the Stop button and pause button as well, and pass them to the renderer ...
- skip fwd/back does not need to be handled, because it will automatically lead to a new "track starting" event
- playlist management, showing the current track, etc, would perform just as when playing locally

Or am I getting bogged me in a stupid idea?

The good performance of the organization and browsing of the library and the built-in tagging are comfortable, these are the features that are unbeaten in MediaMonkey.

I recently experimented with shoutcast/icecast instead, but
- client has always to start listening to the stream, there was no way to push things to the waiting client (OK, a polling script would possibly be a workaround, but not very elegant)
- there always was a large delay between what Mediamonkey sent and what the client received. Stopping playback or changing tracks was a horror
"LabCast", I have not found on the net ...

@botijo, do you think my idea would be possible to realize, starting with your source code? I just downloaded it and a free Visual Studio C# 2008 from Microsoft...

Let me get this straight. In few words, you are in computer A with MM running and you want your music heard in computer B (MediaRenderer), and just the music, not any other Windows related sounds. Based on this, I will say that you can do this, but it is going to be some pain in the process.
My idea is to have a VB script in MM that hooks to the play, pause and stop actions (easily done, just check the wiki). This script would effectively use the AVTransport service in the MediaRenderer to issue commands to computer B. The AVTransport service provides following actions (taken from the UPNP spec, standardizeddcps\MediaServer V2.0 and MediaRenderer V2.0\UPnP-av-AVTransport-v2-Service-20060531.pdf):

Code: Select all

2.4 Actions ...........................................................................................................................................37
2.4.1 SetAVTransportURI() ..............................................................................................................37
2.4.2 SetNextAVTransportURI() .......................................................................................................39
2.4.3 GetMediaInfo() ........................................................................................................................41
2.4.4 GetMediaInfo_Ext() .................................................................................................................41
2.4.5 GetTransportInfo()..................................................................................................................42
2.4.6 GetPositionInfo() .....................................................................................................................43
2.4.7 GetDeviceCapabilities()..........................................................................................................44
2.4.8 GetTransportSettings() ............................................................................................................45
2.4.9 Stop().......................................................................................................................................45
2.4.10 Play() ......................................................................................................................................46
2.4.11 Pause() ....................................................................................................................................48
2.4.12 Record() ..................................................................................................................................49
2.4.13 Seek() ......................................................................................................................................50
2.4.14 Next().......................................................................................................................................52
2.4.15 Previous()................................................................................................................................53
2.4.16 SetPlayMode().........................................................................................................................55
2.4.17 SetRecordQualityMode() .........................................................................................................55
2.4.18 GetCurrentTransportActions().................................................................................................56
2.4.19 GetDRMState() ........................................................................................................................57
2.4.20 GetStateVariables().................................................................................................................57
2.4.21 SetStateVariables() ..................................................................................................................58
2.4.22 Common Error Codes ..............................................................................................................59

Confused? You should be if you do not know the UPNP terminology. So keep your time reading.
Apart from that you need a way to serve the files to the MediaRenderer. The async web server in the UPNP server is a good place to start with.
And that is it. I will suggest that you start this way:

1. Download "Developer tools for UPNP" and experiment with the UPNP controller. This way you can issue commands through UPNP to your MediaRenderer. And you will learn some of the syntax and what little you need to use.
2. Split the webserver from my UPNP Server software and tailor to your liking.
3. Now that you know the syntax and have a server, get my UPNP Client script and check how you actually interact with UPNP services. Not trivial, if I remember correctly, but has been done in the past.
4. Combine everything into a nifty package

Be aware that there is no easy way to synchronize MM and the MediaRenderer. And that could lead to missing seconds at the end of the songs. Let me say it works like this:

1. MM starts playing a song
2. Your VBS sends the Play command to the MediaRenderer service
3. The MediaRenderer starts caching the song, delaying the start of the song by at least one second
4. MM starts a new song, while the MediaRenderer is still playing the last seconds (even more true with crossfading!)
5. MediaRenderer gets a new play command, flushes it cache, stops the music and starts caching again

That is the reason why if you can stream the output of your computer soundcard into a live stream you will be better. Or maybe you can think of something more ear friendly? Like polling the status of the MediaRenderer before issuing a new play command?
If you still insist on continuing through this whole route, be aware it is not going to be easy, and that you must read a lot! I might give you a hint from time to time, but do not count on me too much - too busy in real life.
By the way, long time I have not read german...
Regards.

[MnM]

I think MM would function as a fantastic UPnP controller. There are already excellent UPnP servers out there, so while there's no reason MM shouldn't implement it's own, it's as a control point where MM would excel imho. In particular, from the brief time I've spent with it, library navigation and auto-dj would be winners for MM. (Just checked out this thread where rweten points out MM would make a perfectly good software UPnP renderer too.)

One issue with UPnP is the failure to support gapless track transitions, and apparently there are other issues with UPnP relating to multiple renderers and control points. Had a quick look around on the forum and didn't see this mentioned anywhere: Linn have released extensions to the UPnP spec which address these issues. I believe they've open sourced them, and would like them incorporated into the UPnP spec. There's some (very) initial info here, in case it's useful. I'm sure Linn would be happy to help if you were to get in touch.

[stephanvdplas]

Hi stephanvdplas,

I have been looking for the LabCast Virtual Sound Card you mention but appart from your post google can't find it. Do you have a link please? I have tried Windows Media Encoder in the past which is another option but the quality wasn't very good for me, but it might be a setting on my laptop as other state it works well?

Thank you,

hi, sorry for my confusing post. Should not be labcast but jamcast, http://www.sdstechnologies.com/

[nohkul]

I finally got a real stereo setup at home, but my music library is on my computer. My Blu-ray player supports DLNA as a client. Add me to the voices of MM fans who would love to see DLNA support in MediaMonkey so I don't have to keep a copy (and sync) the playlists in Windows Media Player again just to get it to play on my stereo.

[Peke]

Some things are planned in v4.0