Announce: Whitebear Media Server

[AndrewFG]

I am pleased to announce the first release of Whitebear Media Server.

http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver.htm

This is a standalone Windows application (or Windows service) that acts as a UPnP / DLNA front end to SqueezeCenter. It allows you to browse and play your SqueezeCenter music library on UPnP / DLNA Media Players.

[sander]

I'm curious to see how it works and if I can get it to work with my old wmls11b, but I'll have to wait for a couple of weeks as I run my main Squeezecenter under Linux, so I have to try it out somewhere else.

In the interim though, does this mean I get Squeezebox style menus from any UPNP device? And I know Logitech put in some limitations to non-Logitech hardware do you have all the functionality?

[tamanaco]

I am pleased to announce the first release of Whitebear Media Server.

http://web407.login-2.hoststar.ch/mediaserver.htm

This is a standalone Windows application (or Windows service) that acts as a UPnP / DLNA front end to SqueezeCenter. It allows you to browse and play your SqueezeCenter music library on UPnP / DLNA Media Players.

Are there any restrictions based on the file format used in the music library in the server? If it supports FLAC, I'd have to assume that I would also need a UPnp / DLNA player that supports FLAC. Is foobar2000 a UPnp / DLNA player?

It would be nice to see a simple "sample" environment in your home page that can be use to test a "typical" setup. If I want to use Windows Media Player I assume that I have to enable Media sharing on the server and media browsing on the client, but as I browse my network after installing the Whitebear server I do not see a media device associated with my SC server shares... is this because I have a FLAC library?

[Paul Webster]

I downloaded and installed on Vista (as app not service).
It runs and says it is connected to network (Vista unblock request popped up ... I unblocked it so it is listening) - but not discovered by my UPnP devices.
I have not rebooted - and would rather not at the moment ... but I guess that I might have to.

Any clues about how to enable logging or where it goes?

[AndrewFG]

In the interim though, does this mean I get Squeezebox style menus from any UPNP device? And I know Logitech put in some limitations to non-Logitech hardware do you have all the functionality?

It gives you the basic browse functions (All Music, Artists, Genres, Years, and Playlists) and also a search function (by Artist, Album or Track).

As far as playing is concerned, it is fairly rudimentary (no FFwd, Rwnd), but this is actually due to the limitations of UPnP and DLNA and not my implementation thereof...

[AndrewFG]

Are there any restrictions based on the file format used in the music library in the server? If it supports FLAC, I'd have to assume that I would also need a UPnp / DLNA player that supports FLAC.

Actually the UPnP / DLNA specification only supports MP3 and WAV. And so my server is harnessing SC's transcoding capability to convert all supported audio formats on the fly to MP3. Obviously if your sources are in FLAC, there will be a corresponding audio quality reduction due to the transcoding. But as I say, this is a limitation of UPnP / DLNA and not mine...

Is foobar2000 a UPnp / DLNA player?

No idea :-)

It would be nice to see a simple "sample" environment in your home page that can be use to test a "typical" setup.

I am not sure what you mean here. Can you be a bit more specific?

If I want to use Windows Media Player I assume that I have to enable Media sharing on the server and media browsing on the client,

If you turn on Media Sharing in Windows, this means that WMP will act as a UPnP / DLNA Media Server. This has nothing to do with Whitebear Media Server. So if you want to test Whitebear then you should not turn on Windows Media Sharing.

but as I browse my network after installing the Whitebear server I do not see a media device associated with my SC server shares...

Interesting. Perhaps I did not state the obvious, but is Whitebear running on the same computer as SC?

is this because I have a FLAC library?

No. See above...

[AndrewFG]

I downloaded and installed on Vista (as app not service).
It runs and says it is connected to network (Vista unblock request popped up ... I unblocked it so it is listening) - but not discovered by my UPnP devices.
I have not rebooted - and would rather not at the moment ... but I guess that I might have to.

Any clues about how to enable logging or where it goes?

In the current implementation, there is no logging option. (Later).

Apropos the unblocking, Whitebear sends its UDP advertisements on the UPnP reserved port 1900, and it listens for UPnP description and control requests on port 8080. Also it listens for media GET requests on port 31415 (as I recall). Furthermore it talks to SC on port 9090. So probably you need to unblock all these ports.

Does Whitebear appear as a UPnP device in "My Network Places"? If not then you probably need to turn on UPnP device browsing on your computer...

If you right click the bear icon in the Windows taskbar tray, you can disconnect and then reconnect it to the network. This causes it to re-send its UPnP byebye and alive messages.

[pippin]

Andrew,

do you HAVE a DLNA spec?
Anything you can share?

[AndrewFG]

Andrew, do you HAVE a DLNA spec? Anything you can share?

No. You have to sign up as a manufacturer member in DLNA to get the specs. (Cost about 500 dollars I think). And I am too mean for that...

I learned about the DLNA extensions to UPnP by doing network capture on Windows Media Player transmissions... :-)

What kind of information are you looking for? If you can be more specific, then perhaps I can help you anyway...

[pippin]

No. You have to sign up as a manufacturer member in DLNA to get the specs. (Cost about 500 dollars I think). And I am too mean for that...

I learned about the DLNA extensions to UPnP by doing network capture on Windows Media Player transmissions... :-)

What kind of information are you looking for? If you can be more specific, then perhaps I can help you anyway...

Mainly the control point protocol.
Want to see what it means to implement a controller.