Asset UPnP

[spoon]

Asset UPnP is a uPNP server for Windows XP/Vista/Windows Home Server. The uPNP server will specifically targetted at FLAC.

Why?

We are disapointed by the quality of existing uPNP server software, poor tag reading / album art, poor reliability, etc. We need a UPnP server for RipNAS and the current choice is very poor indeed.

How Much?

Free for non-commercial use, Commercial please email: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/email.htm

Download:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=18020

[spoon]

Big update to Asset UPnP, a new force wave streaming option which allows the device (such as DS) to play any audio format supported by dBpoweramp (practically all), the audio files are decompressed before streaming, no encoding is done.

[Neffa]

spoon Wrote:Big update to Asset UPnP, a new force wave streaming option which allows the device (such as DS) to play any audio format supported by dBpoweramp (practically all), the audio files are decompressed before streaming, no encoding is done.

You mean they are converted to .wav before being streamed to the DS? The DS "thinks" it is playing a .wav file even though it has been reconstructed from something else? If so, clever stuff.

[spoon]

RichardMoore Wrote:You mean they are converted to .wav before being streamed to the DS? The DS "thinks" it is playing a .wav file even though it has been reconstructed from something else? If so, clever stuff.

Correct, no quality loss with all tagging support.

[TomP]

spoon Wrote:

RichardMoore Wrote:You mean they are converted to .wav before being streamed to the DS? The DS "thinks" it is playing a .wav file even though it has been reconstructed from something else? If so, clever stuff.

Correct, no quality loss with all tagging support.

Hi Spoon,
I might be completely off the mark, but this seems a bit counter intuitive because the encoding is now done by the server, which possibly has a slower and less optimised (for real time replay) processor than the DS, whilst the bit rate is near doubled on the Ethernet connection, possibly exceeding bandwidth of that link.

Your thoughts on this would be welcome.

Thanks...TomP

[spoon]

At the moment lets look what Twonky does:

It maintains an internal list of devices and serves the audio formats that the device supports. In theory it sounds good, but we took the view it will always be missing devices.

We have taken a different (dare I say it more elegant):

But default when browsing our uPNP server offers for each audio file:

original audio file format (ie FLAC)
smart decompress - wave
original audio file format (ie FLAC)

There is also a switch which can force to always decompressed wave.

Ideally, the LinnGUI would walk down the list from top to bottom and pick a format it can play and request it, so for example FLAC. I have the feeling LinnGUI will do this in the future , which will allow the player to first select a native format, and uncompressed wave if it does not handle the uncompressed format, so for an Ogg Vorbis file:

original audio file format (ie Ogg)
smart decompress - wave
original audio file format (ie Ogg)

The DS cannot play Ogg, so it would choose wave and be able to play it.

The forced wave decompress switch is for devices which cannot walks the list, but ensures that any format can be played on it.

[Music at Home]

When defining the music tree, does Asset UPnP allow the results at any node to be sorted in any way other than alphabetical?

For example; when I browse to an artist, and then below that display all albums by that artist, I want those albums to be sorted by the Year tag.

[Olivier Dedek]

Hello Spoon,

I've installed Asset following step by step your instructions and it's working perfectly. My only problem is that I find the songs in alphabetical order in the album folder. Have I done something wrong?

Anyway, thank you very much for giving uns an alternative to Twonky.

[spoon]

@Music at Home: we are considering adding customizable trees, so you could define any tag element at any level.

@Olivier

Your audio files are FLAC? do they have track numbers? that are saved as TRACKNUMBER ?

[Olivier Dedek]

I've had a better look and here is what happens:

When I browse by Artist, I get the tracks in alphabetical order
When I browse by Album, I get the tracks numbered and in order

All tracks are FLAC, ripped either with EAC or Ripstation and numbered.