Music Player Mode; Use With Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, Usb Memory - Roberts Stream93i User Manual

Music Player

Use with Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, USB memory

The Music Player allows you to play audio fi les which are stored on a
computer on your network or on a USB memory device plugged into the radio.
In order to play fi les from a computer on your network, your sound system
must connect to a fi le server program on your computer which uses the
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol (often known as DLNA). If your
computer uses Windows 7 or Windows 8 then your computer already
has a UPnP server program available. This is Windows Media Player
(version 12), and it can share your audio fi les with your sound system.
It allows you to select fi les by Album, Artist, and so on using your radio's
controls. Throughout this section, where Windows 8 is mentioned, this
also includes Windows 8.1.
Windows Media Player can serve MP3, WMA, AAC and WAV fi les to your
radio. If you are an Apple Mac or Linux user, or if you have your audio
fi les stored in other formats, such as FLAC, there are other UPnP server
programs which you may use with your sound system. Note that Apple
computers do not support UPnP streaming natively and that Apple does not
license their own equivalent streaming protocol (DAAP) to third parties.
The Music Player on the sound system can playback audio fi les in MP3,
WMA, AAC, FLAC and WAV formats. WMA Lossless fi les can also be
played when using Windows Media Player as the UPnP server. Note that
the playback of fi les encoded using WMA Voice, WMA 10 Professional, and
of fi les which have DRM protection is not supported by the sound system.
When using a UPnP server, the search and selection criteria are determined
by the server software, not by the sound system, but typically include
searching by Artist, Album and Genre. Many server applications also
allow you to access your fi les according to the folders within which they are
stored as well as other criteria. Windows Media Player is less fl exible than
some other UPnP servers in this regard, but is generally easier to set up.
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Many UPnP server applications are also capable of sharing pictures and
video fi les to other network connected devices. If this is the case (as it is
with Windows Media Player) you may see the option of choosing between
'Music', 'Video' and 'Pictures' on the Music Player's menu. Clearly you
should only select the 'Music' option. Content offered via the alternative
options will not be playable on your sound system.
Some third party server applications allow customisation of the search
criteria and indexing methods. This can be useful if you have a very large
collection of stored music fi les.
Here is a short selection of alternative UPnP server programs, although
many others are available:
AssetUPnP (Windows) * **
Mezzmo (Windows) *
MediaTomb (Linux, Mac OS X) *
Serviio (Windows, Linux, Max OS X) *
TVersity (Windows) *
Twonky Media Server (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux) *
* = free of charge or trial versions with limited functionality are available
at the time of writing. ** = other platforms in development.
Please refer to the documentation for your chosen server program for full
details of its confi guration and usage. Some Network Attached Storage
(NAS) devices and some routers include UPnP/DLNA server software.