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Music Player
Use with Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, USB memory
The Music Player allows you to play audio files which are stored on a
computer on your network or on a USB memory device plugged into the
sound system.
In order to play files from a computer on your network, your sound system
must connect to a file server application which uses the Universal Plug
and Play (UPnP) protocol. If your computer uses Windows XP or Vista,
then it is likely that your computer already has a UPnP server application
available. Windows Media Player version 11 has this capability, and it is
able to make your MP3 and WMA files available to your sound system. It
also allows you to select files by Album, Artist, and so on.
Windows Media Player is only able to serve MP3 and WMA files to your
sound system. If you have your audio files in either AAC or FLAC formats,
or if you are an Apple Mac or Linux user, there are other UPnP server
applications which you may use with your sound system.
The Music Player on the sound system can playback audio files in MP3,
FLAC, AAC and WMA formats. WMA Lossless files can also be played
when using Windows Media Player 11 as it will convert these to a PCM
format before streaming them to the sound system. Note that the playback
of files encoded using WMA Voice, WMA 10 Professional, and files which
have DRM protection is not supported.
When using a UPnP server, the search and selection criteria are determined
by the server software, but typically include Artist, Album and Genre. Many
server applications also allow you to access your files according to the
folders within which they are stored as well as other criteria. Windows
Media Player 11 is less flexible than some other UPnP servers, but
is generally easy to set up. It is supplied as a standard component of
Windows XP and Vista.
Many UPnP server applications are also capable of sharing pictures and
video files to other network connected devices. If this is the case (as it
is with Windows Media Player 11) 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 files.
Here is a short selection of alternative UPnP server applications, although
many others are available:
Twonky Media Server (Windows, Apple Mac, Linux)
TVersity (Windows) *
Elgato EyeConnect (for Apple Mac OS X) *
MediaTomb (Linux) *
* = free of charge versions available at the time of writing
Please refer to the documentation for your chosen server application for
full details of its configuration and usage.