Playback UPnP for OS X

I would save yourself the pain guys and get a QNAP.

Listen to Garyi on this on people.  Dude knows Mac OS's.  If he says your best option is a NAS with an onboard UPNP Server, take heed.

-Patrick

My intention is switch to a Vortexbox, but I discovered Playback when comparing rendering from the UQ to from iTunes. I preferred the UQ. I thought Playback might be useful to those who often ask if there is UPnP server for OS X. 

I've used a cobbled together Vortexbox and it is excellent - however, I found in terms of SQ that I couldn't hear any difference between the VB or Mac streaming to my UQ. So I tend to think it doesn't matter whether you use QNAP, VB or Mac for SQ. I agree that they'll handle tags differently.

I agree that a NAS with the software you need is better than running Windows

Ideally, I would prefer the UQ to understand NFS so that there was no need for UPnP, but you can't always get what you want.  

I've just ordered a macbook. Is their anything for the mac that can actually stream files (playing rather than serving) via upnp (i have my files on a ReadyNAS)

I like to use headphones attached to my laptop for listening sometimes using foobar on pc. Just wondering if anything would work in a similar fashion on the mac.

Yes - lots of players would work - you just need to use NFS to connect to your NAS - Connect to Server from the Finder menu should work. This will make your NAS look like any other disc. 

Go to a terminal window and type /usr/bin/afplay and drop the file you want to play on the terminal window and it'll play (assuming it is not FLAC, of course). 

However, a player like Cog will do exactly what you want very similar to Foobar but not as feature rich - there are lots of others. 

I see no reason to use NFS specifically, and NFS in my expereince is like everything else LInux, geeky and difficult.

Macs use AFP by default and most nases appear to broadcast on that, and all NASes will be broadcasting on SAMBA which a mac will also happily pick up. They should both show automagically in an open finder window on the left.

If you want them there all the time then add them to start up items.

NFS requires command line (Seriously in this day and age)

Up to you, but I prefer NFS for connecting to my systems. Generally speaking, as Mac OS X is a UNIX operating system (based on Darwin), it can handle several file sharing protocols including AFP, SMB, FTP and NFS out of the box. AFP is there for Mac-to-Mac file sharing, SMB (Samba) is for interoperation with Windows, whereas for sharing files with Linux or UNIX servers (Vortexbox) simply use NFS. Using your Mac as a client you could use any of these to get to a server given it supports that protocol, of course. 

For NFS, all you have to do is select Go To Folder in Finder and type in /net/vortexbox/music. It'll mount. There is nothing particularly difficult about Linux, it is a very stable well designed system that integrates extremely well with a Mac environment. NFS is Sun's original file sharing protocol and is used in systems such as NetCache for industrial strength applications. However, as I say if you prefer to Samba that's your choice. I don't know the QNAP, but assuming it uses Windows (no idea) then Samba is probably the best choice. I thought the ReadyNAS was Unix based and supported NFS out of the box: you simply enable it the Standard File Protocols menu if I recall correctly. 

I was only seeking to answer Steven's question which is yes he can what he wants to do it from his Macbook. 

Gary are you a schoolteacher by any chance? Just wondered. 

All the best, Guy

Apple's Disk Utility has a GUI for defining NFS mounts. Start up the Disk Utility app and look under the File->NFS Mounts... menu.

FLAC + artwork? Squeezebox Server.

All three? UnitiServe 

There are numerous scripts and programs you can use to embed artwork in music you have ripped to itunes. I have found Playback too flakey for long term use and it is fussy with codecs. Much better to connect a Mac (via USB dac or spdif convertor to nDac) and stream or play direct. The new Macbook Air would be ideal when it finally arrives.

UPnP on a Mac will always be a compromise - either cough up for a dedicated solution (RipNAS, Linn or Naim or dedicate a PC server to the task via Linux.

Tog

Tog

I agree completely - I've only used Playback to test the rendering capability of my UQ which I think does sound better than simply using iTunes. I shall be moving my library to a Vortexbox - the UnitiServe is too expensive for me and I'm not convinced that it would offer me anything that I couldn't do with Vortexbox. The Sonus ZP90-W4S is my favoured solution for feeding a Naim DAC - no good if you want to play hi-res, but ideal if you have just under 3000 ripped CDs in your music library. 

Playback did what I wanted for the test, but I haven't used it very much. I just thought it might help out those who kept asking for UPnP for their Mac. 

I still can't figure out why music players need to use UPnP - simple file sharing would have made it so much easier. Was it just marketing or is there a technical reason? I have to useUPnP to take advantage of the Uniti's renderer. Agreed the Sonus uses it, but it is carefully hidden away courtesy of the Sonus bridge so it is not an issue and it didn't cost £2295. 

All the best, Guy

I should imagine that UPNP is the most complient throughout the industry in terms of distribution of music. No doubt if naim had choose say DAAP then they would have been accused of being all apple-y

As for file sharing, well then you are talking a fully fledged computer surely?

Jack,

I updated to the latest version of Playback today and it still doesn't servce up my embedded album art to n-stream.

Can I ask how your artwork is managed?  Are you using iTunes downloaded art, embedded images or folder.jpg files?

Thanks,

John

> No doubt if naim had choose say DAAP then they would have been accused of being all apple-y

And what's wrong with that I'd like to know 

The Vortexbox can do UPnP, DAAP and some other stuff - what a box (said in a Dave Lister type voice). Would be nice if the UQ could understand DAAP, Airplay as well as UPnP. One box does all. 

Phil H explained why UPnP is preferred to simple file shares - got me thinking a version of the HDX-SSD without the ripping stuff and the internal DAC might be a great solution. 

All the best, Guy

John,

It's not my solution just something I was playing with - the artwork that's downloaded as part of iTunes definitely doesn't work with Playback and n-Stream. However, I noticed that when playing a song that had been purchased from the iTunes store then the artwork did display correctly with Playback and n-Stream. It's my understanding that this works because the artwork is embedded in the file that you purchase from the iTunes store (whereas artwork downloaded via iTunes does not embed artwork rather stores in a folder on system).

If I get chance I will try some of my own files via Playback that have the artwork embedded in the file.

Cheers

Jack

Having tried a few things, xbmc works like a charm. It plays my flac files via upnp flawlessly. The headphone socket on the macbook sounds pretty good compared to my old pc.

Thanks Jack.

All of my artwork is embedded rather than iTunes downloaded.

I will see whether this works any differently for iTunes purchased tracks compared to my own rips - it could be something odd about how the artwork is embedded or specific image size.

Cheers,

John

Hi Bart -

You might want to check out a couple of WHS (Windows Home Server)-based options:  1) RipNAS would combine the functionality of UnitiServe and a NAS, and 2) Asset NAS, which is NAS-only.  

I mention them only because I am currently using Asset on a PC as my UPnP server (front-ending an old Buffalo Linkstation NAS).   Asset has been rock-solid.   It refreshes quickly after I add music to my library (using MediaMonkey and EAC), and it also transcodes FLAC to WAV on-the-fly.  This gives me the manageability of FLAC for tag data and album art, but with the audio quality of WAV (that my NDX seems to prefer).  

Am also shopping for a new NAS, and leaning strongly towards an Asset-based solution, but haven't made any decisions.

Good luck!

Hook