MINI-USER-GUIDE FOR USING FOOBAR AND SQUEEZEBOX TOGETHER. Maybe useful for those who never heard about using Foobar and Squeezebox together.
There is need 2 programs additional to the SqueezeBox, SqueezeBox Server, and Foobar: - 'Whitebear Media Server' (http://www.whitebear.ch/mediaserver) - 'foo_upnp' (http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_upnp) plugin under Foobar. The Whitebear Media Server provides a UPnP interface to SqueezeBox Server. Minimum 2.0.1.1051 version required. It just need to be installed, and run. No need for any separate setting in Whitebear Media Server. Of course the SqueezeBox Server should be run as normally. The foo_upnp provides a UPnP interface for Foobar. This should be installed to the plugins. This needs some settings to tweak, but it's easy, the settings I'll list in end of the guide. Now both Squeezebox Server and Foobar can communicate each other via UPnP. *I. If the Foobar is the player* In this case, we want to play files from a SqueezeServer library, with Foobar on the local PC to the local soundcard, in the usual mode as normally. In this case the Squeezebox Server/Whitebear streams the music to Foobar. It can be described as this: Whitebear(DMS) => Foobar(Browser + DMC) => Foobar(NativePlayer) The steps are very simple: In Foobar View menu -> *"UPnP Browser"*. A small window comes up, here soon appears "Squeezebox library (by Whitebear)" server. Going into this, the music can selected the same way as it we were browsing in the real Squeezebox. Selecting a folder, a *"UPnP Browser Selection"* playlist is opening, containing the selected music. This you need to play as normal in Foobar. *II. If we want to use Squeezebox as a sound card* This case is the opposite direction of the previous. In this case, we want to play files with Foobar, but we don't want to use the soundcard of the local PC, instead, we want that the Squeezebox is playing the music. In other words, we want to use the Squeezebox as a soundcard. In this case, the Foobar is streaming the music to the Squeezebox. It can be described as this: Foobar(NativeLibrary) => Foobar(Browser + DMS) => Whitebear(DMR) The steps are the following in this case: 1. First you need to open the "*UPnP Controller" *in Foobar, in View menu. The "UPnP Controller" window comes up. At the same time, it also opens a *"UPnP Controller Playback Queue"* playlist. 2. Then you select "Squeezebox (by Whitebear)" in the UPnP Controller. At this point it resets the "UPnP Controller Playback Queue" so pointless to put files there before. Do not close this "UPnP Controller" window. 3. Now you just need to drag and drop files from the local disk from the filemanager to this "UPnP Controller" window. This also put these files to the "UPnP Controller Playback Queue" and starts to play the first file automatically. 4. Now you can control the playing with the buttons included on the Controller window. Or just select the file from this playlist to play with double click so it plays in Squeezebox. 5. Important! Do not close the "UPnP Controller" window. If you close it, it loses the control functionality with the Squeezebox! NOTE 1: The step 2 can be spared! If you check the "..." button at the right of the "Squeezebox (by Whitebear)" dropdown list, in that menu, the *"Enable on startup"* can be selected!, So then we don't need to choose Squeezebox always. The UPnP Controller will automatically select it when starting. NOTE 2: In step 3, the playing (sending music to the Squeezebox) can also be the following methods: - You can drag and drop files not only from the local filesystem to the "UPnP Controller Playback Queue", but also from the "UPnP Browser Selection" playlist. This means, when the files are at the Squeezebox Server library (can be on remote place) and the player is also the Squeezebox, but it will be controlled by the Foobar. This can be describer in this way: Whitebear(DMS) => Foobar(Browser + DMC) => Whitebear(DMR) - If you right click on any of the Foobar's playlist, and if the UPnP Controller window is opened, there is a menu "UPnP Controller -> Play on Squeezebox" or "Enqueue on Squeezebox" which is sending the files to the "UPnP Controller Playback Queue" playlist. NOTE 3: At the UPnP Controller window, the second Play button, which has a "c" letter, it is the "Play foobar2000 Playback Stream Capture" function. This means, anything is played by Foobar, that can be sent to the Squeezebox, encoded with the presetted codec. Currently only MP3 can be used for this codec. This should only be used if the playing file format is not any of these: FLAC, MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG. This feature transcodes the sound so it is not sent bit-perfect to Squeezebox. A similar function to "Play foobar2000 Playback Stream Capture" is the *"wavin"* plugin for the SqueezeServer. But this is not an elegant solution. It has a lot delay, the music is transcoded. This is not worth to use. The best way to send the files as a stream without transcoding. *Needed settings in the Foobar foo_upnp* These are needed for the case II. First of all, it's worth to know, as andrewfg figured it out, SqueezeBox Server can handle the following codecs directly, when it receives the stream: FLAC, MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG. Interestingly, WAV and LPCM are not handled. As a result, the following should be set: a ) Foobar -> Preferences -> Tools -> UPnP -> Server -> Streaming Profiles : here it's worth the create a new profile. Use profile when User-Agent contain "Squeezebox". Here enter Squeezebox without the double quotes. Then, in this profile, set the followings: b ) *Decoding to PCM: Decode Never to WAV*, except <empty>. It's important that after "Except", there should NOT be FLAC, MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG! It's because SqueezeServer handle these formats directly, and these should not be decoded into WAV! If transcoded into WAV, SqueezeServer will not play it. c ) *Playback Stream Capture: Codec: MP3*. Here we need to set MP3, because WAV and LPCM are not accepted by Squeezebox Server. This only need to be set if you use the Playback Stream Capture feature. (Renderer Capabilites: Can decode HTTP and MMS streams directly, this seems doesn't matter.) That would be all. I hope it is useful for others. -- batka ------------------------------------------------------------------------ batka's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12908 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82399 _______________________________________________ plugins mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/plugins
