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An Internet radio device, also called network music player is a hardware device that is capable of receiving and playing streamed media from either Internet radio stations or a home network.
Streaming media became mainstream with the advent of portable music players / MP3 player and the convenience of converting and compressing CD music into music file by the computer or the acquisition of products in such formats using on-line music stores like Amazon, iTunes, and 7digital.
The network music player is connected to a home router. For convenience a wireless router is often used. The router is connected to the internet and thus enables access to Internet streaming resources. Alternatively, the home network can access the user's collection of music on a computer or on a network-attached storage (NAS) device dedicated to store a user's music files.
Audio streaming is one way of transmitting audio files on a continuous feed to a network music player. A common way today is to stream the audio from the computer to a network music player over the more convenient wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi in a networked environment. The computer, which is typically used for storing the music file, acts as a music server by means of server software, often compliant to DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standard. And the network music player is a typical receiver which starts playing an audio file as soon as some of the data has been received so that one does not have to wait for the entire audio file to finish downloading.
The MP3 music file is streamed to the network music player in digital format, commonly in the original MP3 format. Therefore, the audio details of the MP3 music are sent wirelessly in the home to the network music player as it is stored on the computer and without loss.
The MP3 music files are then converted back into audio signal by the network music player and played. As the MP3 music files are organized by the music server on the computer, the information is also sent to the network music player where the user can see all of the music track information. Many companies working actively in bringing Internet radio into devices are organized in the Internet Media Device Alliance IMDA. In addition to the home networking standards of DLNA, IMDA compatibility standards dedicated to all aspects of Internet radio distribution.
Internet reaches many areas in the world, and thus does Internet radio. It has expanded enormously with an estimated 19,000 stations currently available, including many traditional FM /AM simulcasting their content over the Internet.
Online music services usually offer millions of songs and thousands of artists for users to choose from. Network music players that support online music services let users access this vast selection of music tracks.
Station directory services keep a current list of active Internet radio stations, their URI and streaming formats and list them sorted by genre, location, language and other criteria. Many devices use either proprietary vendor-specific station list servers or dedicated directory services.
There are generally two types of network music players:
Network music players usually have:
Some devices also have:
Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. Streaming refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content itself.
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the network and establish functional network services. UPnP is intended primarily for residential networks without enterprise-class devices.
The Freebox is an ADSL-VDSL-FTTH modem and a set-top box that the French Internet service provider named Free provides to its DSL-FTTH subscribers.
Digital Living Network Alliance was founded by a group of PC and consumer electronics companies in June 2003 to develop and promote a set of interoperability guidelines for sharing digital media among multimedia devices under the auspices of a certification standard. DLNA certified devices include smartphones, tablets, PCs, TV sets and storage servers.
Streamium was a line of IP-enabled entertainment products by Dutch electronics multi-national Philips Consumer Electronics. Streamium products use Wi-Fi to stream multimedia content from desktop computers or Internet-based services to home entertainment devices. A Streamium device plugged into the local home network will be able to see multimedia files that are in different UPnP-enabled computers, PDAs and other networking devices that run UPnP AV MediaServer software.
A portable media player (PMP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored on a compact disc (CD), Digital Video Disc (DVD), Blu-ray Disc (BD), flash memory, microdrive, or hard drive; most earlier PMPs used physical media, but modern players mostly use flash memory. In contrast, analogue portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analogue signal storage, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records.
Slim Devices, Inc. was a consumer electronics company based in Mountain View, California, United States. Their main product was the Squeezebox network music player which connects to a home ethernet or Wi-Fi network, and allows the owner to stream digital audio over the network to a stereo. The company, founded in 2000, was originally most notable for their support of open-source software, namely their SlimServer software which their products at that time all depended upon, and is still available as a free download and modification by any interested developer.
The Turtle Beach AudioTron AT-100 and AT-101 are 1U rack-mountable, hi-fi network music players. An AudioTron can stream digital music files from personal computers or NAS devices without the need to install server software on these storage devices since the AudioTron is based on Windows CE and is therefore a computer that looks like audio hardware. Supported file formats include Wave, WMA, MP3 and MP3 playlists. These files can reside on a Microsoft Windows network share or on a Samba server. AudioTron reads music files over Ethernet or HPNA network, and generates analog audio via RCA connectors as well as digital audio via S/PDIF.
SoundBridge is a hardware device from Roku, Inc. designed to play internet radio or digital audio streamed across a home network, over either Wi-Fi or ethernet. SoundBridge devices directly browsed the Radio Roku guide. As of 2008 all Roku SoundBridge products were discontinued; Roku focused on IPTV. As of January 2012, the SoundBridge was no longer available from Roku. As of May 2018, internet radio functionality was no longer supported by Roku.
Logitech Media Server is a streaming audio server supported by Logitech, developed in particular to support their Squeezebox range of digital audio receivers.
Squeezebox is a family of network music players. The original device was the SliMP3, introduced in 2001 by Slim Devices. It had an Ethernet interface and played MP3 music files from a media server. The first Squeezebox was released two years later and was followed by several more models. Slim Devices was acquired by Logitech in 2006.
A digital media player is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integrated into a home cinema configuration, and attached to a television and/or AV receiver.
A home server is a computing server located in a private computing residence providing services to other devices inside or outside the household through a home network or the Internet. Such services may include file and printer serving, media center serving, home automation control, web serving, web caching, file sharing and synchronization, video surveillance and digital video recorder, calendar and contact sharing and synchronization, account authentication, and backup services.
Netgear's Digital Entertainer line of products are digital media players that can pull multimedia content from home computers to the typical audio/video entertainment center. There are three products in the line, the EVA700, the HD EVA8000 and the current EVA9150 Digital Entertainer Elite. All support high definition video, the EVA700 via component output up to 1080i and the EVA8000/EVA9000 up to 1080p with both component and HDMI connectors. All models support audio, video, image and streaming audio and video formats and can be networked via wired and wireless Ethernet. The EVA700 is Intel Viiv certified.
The RVU protocol is an Application Layer protocol, that combines the pre-existing Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standards and a new Remote User Interface (RUI) protocol, which works similar to Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). The RVU RUI protocol is intended to allow an RVU-enabled client, such as a TV, to receive a pixel-accurate display of the user interface available on an RVU server.
AirPlay is a proprietary wireless communication protocol stack/suite developed by Apple Inc. that allows streaming between devices of audio, video, device screens, and photos, together with related metadata. Originally implemented only in Apple's software and devices, it was called AirTunes and used for audio only. Apple has since licensed the AirPlay protocol stack as a third-party software component technology to manufacturers that build products compatible with Apple's devices.
Serviio is a freeware media server designed to let users stream music, video or image files to DLNA compliant televisions, Blu-ray players, game consoles and Android or Windows Mobile devices on a home network.
