Idea : Expose Tuneblade over DLNA (as a DLNA Renderer)?

[nathan...@gmail.com]

I've been trying to get JRiver to look at using your API to discover, expose, and control TuneBlade and the connected Airplay devices directly from within MediaCenter... but so far no luck in getting traction (will keep at it).

After playing with TuneAero some more to redirect content into TuneBlade (thanks for the tip - works fine), it had me wondering if you would consider a exposing TuneBlade as a DLNA Renderer.  This would allow any DLNA Control Point to the send audio to TuneBlade for distribution to Airplay devices, making to a DLNA <--> Airplay bridge.  It would then allow any DLNA Device play to any Airplay device via TuneBlade.

Thanks

Nathan

[nathan...@gmail.com]

FYI - Here is my latest post on the JRiver forum about using the TuneBlade API to expose Airplay devices directly in MediaCeter - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100191.0

Please let me know if you are interested in striking up a direct conversation with the JRiver devs 

[TuneBlade Support]

Hi Nathan! 

We'll be happy to see the integration happen. Thank you for pursuing this with the JRiver team. The API and command line options (http://tuneblade.com/Developer/TuneBlade%20Command%20Line%20Options.pdf) were primarily developed to enable such integration for a professional multi-room audio system vendor. Their system consist of a headless appliance which is basically a Windows PC running their software controlled by mobile apps. They run 8 TuneBlade instances in the background for supporting 8 zones. (Running multiple instances of TuneBlade is possible by the command line option 'isolate'). Each TuneBlade instance is controlled by a specified port number in the command line options. The audio is piped from their software through 8 Virtual cable pairs (one for each TuneBlade instance).  They configure the audio capture settings (Virtual cable endpoint) of TuneBlade through the HTTP API, and then control the selection and volume of AirPlay receivers through this API. If needed, the JRiver team can feel free to ask any query to better understand the integration. 

We think, having DLNA rendering capability within TuneBlade will not be inline with the functionality of TuneBlade, so we suggest using some other DLNA renderer (Kodi?), and TuneBlade can capture the audio on the specified audio endpoint where the rendered audio is played. In essence, Kodi + TuneBlade can be a DLNA to Multi-room AirPlay bridge, just like TuneAero+TuneBlade is an AirPlay to multi-room AirPlay bridge. For integration with other software, we recommend the audio endpoint method instead of using DLNA. 

Thanks,

The TuneBlade Team

 

[nathan...@gmail.com]

I've passed info and discussed this with the Owner of JRiver (Jim) who I know has already spoken to someone at Tuneblade a few months ago.  My aim is to expose Airplay end devices in JRiver Media Center to enable Whole House in Sync Audio and between the two of your companies all the pieces are there except the integration between the two.  It could be done either by JRiver supporting your API (that I posted in this thread - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100191.0) OR Tuneblade being a DNLA renderer.  My preference is the former but either would work.

Why don't you drop Jim a line at jimh at jriver dot com to close the loop (feel free to mention my name, myself and Hilton (another poster here) are part of their Beta Team and promoters of both JRiver and Tuneblade)

JRiver are a cautious of doing much work with undocumented Apple features as they got burnt when Apple closed the ability for 3rd parties to sync directly with iStuff a few years ago and the waste of heaps of dev effort.  They don't want to throw good effort after bad.  That said I personally think the benefits outway the costs. The other thing to consider is JRiver Media Center runs on Windows, OSX, Linux derivatives, and shortly Andriod so they are always looking for consistency of features between platforms.