Media Server Overview

As a complement to its widening range of UPnP device toolkits, and an example of their maturity, Allegro has released a fully compliant UPnP AV server product which runs in both PC and Mac environments. The Allegro Media Server seamlessly joins together the world of iTunes music libraries on home computers with the new UPnP AV Digital Media Player products which stream those tunes into entertainment centers and portable music devices around the house.

As an active contributor to the community, principally through the UPnP Forum and the Digital Home Working Group (DHWG), now reconstituted as the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), and as a long term investor in UPnP technology, Allegro has gained the respect of the UPnP community and a growing list of world-class OEM customers who are adopting Allegro technology to accelerate their development of UPnP compliant devices for home and office markets.

Media Server Details

The Allegro Media Server streams digital music from iTunes® libraries to wired or wireless networked digital music players using the same UPnP protocols that are used by Windows Media Connect. This means that networked UPnP-based Digital Music Players such as the Philips Streamium series and the Roku SoundBridge products can see an iTunes Digital Music Library over the network and play individual songs or playlists. Please consult the compatibility information for most up-to-date list of media players/extenders that have been tested with AMS.

The Allegro Media Server runs as a background application on Macintosh (OS-9, OS-X) and Windows (XP, 2000) personal computers and provides a bridge between an iTunes Digital Music Library and the world of networked media players.

The Allegro Media Server is based on Allegro's RomPlug UPnP Media Server toolkit, one of the leading toolkits for UPnP technology. UPnP technology is all about making home networking simple and affordable for everyone, so the connected home experience becomes a mainstream reality. UPnP architecture leverages TCP/IP and Web technologies to enable seamless networking in addition to control and data transfer among networked devices in the home.

The Allegro Media Server is fully compliant with the UPnP v1.0.1 specifications and the UPnP AV DCP 1.0 specifications. When Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) 1.0 Digital Media Players become available, Allegro will release an update to AMS that will also interoperate with these digital media players.

iTunes Dependency
The Allegro Media Server application reads the iTunes music library file to find the music stored on your computer. While the iTunes application does not need to be running, it does need have been installed and used on your computer, as the Allegro Media Server has no independent search capabilities to find music on your computer.

Music Formats
The Allegro Media Server can display and serve tunes in most of the formats that iTunes supports including AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, etc. Not all media players can support all formats, which means that some tunes may not be playable on some players. If you use iTunes to create the music library on your personal computer by importing your music from CDs, you should use MP3 format in order to use your music library with the widest number of media players.

The Allegro Media Server does not provide media format conversion. It sends the tune across the network in whatever format the tune is stored in on your disk drive. This means the connected media player needs to be able to decode the formats that your music is stored in.
The tunes from the Apple Music Store are made available in AAC-protected format. Most current Media Players do not play AAC format tunes. Of the ones that do few, if any, decode the AAC-protected format. There are, however various ways to convert AAC files and AAC-protected files to MP3 files, including burning a CD and importing the tunes back into MP3 format We are not aware of any media players that have Apple Lossless decoders. When we find one, we'll add support to serve this format.

Non-UPnP Media Players
In theory, any UPnP compliant Media Player should work with the Allegro Media Server. However, some Media Players use UPnP AV protocols but use them in a proprietary manner so that they only work with the media server supplied with that Media Player. We have also discovered some Media Players that are UPnP compliant, but also require a Windows PC application to be running. While these products will work in Windows-only or mixed environments, they will be unsatisfactory in a Macintosh-only environment. As Media Players become available and are tested, we'll update the compatibility table with the details. Some Media Players do not use UPnP protocols. The Streamium MCi200/i250 models and the Slim Devices Squeezebox, for instance, are not UPnP Media Players. While these products are software upgradeable and in theory could become UPnP devices, we are unaware of any plans by the manufacturers to add this capability.

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