Streaming iTunes over wifi through HDR Fox T2 from laptop

[Hotfoot]

Hi - Can anyone tell me if it possible to setup my system to play itunes wirelessly controlled by my laptop (MacBook Pro) through the Hummy HDR Fox T2 , eliminating the need to purchase an Airport express? I do not wish to go down the route of transferring all my music to a hard drive and playing from there into the Humax.

 

[Black Hole]

How would you propose to do that? The only way I can think of is to get a wireless HDMI link and connect the receiver to the TV.

 

[Hotfoot]

How would you propose to do that? The only way I can think of is to get a wireless HDMI link and connect the receiver to the TV.

I don't know how to do it, which is why I posted the question. I wondered if there was perhaps an application which could achieve it. I have XBMC, which allows me to watch and hear content streamed from the Hummy to my laptop, so it's not a great leap of the imagination to think about my iTunes situation. I seem awfully close to achieving it, but am not quite there.

 

[Black Hole]

The only ways to get the Humax to play content from your PC are by DLNA streaming, or by using the PC as a NAS and installing custom firmware so that the Humax can access the files as if on a local USB drive. The iTunes content is not (AFAIK) available "in the raw" to be made available to other media players, so could not be accessed by a network client or be streamed by a DLNA server (XBMC provides a DLNA server function, so anything you have on the PC in a suitable format can be served to the Humax).

There is software which will take an incoming Internet stream and retransmit it by DLNA, but as far as I know nothing so far that will take a PC's raw video and audio and send that by DLNA. Neither do we have any way to add an iTunes interface to the Humax - even if we had source code that could be compiled, we have no way to send data from a running program to the video and audio outputs (and the horsepower available without access to hardware acceleration is very limited).

Playback of any kind of content on the Humax under control of a PC is another thing which we have no solution for, other than via the virtual remote control on the custom firmware web interface - which does what the real remote does, no more and no less*.

(Yes, I do know you are talking Mac, I am using "PC" in the generic sense.)

* There are some qualifications to this: the virtual remote cannot turn on a Humax (HDR-FOX, HD-FOX, and I believe Foxsat) that is in standby, because it is in standby and therefore unreachable by network. The virtual remote package can be used to reassign or disable specific remote buttons, and implement macro functions of multiple button presses.

 

[Hotfoot]

Ah I see. Thanks for the speedy response, Blackhole. Looks like I might be investing in an airport express, then
I like the convenience of iTunes, its playlists, and the idea of doing everything from the couch, including running iTunes in the background while watching a news report and typing up an invoice!

 

[ejstubbs]

The iTunes content is not (AFAIK) available "in the raw" to be made available to other media players

It certainly is on a Mac - they're just audio files, albeit in a location which is not immediately intuitively obvious to an unsophisticated user. <placeholder until I can get home and remind myself exactly where the iTunes content lives>

What could make a difference is the audio/video format your content is in. All my iTunes stuff is MP3 - I don't buy content through iTunes, I buy CDs to listen to on my hifi, and rip them to iTunes as MP3s which I then copy off to my smartphone - and MP3s will stream just fine to both my Sony TV and my Humax.

iTunes content in non-Humax-friendly formats can easily be converted within iTunes itself.

XBMC provides a DLNA server function, so anything you have on the PC in a suitable format can be served to the Humax.

I use Twonky as my DLNA server on the Mac. I tried XBMC but found it difficult to get to grips with; Twonky has a "utility" web interface that suits an old dinosaur like me* just fine.

as far as I know nothing so far that will take a PC's raw video and audio and send that by DLNA.

I may be misunderstanding your point here but...Twonky will happily serve photos, audio and video, and the Humax will play anything that's in a format it recognises (eg jpeg for photos, mp3 for audio, and mpeg for video).

Playback of any kind of content on the Humax under control of a PC is another thing which we have no solution for, other than via the virtual remote control on the custom firmware web interface - which does what the real remote does, no more and no less.

A number of DLNA smartphone apps eg Skifta on Android can act as a "go between", allowing you to browse content on one or more DLNA servers and stream it to a different DLNA client. I've certainly used this to stream music from my Mac to my TV under the control of my smartphone - it overrides whatever the TV is doing and forces it to display/play the streamed content (which I imagine could be annoying if someone was actually watching something on TV at the time!) <placeholder while I check whether this works the same way for the Humax>

Of course you're right that the virtual remote control in custom firmware's web interface is another way to avoid having to pick up the Humax' physical remote.

* I used to write FORTRAN IV for a living, you know.

 

[Black Hole]

I understood that content downloaded from iTunes (which I took to be the point) is DRMed and therefore only playable in iTunes. Naturally any non-protected files in the appropriate format can be played by some means or other, as I said.

I may be misunderstanding your point here but...

You are. The idea I am trying for is to output the PC's screen and audio via a "DLNA driver" so that any DLNA client can then act as the screen/speaker.

<placeholder while I check whether this works the same way for the Humax>

I can save you the trouble - it doesn't.

 

[Hotfoot]

"It certainly is on a Mac - they're just audio files, albeit in a location which is not immediately intuitively obvious to an unsophisticated user. <placeholder until I can get home and remind myself exactly where the iTunes content lives>"

ejstubbs, I have no problem identifying where my iTunes mp3s reside. They're at username>music>iTunes>iTunes Music>Music on my MacBook Pro. What I wish to achieve is to have anything I play in iTunes on the Macbook to appear on the output of the Hummy, the audio outputs of which are connected to my HiFi amplifier.

As I said, I have XBMC, on the Mac, which sees the Hummy and can playback Hummy-stored files remotely i.e. on the Mac as a stream. I'm happy to download any other application.

I'm unsure how to reverse this and play my MacBook iTunes through the Hummy. If you could jot down an idiot's guide to how to this, I'd be eternally grateful, as I'm sure would others.

HF

 

[Hotfoot]

Aww... just read Blackhole's last post. Back to square one then.......

 

[Black Hole]

Don't take my word for it. If you can extract MP3s from iTunes and play them on another player, you will also be able to serve them to the Humax - but you will have to use the Humax controls to do that.

 

[Hotfoot]

Don't take my word for it. If you can extract MP3s from iTunes and play them on another player, you will also be able to serve them to the Humax - but you will have to use the Humax controls to do that.

It's easy to transfer them. They're just stored as mp3s, the same way they are on iTunes on a Windows machine. What other format would they be in, apart from WAVs, (which would be easy to convert anyway)?

 

[af123]

I understood that content downloaded from iTunes (which I took to be the point) is DRMed and therefore only playable in iTunes.

It used to be that way but all iTunes content nowadays is DRM free. I can't remember when it changed but it was a while ago.


Posted on the move; please excuse any brevity.

 

[Hotfoot]

So it is possible then? I should add that I'm not bothered about streaming picture, only audio, as the picture would be on the laptop. In fact, the TV would be switched off, as it is when I listen to internet radio through the Hummy.

 

[Black Hole]

I don't think you quite get it. To play your music files that are stored on the PC through the Humax:

either you have to install a DLNA server on the PC, show it where to find the music files, and then on the Humax access them via Media >> Storage (blue) >> Network (which of course means using the TV screen to navigate the menus);

or you have to install custom firmware on the Humax and the network-shares-automount networking package so that the Humax can treat your PC as a virtual USB drive. The network-accessed files will then be available to play via Media >> Storage (blue) >> USB (which of course means using the TV screen to navigate the menus).

Alternatively, copy the files onto a USB stick and plug it into the Humax.

Either which way, no music files will be visible unless you select Media >> Media (yellow) >> Music.

 

[ejstubbs]

What other format would they be in, apart from WAVs

My understanding is that music purchased through iTunes is normally in AAC format. (Checks...yup, the three tracks I have purchased through iTunes are all in AAC format.) I can't remember whether the Humax can play AAC. As you say, though, it's easy to convert from another iTunes-recognised format to MP3 within iTunes.

I have no problem identifying where my iTunes mp3s reside. They're at username>music>iTunes>iTunes Music>Music on my MacBook Pro.

Just as well you knew that! I've remembered now that my iTunes MP3s are on an external drive and not in the usual default place that iTunes puts them.

What I wish to achieve is to have anything I play in iTunes on the Macbook to appear on the output of the Hummy, the audio outputs of which are connected to my HiFi amplifier.

As I said, I have XBMC, on the Mac, which sees the Hummy and can playback Hummy-stored files remotely i.e. on the Mac as a stream. I'm happy to download any other application.

I'm unsure how to reverse this and play my MacBook iTunes through the Hummy. If you could jot down an idiot's guide to how to this, I'd be eternally grateful, as I'm sure would others.

As Black Hole said, unless you want to use the custom firmware you have to put a DLNA server on the Mac. Your Humax will see that on your network and you will be able to browse the shared music via the on-screen interface on the Humax. As Black Hole confirmed and I've just found myself, you can't control the streaming from the server end, or from an intermediate device. That means that you will need to have the TV on, at least while you select the track you want to listen to.

Black Hole says that XBMC can be used as a DLNA server as well as a client. I've never managed to get that to work so I can't offer a guide as to how to do it. The software I use is Twonky server (N.B not free, but not expensive) which I found easy to set up and manage. I just tell it to use the top-level iTunes music folder as the root of its audio streaming service and I can browse my complete iTunes library from the Humax.

N.B. Since I don't have anything plugged in to the Humax except the TV, I can't confirm whether streamed audio is output on anything other than the HDMI port. I'm sure someone else can advise.

UPDATE: The latest version of Twonky Server, which seems to be the only one now available through their web site, seems to crash the Humax. I was previously running an older version which was fine. I updated this evening and it was causing problems, so I've reverted to the older version.

 

[Black Hole]

All video and audio is simultaneously available on HDMI, SCART, and RCA (phono); audio is also available by S/PDIF. AFAIK, the only audio format suitable for the Humax is MP3.

 

[ejstubbs]

Thanks for confirming that, BH. I suspected it would be the case but, not having a way to check it out, I didn't want to promise something I hadn't seen done with my own eyes.

I tried XBMC again last night: for the life of me I can't work out how to get it to do anything useful, not even as a DLNA client. I did at least manage to get VLC to do that, though it's pretty rubbish in many other ways. Is there something obvious that I'm missing with XBMC?

 

[dandnsmith]

I tried XBMC again last night: for the life of me I can't work out how to get it to do anything useful, not even as a DLNA client. I did at least manage to get VLC to do that, though it's pretty rubbish in many other ways. Is there something obvious that I'm missing with XBMC?

I have XBMC running on RaspberryPi and Xubuntu installations, and find the DLNA server and client both work. The hardest work is in adding the desired content to a 'sources' list. It has an advantage when using Win7 that DLNA sources seem to be easier to 'see' than SMB sources (shares).
What are you trying which doesn't work?
Perhaps you have the problem that sources are not instantly visible after booting?

 

[Black Hole]

I'm not a habitual user of XBMC, but when I tried it out a couple of years ago I did find the necessary functionality.

 

[selectortone]

A less expensive alternative to the Airport Express is a bluetooth music streamer like this one from Belkin. Hifi snobs would probably turn their noses up at it, but for casual listening the audio quality is fine.