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uPNP - How it works - Control Points, Renderers and Servers

4 replies · 17,494 views · Started 27 July 2007

murfett-au 27 Jul 2007, 04:22

There has been a lot of talk about uPNP in this forum, and a lot of "discussion" about the "quality" (or otherwise) of Nokia's implementation. I thought I would explain how uPNP is meant to work to help clarify this a bit.

The uPNP defines three types of devices:

1) uPNP Servers - these store things like music, movies and pictures.
2) uPNP Renderers - these play music or display images/movies
3) uPNP Control Points - these tell uPNP Renderers what to play/display from which uPNP server

So the Nokia N95 is a uPNP Control Point.
The N95 is NOT a uPNP Renderer.
The N95 comes with some PC software to install that is a uPNP server.

In my house, I have a uPNP server running on my Mac Mini, called Twonky.

I have an 'always on' computer which is running an Intel "AV Media Renderer" program, with the sound being fed into my Russound multi room amplifier. Search for Intel's "Intel(R) Tools for UPnP(TM) Technology" - these are free.

So I use the N95 as one of many uPNP Control Points. I can use it to select any song from my Mac Mini, and choose to send it to the 'always on' computer, and then the Russound will amplify it and play it through the speakers. I have a UNO-S2 wall mounted control panel in each room with speakers, and I just need to select the 'always on' computer as the input for the room I am in, and away we go!

Using my N95, I select an albumn (not one song) and click 'options - play', then it queues up all the songs in that albumn. I can skip tracks, pause and change volume from my N95.

Although I think that it would be sensible for the N95 to be a uPNP renderer, their uPNP control point works just fine.

I also subscribe to heaps of Pod Casts on the Mac Mini, and use the Home Network application's 'Copy' function in Options to decide which pod casts I want on the phone at any particular time.

autopilot 27 Jul 2007, 09:41

Thank you mate, that is extremely useful and interesting (for those of us into upnp).

Using the N95 as a fancy UPNP remote is not really usfull to me. My music server runs SlimServer and stream's to my Squeezebox 3 (connected to good HiFi separates). Because my PDA Phone (T-Mobile Vario) has WiFi, i can connect to Slimserver web interface with opera and control the music from there, including album art, server settings, volume and multi SB3's around the home. I could use my PSP or N95 too, but it's all about the touch screen. But TBH, i really do use either as after the novelty quickly wears off it's faster and more convenient to just grab my Logitech Harmony remote.

When i bought my N95, i assumed that UPNP meant it would also play music over my home network - just like i can do with my PDA and a UPNP plugin. There is no reason why it should not, plenty of devices work as excellent UPNP renderers, you just need the right software.

So all in all, the UPNP of the N95 is pretty useless really for most people. But it could have been one of the N95's killer features.

Arny 27 Jul 2007, 16:42

Thanks for that explaination... i didn't know any of that.

Now I know all that I can't imagine why it is not a uPNP renderer! This is just madness as steaming from a uPNP server to the N95 seems to me to be one of the most owners would expect to be able to do!

Madness!!!

xerxes 27 Dec 2007, 01:56

Menneisyys wrote:Firmware v20 also has a renderer component; see http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum//forum/thread/68115/#post355487

Hi Menneisyys,

I wonder if you can help me with a problem?

I have an always on PC and a laptop (both running Win XP Media Centre) and have turned on media sharing in Windows Media Player 11 on both PCs. I have turned off the firewalls on both machines. When I then browse the network from my N95 I can see the laptop but the not the PC.

If I try to show a picture from the N95 on the laptop (I go to the N95 gallery, choose the picture, and select OPTIONS - Show Via Home Network) I just get an empty list headed "Select device".

I am not running any software on the laptop and PC except Windows Media Player.

All I am trying to do is to
1. use the N95 as a remote control for music stored on the PC
2. show pictures from the N95 on the PC screen
3. use the N95 to stream music from the PC to the laptop

I have read through your UPNP Bible thread and several other threads on UPNP here on All About Symbian but I'm still not sure what I need to install on the PCs to enable this.

Can you advise me?