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I blogged about the following on June 16, 2007 and 25 June 2007. In short, I finally have a way to push my own audio to the DSM-320.
For the longest time, D-Link has blocked the DSM-320's access to all but uPNP and online for-pay audio sources. It was one of those frustrating things you learn after you plunk down your cash and take your new toy home. I've repeatedly been tempted to thrown the dang thing out; it takes up a lot of space in one's junk box. (My wife gets after me multiple times per year to reduce the size of the junk box.)
Finally, during one of my let's-experiment phases, I stumbled across Cidero. It was one of those moments where I happened to pay attention to wording. The web page didn't say "media player" or "media server". Rather, it uses phrase like "control point", "media controller", and "radio server". It's actually the missing link between the media server and the media player, in that it can control both (supposedly). In exploring the site and forums a bit, I discovered that it can control the DSM-320! (DSM-320 forum here).
Just being able to control the DSM-320 and local media was great. In digging through the available documentation, I discovered that Cidero can stream Shoutcast via its radioServer. Because I push or pull most of my media (including podcasts) through Slimserver, this was worth experimenting further. The end result: you can stream from Slimserver to Cidero to the DSM-320 without using Shoutcast. My notes follow...
1) Install the Java Runtime Environment if you don't already have it.
2) Download Cidero and install it as per site directions.
3) cd into the db/radiodb/AllStations/ folder.
4) Choose one of the files and copy it to SlimServer.xml.
5) Delete all but one of the "res" lines
6) Edit SlimServer.xml. The "res" line is the only important one. It should read something along the lines of following. Note: Change the IP address to whatever the IP is for your Slimserver. Don't forget to change "x-scpls" to "mpeg".
<res protocolInfo="http-get:*:audio/mpeg:*" bitrate="16384">http://192.168.1.175:9000/stream.mp3</res>
7) Copy that line and change the bit rate to "8192".
8) Copy that line and change the bit rate to "4096".
9) Copy that line and change the bit rate to "12288".
10) In the dc:creator and dc:title lines, change the content to "Slimserver"
11) In the dc:description line, change the content to "Bob's Slimserver"
12) In the dc:relation line, change the URL in the to "http://192.168.1.175:9000" (or whatever the IP for your Slimserver is)
13) Save and exit the file.
14) Check the file's permissions. Make sure that SlimServer has the same owner and permissions as the other xml files in the same directory.
15) If Cidero's RadioServer and MediaController are already running, kill them. (Stopping and starting from the main menu may not work. Kill the binaries.)
16) Fire up SlimServer. Add some audio content to the playlist. Note: it may say "Player not found" or some such in the upper right area. Ignore this for now.
17) Turn on your DSM-320.
18) Start "RadioServer.sh" in the Cidero directory.
19) Start "MediaController.sh" in the Cidero directory. You should get a window that looks something like the following:
20) Notice that the bottom-left pane says "No Media Servers Selected". In the Media Servers pane (upper left), single click on CideroRadio. It should look something like:
21) In the bottom left pane, under CiderRadio, click on the little toggle next to AllStations
22) Scroll the bottom left pane down until you see SlimServer and click on the toggle next to SlimServer
23) In the upper-right pane, click on "My Media Player" (or whatever you named your DSM-320). The following Media Player window should appear:
24) Back in the Media Controller window, click on "Slimserver - MPEG/128k" in the bottom-left pane. This will add it to the bottom-right pane.
25) In the bottom-bottom right pane, click on "Slimserver - MPEG/128k". Notice that the "Add Tracks To Play Queue" button becomes enabled.
26) Click on the "Add Tracks To Play Queue" button. Note that this adds the entry to the bottom pane in the Media Player window.
27) Repeat steps 24 through 26 (above) for the 96k, 64k, and 32k entries. Your Media Player window will end up looking like the following:
28) In the Media Player window, click on one of the entries (64K is usually a good choice) and click on the play button. It may take a few seconds for the counter to start incrementing.
29) Go back to the web interface for the Slimserver and hit refresh. The browser should now look like:
30) Click on the Play button in the upper-right of the Slimserver interface (in the browser).
31) If the counter in the Cidero "My Music Player" window is incrementing and you don't hear any sound, wait a minute or so. There will be a 5-10 second delay between hitting play and hearing sound. If the no-sound situation persists, make sure that something is in the Slimserver playlist and that the IP address for the computer where you installed Cidero is installed.
32) Go see if you hear any music coming out of whatever stereo the DSM-320 is hooked to.
Hint: for streaming, you may want to turn on the "repeat" options in Cidero and Slimserver.
Hint: Different audio sources use different encoding rates. You may want to re-encode your audio content or sort it into different folders. In any case, if the audio is being played too slow or too fast, pick one of the other rates in the Cidero "My Media Player" player.
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