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I'm looking for a UPNP/DLNA Client for Windows.

The server is MediaTomb on a Ubuntu box.

The clients are Windows (any, XP and up).

I'm looking for a simplistic music player program but failed to identify any.
I'm hoping for something in the style of Winamp or Windows Media Player.

I've looked, but so far only been able to achieve playback on Windows with HTPC-ish software like XBMC, and on an android cellphone (several players for that there, all worked fine).

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not looking for an HTPC Suite (IE XBMC), I'm looking for a regular-looking music player.

studiohack
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DM8
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  • I settled on Serviio: http://www.serviio.org/ – Linker3000 Jul 05 '11 at 23:05
  • That's a server, I'm asking about a client. – DM8 Jul 05 '11 at 23:24
  • Yes, in an earlier edit of your post you listed some alternative servers you were thinking of trying and I am suggesting Serviio is worth a look too. – Linker3000 Jul 06 '11 at 08:28
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    indeed, but still that was not my problem, which is why I removed that to make it clearer ;) ... I'm really amazed that googling for this piece of information is so difficult, I can't believe that there is NO music player software for windows that speaks DLNA/UPnP... (as in a program, not an HTPC suite) yet I can't find one! – DM8 Jul 06 '11 at 20:52
  • Ive tried a few of the suggestions on this page but afaik none of them allow me to connect to a remote IP address the way that the bubbleupnp android app does. They all assume my upnp server is on my local LAN. I can't believe there is nothing similar to bubbleupnp for other platforms. – Octopus Oct 22 '13 at 21:15
  • For those still searching, the Windows 10 Cast to Device... feature (easily accessed by right-clicking a music file, or a folder containing music files) is about as simplistic a UPNP/DLNA music player as you can get. Once it's launched ,you can drag files/folders to the play list etc. (It's got a few minor bugs, but is quite usable) – AndyK Jan 12 '19 at 10:59

9 Answers9

14

foobar2000 has a supported DNLA plugin. Its winamp-styled, configurable and works pretty well in general

Journeyman Geek
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  • I know this is ancient, but as of 2013 it still seems like foobar2000 is the only game in town for upnp Windows players. But the upnp/DLNA plugin is REALLY slow (like 30-45 sec) to detect servers, and in the meantime it locks up the whole foobar2000 UI. Wish there were something better. – GaryO Mar 19 '13 at 23:36
  • @GaryO How about XBMC? It supports audio as well and it's constantly developing. – Alireza Noori Aug 26 '13 at 11:32
  • @Alireza: I thought XBMC was "heavyweight" -- full screen, big download, with fancy TV-style giant text and so on, kind of the opposite of what a music player should be (tiny window, simple, unobtrusive). But I'll check it out to see if that's changed. – GaryO Aug 27 '13 at 12:48
  • @GaryO Sorry. I thought you were looking for a **Server** and I consider XBMC to be very light on resource considering its features. But overall, for a music player, I consider MusicBee and MediaMonkey to be the best in the market. – Alireza Noori Aug 27 '13 at 13:43
  • As of September 2019, this still seems like a good choice. Thank you for the plugin recommendation as it was actually quite hard finding that one. – Kit Johnson Sep 03 '19 at 03:08
  • I'm a bit late to the party, but in my experience MusicBee with the upnp plugin (that is no longer officially supported but still works) is still a strong contender, therefore seconding @AlirezaNoori – Manjabes Feb 21 '21 at 10:48
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Believe it or not Windows Media Player sees my mediatomb server - unfortunately it won't play the files on it due to codec issues, but it may work for you.

Emdeedee
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MediaMonkey plays over DLNA. Also syncs with lots of devices. http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/WebHelp:Setting_UPnP/DLNA_Media_Servers/4.0

CAD bloke
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Have you tried VLC? http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Upgrade it to VLC media player 2.0.1 Twoflower. UPnP was added back into the Windows build as of V2. If you still like your V1.1 for some reason you can always parallel install V2 in a different folder. Open the Playlist menu. On the left side, click on Local Network and Universal Plug'n'Play should be an item, click on it and wait from a few seconds up to 30 seconds or so to list all the media servers on your lan. Click on your media server's icon and work with its media listings. It may take a while for it to populate a large collection's listings. You can build playlists from there.

Community
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Linker3000
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  • I use VLC regularly but afaik (and as far as google is willing to say) it doesn't act as a DLNA/UPnP client. – DM8 Jul 05 '11 at 23:27
  • Yes it does - read the VLC FAQs/Forums or see this post: http://superuser.com/questions/191736/how-do-i-connect-vlc-to-a-known-dlna-server – Linker3000 Jul 06 '11 at 08:28
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    as it is mentioned in that forum post linked above, there is no 'upnp' option in the services discovery config (using vlc-1.1.10-win32) .. I have searched and searched, but all I get is forum post upon forum post on people discussing that vlc 'should' support it but it doesn't. – DM8 Jul 06 '11 at 21:03
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    VLC 2.0.1 DOES support uPNP and DLNA and has a good range of built-in codecs. Even better, it supports fast movement through the stream! However, it takes AGES to discover servers and even longer to populate the media lists. It has a tendancy to crash as well. – Julian Knight Jun 12 '12 at 20:59
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    In fact, let me correct my last comment - it actually crashes CONTINUOUSLY. It crashes during the excessively slow discovery process and then tends to crash after about 50 minutes or so of play from any of my uPNP sources. – Julian Knight Jun 17 '12 at 21:59
  • We're now at VLC 2.1.5, and it *still* has the same dire DLNA support (very slow, buggy, crashes etc) – Cocowalla Aug 12 '14 at 08:58
  • VLC 2.2.0, and uPNP/DLNA support still....not. Makes me wonder why. Appears to be little/no effort to fix this...? – David W Mar 21 '15 at 03:49
  • Dec 2022 - VLC 3.0.18 is working for me well for the past year, under Local Network > Universal Plug'n'Play the media server appears. Only problem, not sure if it's VNC or UPNP, is saving a playlist off UPNP media doesn't work. – Mendhak Dec 18 '22 at 10:42
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Kinsky works nicely. It's a control point only, so it reads a remote library and renders to a (remote) player. I use it for Serviio + Onkyo receiver (DLNA enabled).

sblair
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Niels
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Try foobar2000 + pair it with ArkMC application (free trial also available) on your devices, will work perfectly!

Oliver Salzburg
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Ole
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There is a Winamp plugin called ml_dlna that is supposed to work. Some people have problems loading it but the problem seems to be that you have to have the "Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86)" installed even if you have a 64-bit operating system.

Microsoft Media Player does work but does not seem to have the codecs it needs. But if I try it a few times it seems to work. I use Mezzmo as a server though, and it supports transcodeing, so it might be converting them on the fly.

sblair
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James Ray Kenney
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I have been searching and testing extensively. The only sotware that fully enables a window pc as a DLNA renderer is XBMC, eith its huge, heavy, memory-eating interface.

Other solutions have different problems: - WMP gets to be listed, but won't decode many contents, and won't support audio - MediaMonkey can be tweaked to load as a rendere player, with just an icon in the system tray shown; but the memory usage is not as light, and it seems to hang when control point starts reproduction of remote streming contnts (icecast, udps etc)

It may look as provocative, but if you just need to remotely operate audio, maybe the best solution is NOT to use a PC as a pure renderer: there are so many cheap Android devices available now (simple tablets, or even an old phone with a broken screen will do!), and there's plenty of DLNA apps available. Instead of setting up a renderer on the Windows OC, with less than 80$ you can set up an Android device to be dedicated to do that.

A.

Magowiz
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iTunes is the ultimate solution for me. With its Home Sharing feature, I can view and listen to my library on any computer running iTunes or iPhone. Sometimes I even stream my music to my AirPort Express with AirTunes. (I'm a Mac guy, but this all works on my Windows PCs too)

Other than that, XBMC or Boxee seems to be the way.

EDIT: Or use Twonky server for linux to keep a dedicated media server.

evan.bovie
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  • already tried it, it fails to see mediatomb – DM8 Jul 05 '11 at 22:57
  • What is failing to see mediatomb? The idea with this is to replace mediatomb with iTunes. – evan.bovie Jul 05 '11 at 23:02
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    iTunes as a server? seriously? .... let me spell it out: not interested in having iTunes come ANYWHERE near touching my MP3 collection in that way, that would be like mollestation! ... itunes royally messes everything up, I have no desire whatsoever of losing my file/folder structure ;) --- Besides, this question is about a client, not a server. – DM8 Jul 05 '11 at 23:16
  • @ XBMC/Boxee yeah I know, I've fooled around with those on my HTPC, but I'm looking for a regular music player proggy not a full HTPC suite. – DM8 Jul 05 '11 at 23:33
  • If you want your folder structure, then what about a plain old Samba share on the Ubuntu server? Just map a network drive and use Winamp. – evan.bovie Jul 06 '11 at 00:17
  • @DM8: iTunes does not touch the structure if you tell it not to; it also has quite good support for ID3v2 tags, better than Winamp for example. – u1686_grawity Jan 16 '12 at 13:36
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    Marked down for not answering the question – Julian Knight Jun 12 '12 at 19:43