DLNA Radio

Product: SnapTV Server Software
Version: 2.15.0
Date: 2015-07-08

When enabling the Unicast Radio services it is possible to play radio channels using DLNA or UPnP compliant Audio Media players. Live radio channels originating from the SnapTV gateway input cards, satellite, cable and terrestrial, then is announced in the IP network by the DLNA server which is installed in the SnapTV equipment.

Audio Formats in Use

In contrast to Internet radio, MP3 isn't the most used audio format for satellite and terrestrial broadcast. There are some unsupported audio formats when the SnapTV equipment transfers satelite radio via the DLNA server. Here is an overview over relevant formats and how frequently they are used as encoding format for satellite and terrestrial (dvb-t) radio is also shown.

Format	Support	Usage	Comment
MP3	Yes	Seldom	Supported by DLNA compliant Audio Media Players, however not used very frequently for satellite radio
MP2	Yes	Often	Supported by some DLNA compliant Audio Media Players, although not mandatory according to the DLNA spec.
HE-AAC	Yes	Sometimes	Used for terrestrial dvb-t in Norway.

Automatic Conversion to MP3

MP2 is the most commonly used audio format for satellite radio. However MP2 isn't mandatory for DLNA compliant Audio Media Players.

With SnapTV software version 2.15 or newer, non MP3 radio channels will be converted to MP3 automatically.

This real time conversion to MP3 will ensure that all DLNA compliant Audio Media Players should work with the SnapTV equipment. However, this process can be intense for the CPU and adding to many non-mp3 radio channels may cause distrurbances to live TV signals. This problem typically appear when adding more than 15 radio channels on one IPTV Gateway. We reccommend enabling the unicast radio service on a server not used for live TV, such as a SnapTV Mini Streamer.

Disabling The Real Time Conversion

By default all non MP3 radio channles will be converted to MP3. You can disable the conversion on a per channel basis.

There is no menu for this so you will have to edit the configuration XML manually. You can edit the configuration file directly in the web interface in the "Configuration profiles" page. Simply add a the channel attribute transcode="false" to disable transcoding, like so:

<channel transcode="false">
  <type>radio</type>
  <address>udp://@239.255.2.13:1234</address>
  <name>NRK Sámi Radio</name>
  <id>8770.1110.110.dvb.snap.tv</id>
  <epgid>8770.1110.110.dvb.snap.tv</epgid>
  <dvb>
    <host>10.2.0.5</host>
    <card>7:1</card>
    <program>110</program>
  </dvb>
</channel>

DLNA Radios We Have Tested

Brand and type	MP2	MP3	HE-AAC	Recomended
Pinell Supersound II	Yes	No	No	Yes
Pioneer HM72	No	Yes	No	Depends (*)
Sandstrom Internet Radio SWDIRW12E	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

(*) Conversion to MP3 might cause disturbances on systems used for live streaming (see above)