Overview

There are several ways in which upmpdcli can let you access internet radios, and the situation is a bit confusing. This text tries to clarify.

The upmpdcli radio configuration

The radio configuration is a hand-edited local file holding your personal list of radios. A default file with a sample of radio stations comes with an upmpdcli installation. The file format is described in the upmpdcli manual.

The radio entries can then be used either for playing directly with the upmpdcli OpenHome Renderer, or for displaying by the Media Server for browsing from a control point, which can then instruct any external Renderer to play a stream.

Using the radio list with the upmpdcli OpenHome Renderer

The Radio OpenHome Source is part of the upmpdcli Media Renderer. It can make full use the instructions from the radio list to display stream metadata and cover art, when available.

The Radio source, can be accessed from any OpenHome control point, for example Bubble DS on Android, or upplay on Linux.

Using the radio list with the upmpdcli UPnP/AV Media Server

The upmpdcli Media Server can make the local radio list available to control points through two different paths:

  • The upradios plugin will list the local radio list as part of an UPnP content directory.

  • The local Media Server uprcl plugin, which is mainly designed to give access to your local media collection, can also show the radio list through the Upmpdcli Radios playlist in the Playlists section.

In both cases the renderer on which you will play the stream will not really understand what Internet radio it is playing, so, there will be no dynamic album art. Some metadata may be displayed if the Renderer can extract it from the stream (ICY metadata).

The radio-browser Media Server plugin

This differs from all of the above because it does not use the local radio list. Instead, the radio-browser Media Server plugin lets you browse the vast radio collection from the radio-browser Internet service, and, of course, play the chosen stream on any local renderer. More details in the upmpdcli manual.