Winamp as a UPnP Media Player?

[nickf]

I need some advice!!

I am trying to set up my HTPC to play my music without using a PC display - I only have a projector and screen and I don't want to use this for playing music. My preferred player, naturally, is Winamp, mainly because it has a Kernel Streaming pluging so I can send the audio direct to my sound card without any messing around by MS - resampling etc. I am using a NevoSL remote which supports UPnP. This means that it can act as a UPnP Client and interact with a UPnP media server and display the media library and navigate to find, play and control tracks. Most UPnP setups use separate physical players but I want to use the PC as it has an excellent sound card. There are a few software based players - SimpleCenter, On2Share, TVersity etc but none support Kernel Streaming. So here is the question:

Is it possible to use Winamp as the player with some sort of plugin which makes it appear as a UPnP Player? Does such a plugin exist? I haven't been able to find one.

I think this would be an excellent add-on to what is already an excellent player.

Any ideas?

[Rocker]

not really.

media servers just send the files to the player.

winamp remote is like that but in reality it has nothing to do with winamp apart from the name.

kernel streaming is very overrated unsupportive and featureless. directsound sounds better, is less buggy and has more features(it has been abx'd over at hydrogen audio forums).

its the drivers and soundcards you use that make it resample not the output method.

[nickf]

Hi Rocker,

As far as I am aware, if you use directsound, the audio is routed via the windows audio mixer. In order to mix multiple sources, everything has to be at the same sample rate so the mixer causes resampling of your CD audio at 48kHz. That isn't good for audio quality which is why ASIO or Kernel Streaming are preferable as they bypass the mixer and preserve the original 44.1kHz sampling. Sound quality IS better.

Anyway, that wasn't the point of the proposal. In a UPnP environement, a UPnP controlling client can manage the flow of media from the server to the player.

What I am proposing is an add-on for Winamp which allows a UPnP client like NevoSL to manage media playback via Winamp without using a PC display. There needs to be a UPnP Media Server in the mix too. Winamp could also do this or there are many others.

There must be many others out there who have HTPCs which hold their CD collection and use Winamp as their preferred player but don't want to fire up their projector just to listen to music.