The three major structures of streaming media playback: Player/Controller /Server

 The three major structures of streaming media playback: Player/Controller /Server 

Structurally speaking, a home streaming media playback system must be divided into three components: player, controller, and music server. I first heard this statement a few years ago from the German devil Thomas Gessler, the owner and founder of Audionet in Germany. I remember that the Germans drew me a picture at that time, showing the relationship and connection of the three.

Player, English Player or Renderer, is a device that specifically reads and outputs streaming media data.

Music server, English Server, is the storage of music files. It can be local storage, and of course it can be virtual storage (cloud storage, online music, etc.). That is, where are the music resources you play.

Controller is a device used to control music catalog browsing, music selection, Playlist setting, playback pause and other functions. It had to be easy to operate, and it had to have a big screen.

In China, many audiophiles are still using computer + sound card, computer + decoder to listen to streaming music. But in Europe and the United States, many enthusiasts have chosen the above-mentioned "three major pieces" to build their own systems. For example, there are still very few audiophiles who use NAS network hard drives as music resources in China, and many audiophiles even don’t know what NAS is. of. Of course, another trend now is the prevalence of online music playback, including TIDAL, Spotify, etc., which are very popular and have more and more users. This is a virtual server concept, which allows users to easily access a wider range of music, making personal servers almost infinite. No matter how many music resources a personal collection has, it cannot match TIDAL and Spotify. After becoming a subscriber, theoretically, there is no need to have a NAS or hard disk at home, as long as the player is connected to the Internet.

There are no online services such as TIDAL and Spotify in China, and few use NAS. The mainstream of domestic audiophiles is to store music resources in hard drives. So the domestic mainstream Server is actually a hard disk. The maximum capacity of a hard disk is currently only 2-3T. When the music resources reach a certain level, the hard disk cannot be used anymore, and the NAS must be used.

For the Controller, the most convenient ones are of course handheld devices, including tablet computers and large-screen mobile phones. To this end, each company must develop its own App for users to download to the handheld Controller device.

Renderer player. This is the device that reads the music resources in the server and outputs the signal. It can output only digital signals without decoding, or output analog signals with decoding. The connection between the player and the server, if the music resource is a hard disk, is of course a USB connection; if the music resource is a NAS, then it is an Ethernet cable connection. Another trend is wireless connection. For example, Aries Aries can connect to NAS wirelessly.

Take Aries as an example: Aries needs to play music, for example, with two things - a hard disk (or NAS), and a tablet (or mobile phone). Therefore, the usage of Aries is the most typical three-piece structure of Player-Controller-Server popular in Europe and America. Aries is the Player, the tablet is the Controller, and the hard disk or NAS is the Server.

The DNC decoding that Audionet is currently promoting also has such a construction structure: the network cable is connected to the NAS, and then it is controlled by a tablet computer. DNC is not only a high-end decoder, but also a Player itself. Its name DNC is fully written as Digital Network Client (Digital Network Client), not DAC. In the future, there will be more and more decoders with network cable interfaces that can be connected to NAS.

This three-piece structure, which is the most mainstream in Europe and the United States, is not yet the mainstream of domestic players. Many people in China are still using computers + decoding + earphones/speakers. Under this architecture, if the music is stored in the computer, the computer itself is a trinity, which is both Player, Server, and Controller. This structure is only suitable for listening on the desktop, and the music that can be stored is also limited. The three-piece structure is suitable for a formal room system, and can store a much larger amount of music.

In the middle and advanced gameplay, it must be a separate structure of the aforementioned three parts. One of the most problematic links in China now is that due to copyright restrictions, there cannot be a website that provides audiophile online music services like TIDAL. This time TIDAL also set up a booth at the Munich exhibition, which attracted a lot of attention. What I personally hope most is that similar websites and services can appear as soon as possible in China and develop healthily. Of course I know it's difficult, but it's an important part.