Poor man's "Bridge"

This won’t be news to some, but I recently discovered that a Roku can be used as an inexpensive ersatz Bridge substitute.

Rokus offer a “channel” called Roku Media Player, which supports audio/photos/video from the internal USB port, or from a DLNA Server.

All that’s necessary to use it is to run JRiver Media Center in music server mode, i.e.:

  • Services/Media Network/Options-button, check Advanced / DLNA Server on.

  • Same panel, Add or Configure DLNA Servers. Click add, and choose the Legacy UPnP. Set the Mode to Specified output format only when necessary, and Format to PCM16-bit (MP3 options also work). Set Advanced, Sample Rate to Same as Source. You can monkey with the DSP settings if it moves you.

Then install the Roku Media Player app from their web site and launch it. (Note: needs to be on the same network as the Media Center application is running.) The Media Player should find the computer, show the Media Center logo/icon, and allow you to play from your music library at 48/16, which it sounds quite good via the DirectStream.

The Media Player is not a great UI, but it’s functional, albeit missing a Search function of any kind.