Roku on Thursday announced the release of SoundBridge 2.5, an upgrade for its SoundBridge network music players. The software update is available for installation directly from the SoundBridge interface, and it’s free. What’s more, Roku has also released FireFly, an open-source media server that runs on Mac OS X and other platforms.
The SoundBridge is a hardware device that connects to your home entertainment system and enables you to stream audio from your Mac or PC, viewing what’s playing on an illuminated display. It also supports streaming from Internet radio stations. Roku’s products work with MP3, Real, WMA, unprotected AAC and other audio formats.
SoundBridge 2.5 is a software update that goes directly on the device. New features include Windows WMA Internet radio support; a browsable library of Internet radio stations, support for Roku Radio Snooper; 18 presets; new fonts to customize the display support for Roku’s new Roku Control Protocol (RCP); which provide the ability for third-party developers to create an application to control the SoundBridge remotely and support for the Roku Server Protocol (RSP), which enables applications to exert more control over server features.
Roku Radio Snooper shows the addresses of Internet radio stations and checks their compatibility, providing one-button playback of the station and the ability to set the station as a SoundBridge preset.
The FireFly Media Server is an open source media server project; Roku has contributed code to it and Roku’s RSP is supported. FireFly supports MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC and OggVorbis audio file formats. It makes it possible to share music on your Mac or PC with other users, or with devices like the SoundBridge.