Allegro Media Server - Frequently Asked Questions

The Allegro Media Server streams digital music from Macintosh or Windows iTunes® libraries to wired or wireless networked digital music players using the same UPnP™ protocols as are used by Windows Media Connect and Windows Media Player. This means that networked UPnP-based Digital Music Players such as the Philips Streamium series, the Roku SoundBridge products and NETGEAR MP101 can access an iTunes Digital Music Library over the network and play individual songs or playlists.

You can try out a time-limited demonstration version, which will allow you to test the Allegro Media Server in your environment. If you like it, you can purchase a registration code. The registration code enables you to change your demonstration copy into a purchased copy and allows AMS to run for an unlimited time.

The Allegro Media Server works with a number of UPnP media players such as the Philips Streamium SL300i, SL400i and MX6000i, Roku SoundBridge players and the Netgear MP101. With these media players, a Macintosh-only environment is supported as well as Windows-only and mixed environments.

In theory, any UPnP or DLNA compliant Media Player should work with the Allegro Media Server. However, some Media Players use UPnP AV protocols but use them in a proprietary manner so that they only work with the media server supplied with that Media Player. We have also discovered some Media Players that are UPnP compliant, but also require a Windows PC application to be running. While these products will work in Windows-only or mixed environments, they will be unsatisfactory in a Macintosh-only environment. The best approach is to find out if the Allegro Media Server works with your media player is to download the demo version and test it in your environment.

The Allegro Media Server can display and serve tunes in most of the formats that iTunes supports including AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, etc. Not all media players can support all formats, which means that some tunes may not be playable on some players. If you use iTunes to create the music library on your personal computer by importing your music from CDs, you should use MP3 format in order to use your music library with the widest number of media players.

Some older tunes from the Apple Music Store were made available in AAC-protected format. Currently, songs from the Apple Music Store are downloaded in unprotected AAC format. Many Media Players do not play AAC format tunes. Of the ones that do, we're not aware of any that decode the AAC-protected format. There are various ways to convert AAC files and AAC-protected files to MP3 files, including burning a CD and importing the tunes back into MP3 format.

The Allegro Media Server does not provide media format conversion. It sends the tune across the network in whatever format the tune is stored in on your disk drive. This means the connected media player needs to be able to decode the formats that your music is stored in. We are not aware of any media players that have Apple Lossless decoders. When we find one, we'll add support to serve this format.

If you are having difficulty using AMS, please contact us at ams@allegrosoft.com for help.

Each different iTunes user on the computer can have their own copy of the AMS server. If you change the default server name in the Preferences dialog for each server, then your Media Player can tell which iTunes library it is connecting to. If you wish to have multiple copies of AMS running at the same time, you should also change the port number in the preferences dialog so that each copy uses a separate port number.

Not currently. The formats used for streaming Internet radio don't necessarily match the formats for playing tunes and playlists from a music library on a personal computer. Over time, we expect that Media Server and Media Player products will evolve to support this capability.

The iTunes application does not need to be running for the Allegro Media Server to work. The Allegro Media Server application reads the iTunes music library file to find the music stored on your computer. While the iTunes application does not need to be running, it does need to be used on your computer, as the Allegro Media Server has no independent search capabilities to find music on your computer.

AMS for Windows uses the .NET framework. This error message indicates that the .NET framework is not installed. If you search for "dotnetfx.exe" in one of the search engines, you will find the Microsoft support pages that will provide you the details on how to install the .NET framework.

If you haven't found an answer to your questions, please contact ams@allegrosoft.com for further information.