Home entertainment networks have been introduced in which a central server can serve various entertainment devices, referred to as “clients”, throughout the home. Of relevance to the present invention are both audio-video clients and audio-only clients, i.e., devices that play only audio and that do not also play video.
The present invention critically recognizes that with respect to current audio clients, various drawbacks exist relating to user friendliness. As an example, the “Microlink dLAN audio adapter” provided by Devolo is a network-based audio adapter that unfortunately does not allow a user to select a music tune from the client side. Instead, the user must access the central server, and this is inconvenient. As another example, the present assignee's “RoomLink” Ethernet system has an MPEG decoder with a graphic user interface that a user can manipulate to select a video stream that is stored in the network server (PC), but as recognized herein the “RoomLink” audio player itself does not have a display. Instead, a TV set must be connected to it to present the GUI, an approach that is less than optimum for cost sensitive audio products such as, e.g., a “boom box” type product that typically has no display capability. Accordingly, as critically recognized herein a need exists to provide the capability to show a music list and to select a tune from the client audio player without having to do so from the system server.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds