• Make sure a song is actually playing: Press Menu, navigate to Now Playing and press Select, and check to see that the screen shows a song title with the Play icon visible in the upper right corner of the screen. If the song is paused, press Play on SoundBridge's remote control to continue playback.
• Make sure the volume on your SoundBridge is turned up high enough (using the volume buttons on SoundBridge's remote control).
• If SoundBridge is plugged into powered speakers, make sure they have power, and are turned on at a sufficient volume.
• If SoundBridge is plugged into audio receiver or amplifier, make sure it's turned on, the correct line input is selected, and volume is turned up. Also make sure your speakers are connected properly to your receiver.

First, ensure that your receiver or speakers are set to the proper input and that the volume setting on both the SoundBridge and the receiver or speakers is set to a volume where you should hear something. Also make sure that the audio cables are firmly attached to the jacks on both the SoundBridge and your speakers/receiver. If possible, try your SoundBridge with either a different set of speakers/receiver or with a digital audio connection. If your SoundBridge produces audio with other speakers or with the digital output and you still need to use the analog outputs, please contact our technical support team.

First, ensure that your receiver or speakers are set to the proper input and that the volume setting on both the SoundBridge and the receiver or speakers is set to a volume where you should hear something. For digital signals, we recommend setting the SoundBridge volume to 100% and letting your reciever control the volume. If you have a "M1001" SoundBridge (with the connectors on the back of the tube rather than under endcaps), please be aware that the digital signal output via both the coax and optical connectors is always 48kHz. If you have this model, please make sure that your receiver is compatible with 48kHz PCM audio (most are).

In the 2.5 software, we have added a setting which improves digital output compatibility with some receivers that have had problems previously. On the SoundBridge, this setting is called "Pass Multichannel Audio". It can be found through the Settings menu while connected to a server. If you have problems with digital audio and have checked the above items, you may have luck with this setting. Be sure to restart audio playback after making changes to this setting.

Your ID3 data tags may be missing. Information about your music, including Song Name, Artist, Composer, Album, and Genre is usually created automatically by the software you used to save your audio CD files on your computer's hard drive (aka ripping). This process creates data called "ID3 tags" to describe each track. If this data is missing from your music files, they will not appear when you browse by that data category. You can edit this information in music jukebox software such as iTunes.

To edit your ID3 tags in iTunes, select the file(s) to edit, then click on File/Get info, and click on the Info tab. Also, if it's an unsupported audio format, the song will show up with an X next to it (with the exception of Protected AAC files which appear with a locked icon, and Audible.com files, which won't appear at all.)

• Make sure your file is a supported format:
  • Itunes Music Server: MP3, AAC, ALAC, AIFF and WAV
  • Windows Media Player 11 / Windows Media Connect: MP3, WMA (including DRM WMA) and WAV
  • Firefly Media Server: MP3, WMA (does not include DRM), ALAC, WAV, FLAC, Ogg-Vorbis
• If no song is currently playing , browse or search to the track(s) you want to play, and press the Play button to play them immediately or Add to add them to your Song Queue.
• If you've pressed Add to add a selection to Song Queue, it may be queued to play later on in your Song Queue. Use the next track button to skip to the desired song. Or, use Menu/Show Song Queue to display all songs in your Queue, then navigate to your desired song and press Play to begin playback there.

This is normal. DRM AAC files (i.e., files purchased on Apple's music store) are not supported. Those files will be detected but will show a lock icon next to the title on your display, and will be skipped during playback.

In order to play AAC files properly over the network, the AAC file must be optimized for "fast-start streaming". All recent versions of iTunes do this automatically when creating AAC files. However, some other encoders (including Nero and FAAC) do not optimize the files for fast-start streaming.

If you use iTunes to create your AAC files, this issue should not occur. However, if you have a large collection of existing AAC files that were created by an encoder that did not optimize the file for fast-start streaming, there are two options to optimize files.

1. Optimize using Mp3Tag (Windows only)
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

To correct the AAC optimization for a given file:

• Open Mp3tag
• Change to your music
• Select all mp4 Files
• Right-Click on selected Files, and choose "Optimize MP4"

2. You can also optimize with a command-line utility.
Windows binaries and Max OS/X packages for the mpeg4-ip utilities can be found at:

http://www.rarewares.org/mp4.html

Windows: http://www.rarewares.org/files/mp4/mpeg4iptools-1.4.15cvs.zip

MacOS X: http://www.rarewares.org/files/mp4/ MPEG4IP.Server.Utils-0.9.8.for.OSX.tar.bz2

To correct the AAC optimization for a given file, you should run the mp4creator as follows:

mp4creator -optimize MyFile.m4a

(Note that mp4creator will need to be on your path, or will need to be invoked with an absolute path.)

It's a good idea to make backup copies of the AAC files, just in case, and to try one or two at first before doing a large number of them.

SlimServer users have reported problems with playback of WAV and AIFF files that are anything other than 44.1kHz and 16bit. For example, AIFF files at the 48kHz or 22.05kHz sample rate play back too fast or too slow, while WAV files at the 48kHz/8bit setting have trouble playing at all.

If you experience these problems, try using a music editor to change the sample rate to "44.1 kHz" and the bit dept to "16 bit". Or, use iTunes as your music server, which does not appear to have these playback problems.

Make sure your audio cables are plugged in properly to SoundBridge and to your speakers or audio system. Make sure your source file is of good audio quality by playing it back on your computer. If the file sounds good on your computer, make a note of the file and contact support so we can diagnose the problem.

iTunes users: Make sure your playlist was created in iTunes and is visible in your iTunes application.

Windows Media Connect users: Make sure your playlists are saved in the My Documents\My Music\My Playlists or other shared folder.

Musicmatch users: Musicmatch exports playlists in a manner that we do not currently support.

Slimserver users: Make sure your playlist is a Slimserver-supported playlist format.

Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't currently export the Party Shuffle feature. (However, we are considering a similar feature for a future release of SoundBridge software.)

Saving a Song Queue created with SoundBridge is not possible with the current software. If you want to create a playlist to save, do so using a compatible music jukebox software (iTunes, Windows Media Player, Musicmatch, etc.)

Navigate to Main Menu/Show Song Queue. Or, from the Now Playing screen which displays current track info, press the Down or Up button to navigate one song at a time through your song queue. (You can then press the Left or Right arrows to skip through the list in larger increments.)

The current version of Windows Media Connect does not tag albums with genre information. As a result, the SoundBridge is unable to present a list of albums for specific genres as it can do when connected to iTunes. Should Windows Media Connect be updated to store album genre information, then browsing by genre will behave the same as when connected to iTunes.

This is usually indicative of a problem with your PC's firewall. See the question about firewalls (in the "Common Questions" section below) for the correct procedure to enable the required ports for your server.

Certain VPN software has also been found to have firewall features included that can interfere with music servers. If you are using VPN software to access a work network, for example, check with your IT department to see if the VPN software includes a built-in firewall.

In rare cases, we have also seen a router's firewall interfere with playback from a server. This should not happen, but may be the result of an error in the configuration of the network or the router.

Press Bright button on your remote control to adjust screen brightness and the number of lines of text displayed (using the up/down keys).

Note: If connected to a SlimServer, you must first exit back to the main menu (with the Exit button) before changing the brightness.

Check the following steps:

If using iTunes as your music server, press Menu button to go to the main menu, then scroll down to Settings, press Select, scroll down to Visualizer options. You can choose between visualizer appearance or whether the visualizer takes up the Now Playing screen that displays when you listen to a song.

Note: Music visualizers are not currently available when connected to a SlimServer.