YCast

YCast is a self hosted replacement for the vTuner internet radio service which some Yamaha AVRs use.

It was initially developed for and tested with the RX-Vx73 series. It should also work for the following Yamaha AVR models:

• RX-Vx75
• RX-Vx77
• RX-Vx79
• RX-Vx81 This version has been adapted and tested with the RX-V577 series, but not retested for the above models

YCast is for you if:

• You do not want to use a proprietary streaming service
• You are sick of loading delays and/or downtimes of the vTuner service
• You are unsure about the continuation of the service from Yamaha/vTuner

Dependencies:

Python version: 3.6

Python packages:

• PyYAML

Usage

YCast really does not need much computing power nor bandwidth. It just serves the information to the AVR. The streaming itself gets handled by the AVR directly, i.e. you can run it on a low-spec RISC machine like a Raspberry Pi.

• Create your initial stations.yml. The config follows a basic YAML structure (see below)

• Create a manual entry in your DNS server (read 'Router' for most home users) for:

  radioyamaha.vtuner.com and/or radioyamaha2.vtuner.com

  to point to the local machine running YCast.

• Run ycast.py on the target machine.

stations.yml

Category one name:
  First awesome station name: first.awesome/station/URL
  Second awesome station name: second.awesome/station/URL
  Subcategory one name:
    First station in subcategory one: first.sub/station/URL
    Second station in subcategory one: second.sub/station/URL
  Subcategory two name:
    First station in subcategory two: first.sub2/station/URL
    Second station in subcategory two: second.sub2/station/URL
  ...
Category two name:
  Third awesome station name: third.awesome/station/URL
  Fourth awesome station name: fourth.awesome/station/URL

You can also have a look at the provided example to better understand the configuration.

The location of the stations.yml file can be specified on the command line using -s filepath

Web server configuration

While you can simply run YCast with root permissions listening on all interfaces on port 80, this may not be desired for various reasons.

You can (and should) change the listen address and port (via -l and -p respectively) if you are already running a HTTP server on the target machine and/or want to proxy or restrict YCast access.

It is advised to use a proper webserver (e.g. Nginx) in front of YCast if you can. Then, you also don't need to run YCast as root and can proxy the requests to YCast running on a higher port (>1024) listening only on localhost.

You need to redirect the following URLs from your webserver to YCast (listening to requests to radioyamaha.vtuner.com):

• /setupapp
• /ycast

Attention: Do not rewrite the request transparently. YCast expects the complete URL (i.e. including /ycast/).

In case you are using (or plan on using) Nginx to proxy requests, have a look at this example. This can be used together with this systemd service example for a fully functional deployment.

Firewall rules

• The server running YCast does not need internet access
• The Yamaha AVR needs access to the internet (i.e. to the station URLs you defined)
• The Yamaha AVR needs to reach port 80 of the machine running YCast

Caveats

YCast was a quick and dirty project to lay the foundation for having a self hosted vTuner emulation.

It is a barebone service at the moment. It provides your AVR with the basic info it needs to play internet radio stations. Maybe this will change in the future, maybe not. For now just station names and URLs; no web-based management interface, no coverart, no cute kittens, no fancy stuff.

The RX-577 shows only the first 8 entries of the top categories from stations.yml (no such limit for the subcategories) The initial response should probably contain a tag with the amount of entries. To know what tag,someone should tcpdump the full http conversation with the real server.