YCast

YCast is a self hosted replacement for the vTuner internet radio service which many AVRs use. It emulates a vTuner backend to provide your AVR with the necessary information to play self defined categorized internet radio stations and listen to Radio stations listed in the Community Radio Browser index.

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 vTuner service

Supported devices

Theoretically, YCast should work for most AVRs which support vTuner.

Go ahead and test it with yours, and kindly report the result back :)

Confirmed working

Yamaha RX-Vx73 series (RX-V373, RX-V473, RX-V573, RX-V673, RX-V773)
Yamaha R-N500
Yamaha RX-A820
Yamaha RX-A830
Onkyo TX-NR414
Marantz Melody Media M-CR610

Unconfirmed/Experimental

Yamaha RX-Vx75 series (RX-V375, RX-V475, RX-V575, RX-V675, RX-V775)
Yamaha RX-Vx77 series (RX-V377, RX-V477, RX-V577, RX-V677, RX-V777)
Yamaha RX-Vx79 series (RX-V379, RX-V479, RX-V579, RX-V679, RX-V779)
Yamaha RX-Vx81 series (RX-V381, RX-V481, RX-V581, RX-V681, RX-V781)
Yamaha RX-S600D
Yamaha RX-S601D
Yamaha WX-030
Yamaha RX-A1060
Yamaha RX-V2700
Yamaha RX-V3800
Yamaha CX-A5000

Dependencies:

Python version: 3

Python packages:

requests
flask
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.

DNS entries

You need to create a manual entry in your DNS server (read 'Router' for most home users). vtuner.com should point to the machine YCast is running on. Alternatively, in case you only want to forward specific vendors, the following entries may be configured:

Yamaha AVRs: radioyamaha.vtuner.com (and optionally radioyamaha2.vtuner.com)
Onkyo AVRs: onkyo.vtuner.com (and optionally onkyo2.vtuner.com)
Denon/Marantz AVRs: denon.vtuner.com (and optionally denon2.vtuner.com)

Running the server

With built-in webserver

You can run YCast by using the built-in development server of Flask (not recommended for production use, but should(tm) be enough for your private home use): Just run the package: python -m ycast

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 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 can redirect all traffic destined for the original request URL (e.g. radioyamaha.vtuner.com, onkyo.vtuner.com) or need to redirect the following URLs from your webserver to YCast:

/setupapp
/ycast

Attention: Do not rewrite the requests transparently. YCast expects the complete URL (i.e. including /ycast or /setupapp). It also need an intact Host header; so if you're proxying YCast you need to pass the original header on. For Nginx, this can be accomplished with proxy_set_header Host $host;.

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.

With WSGI

You can also setup a proper WSGI server. See the official Flask documentation.

Custom stations

If you want to use the 'My Stations' feature besides the global radio index, create a stations.yml and run YCast with the -c switch to specify the path to it. The config follows a basic YAML structure (see below).

Category one name:
  First awesome station name: first.awesome/station/URL
  Second awesome station name: second.awesome/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.

Firewall rules

Your AVR needs access to the internet (i.e. to the station URLs you defined).
Your AVR needs to reach port 80 of the machine running YCast.
If you want to use Radiobrowser stations, the machine running YCast needs internet access.

Caveats

vTuner compatible AVRs don't do HTTPS. As such, YCast blindly rewrites every HTTPS station URL to HTTP. Most station providers which utilize HTTPS for their stations also provide an HTTP stream. Thus, must HTTPS stations should work.
Some station logos are not compatible with the vTuner frontend.
The built-in bookmark function does not work at the moment. You need to manually add your favourite stations for now.

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