Universal music apparatus for unifying access to multiple specialized music servers

摘要

A computer readable medium, system, method and universal music apparatus are disclosed for unifying access over a network to multiple specialized music servers. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a universal music apparatus can include a universal discovery module to discover specialized music servers responsive to one or more discovery protocols, an object manager to determine music server processes for serving music files in accordance with one or more communication protocols, and a number of interfaces each being configured to exchange data with an associated music server process using one or more communication protocols that the universal music apparatus can implement. The generalized music server functions enable the universal music apparatus to communicate with any of the discovered music servers, which typically require music players to perform only the proprietary, unique functions of a specialized music server. In one embodiment, a universal music player provides for fast browsing of music libraries, among other things.