Serviio

I've been looking for a lightweight DLNA Audio renderer to run under Windows, with no success.

Most DLNA-ready software for Win is designed to act as server, or as a DLNA client to be controlled locally (like VLC does).

Of the many I tried (Banshee, Foobar, VLC, WMP, Plex...) only XBMC will actually get to be seen as a DLNA renderer on the network, and respond to a control point. (I should add that WMP can be configured to be listed as a renderer, but won't accept volume control from the control point, and won't play most video formats).
MediaMonkey is quite ok too: it can be loaded, set up to act as rendrerer, and then minimized to the system tray. But it seems crazy to load a 50MB software with hundreds of features of which you only will use one.

Ideally, a pure DLNA audio renderer to be controlled from a remote or local DLNA control point, should be designed to be loaded as a service, have a minimal configuration interface, use little memory.
Is there any such software?

The question seems to remain unanswered: is it possible that no software has been made to let a Windows PC act as an audio renderer?

Why not letting serviio itself include a renderer module to be loaded as a service under Windows?

Serviio MediaBrowser is an Audio / Video / Photo renderer (web-based player...)

I too have been looking for a windows based DLNA media player for music, and have come up with nothing. VLC and WMP both claim to support uPNP and DLNA but neither actually work. It seems all windows based DLNA players are aimed at media center type PC, running a full screen interface.

I have tried using the mediabrowser webpage, and although it works. Its a pain that once music is playing, the player blocks the interface and you cant browse to add more songs to the playlist.

DLNA compliance for VLC only refers to possibility to search and play DLNA sources fron the VLC interface. VLC does NOT (as far as I could verify) operate as a DLNA player: it cannot be invoked and controlled remotely by a DLNA compliant controller.

The proposal to use Serviio's web interface would be fine.... if you just wanted to access from remote via a browser!

Since my search began, I went on testing different softwares:

- Jriver Media Center includes a DLNA renderer function but, again, it's crazy that you would have to load the whole huge package only to have a renderer run in the background
- Plex's documentation suggests that the Plex Home theatre module could do the job, but I still could not get it to work (it seems it's not a Win-32 compliant software)

Again, let me rephrase the issue:
- I am searching for a MS-Windows software that can act as a DLNA media renderer and that can run as a service (or, be loaded as a program at startup, to run in the background). Ideally, that should NOT be a heavy, full-feature suite including a DLNA server, control point, browsing interface etc.
- the goal is to make the windows based PC system act as the audio player, and to control it remotely via DLNA from any other connected device (i.e., Android phone-tablets, i-pad/i-phone...) while serviio is running to be the server on the same network (possbily, on the same machine).

The following (already) discussed solutions are to be excluded:
- VLC: true, it does act as a DLNA client and can browse contents on DLNA server, but needs to be operated locally or through its own non-DLNA remote interface
- XBMC: it works, but it's also a huge application, eating loads of memory and CPU; and, it con't be run as a service
- MediaMonkey: can be loaded in the systemtray, but it's -again- using a lot of CPU and memory
- WMP: does not fully work with DLNA (won't accept volume commands)
- Serviio's HTML-based player: it's not a DLNA render: needs to be operated via HTTP, not through a control point app
- using an Android phone/tabled as a player: well, it obviously works, and true, that is the solution anyone would eventually end up to. But it seems cray that since I already have a PC on the network that is up and running in order to have Serviio run on it, I should also have another appliance to operate in the same network to be able to play the contets that Serviio is streaming.

More contributions welcome

I'm back here after a long time and before adding to this thread I want to THANK the developers because elsewhere in this forum I saw that ChromeCast developement is in progress (why I came here).

I wanted to mention Foobar as a Windows (non-service) audio DLNA player.
http://www.foobar2000.org/

Foobar might look intimidating or even 'backward' but it's quite handy with quite a lot of useful advanced options.

I agree, and in fact I have myself ended up in using Foobar. Unfortunately, it cannot be loaded as a service, but with a little work in Windows 7/8 a smart user can set up a planned action to load and run the program at startup, which will basically be very much alike.