Sony Music Center SMTC Bridge

简体中文版说明 (Chinese Version)

A native Windows 10/11 System Media Transport Controls (SMTC) bridge for the desktop version of Sony Music Center for PC.

Sony Music Center for PC is an Electron-based application, but due to older Electron versions and missing flags, it does not natively interface with the Windows System Media Transport Controls (the volume OSD media popup). This project injects a lightweight background bridge to provide full native OS integration.

Features

• Media Keys: Play, Pause, Next, Previous hardware keys work perfectly, even when the app is minimized to the system tray.
• Track Information: Extracts song title, artist, and album in real-time, fully supporting UTF-8 (CJK characters).
• Album Art: Automatically intercepts high-res cover art (including in-memory blob: formats) and displays it on the Windows SMTC popup.
• Timeline Syncing: Extracts the exact track duration and dynamically creates a virtual audio stream to perfectly sync the SMTC progress bar without pop-up flickering or auto-sync glitches.
• Non-intrusive: Operates completely out-of-process using a C# server. Does not block the main Electron UI thread.

Installation

1. Close Sony Music Center if it is running.
2. Clone or download this repository.
3. Right-click on Install.bat and select Run as administrator. (The script safely copies the bridge executable and patches the app's startup scripts).
4. Open Sony Music Center and play a song!

Manual Installation (If the batch script fails)

If Install.bat flashes and closes immediately (e.g., due to antivirus restrictions or UAC issues), you can install the bridge manually:

1. Close Sony Music Center.
2. Open Task Manager and ensure SonyMusicCenterSMTC.exe is completely closed (if it was running).
3. Copy SonyMusicCenterSMTC.exe to your Sony Music Center installation directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Music Center\).
4. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Music Center\resources\app\.
5. Rename the existing index.js to index.js.bak (this is your backup).
6. Copy the renderer-hook.js file from this project to your Desktop (or any other folder where you have write access).
7. Rename the file on your Desktop to index.js.
8. Open this new index.js in a text editor (like Notepad), scroll to the very bottom, add a new line, and append exactly this text: require('@z-app/core');
9. Save the file.
10. Copy your modified index.js from the Desktop into the C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Music Center\resources\app\ folder. (Windows will prompt you for Administrator permission—click Continue).
11. Start Sony Music Center!

Architecture

This project consists of two components:

1. renderer-hook.js: An injected Electron script that scrapes the DOM and intercepts media key events. It establishes a local HTTP POST connection to bypass strict Electron Content-Security-Policies (CSP).
2. SonyMusicCenterSMTC.cs: A native C# WinRT executable that instantiates a MediaPlayer and a virtual MediaStreamSource to perfectly control the Windows OS timeline without UI glitches.

Uninstallation

If you wish to remove the patch:

1. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Music Center\resources\app\.
2. Delete the hooked index.js.
3. Rename the original index.js.bak back to index.js.
4. Delete SonyMusicCenterSMTC.exe from the main installation folder.