UPnP/DLNA server (Linux) and Player (Android) with full tag support ?

[PenguinMusic]

Hi guys,

Hope this is the right place to post this.

I would like to be able to retrieve the whole music library stored on my computer on my Shanling DAP (a M3x player).

The computer runs Linux (Arch based). It's a quite powerful machine connected to network with Ethernet and with shared folders over SMB.
The player has a now old version of Android, but that seems to be OK (it's android 7 I think).

I am able to get music from the computer to the player over UPnP/DLNA without problems.

But there are 2 things I'd like to achieve and haven't been able to do so far :
- gapless playback (as I listen to classical and live music quite often) ;
- correct sorting of music by tags, especially "Disk" tag. So far it displays Disk1 - Track 1 => Disk 2 - Track 1 => Disk 3 - Track 1 => Disk 1 - Track 2...

So far, I used :
- KODI as a server ;
- minidlna as a server ;
- universal media player as a server.

On the player side we have :
- Shanling in house player ;
- Fiio ;
-Media Monkey ;
- BubbleUPnp ;
- AK Connect ;
- Hi-Fi cast.

None achieves the results I was hoping for :-(

So I'm posting here in case anyone know of a system that would work.

Thanks a lot for your answers.

Regards.

 

[somebodyelse]

You could try logitechmediaserver (LMS) with the 'UPnP/DLNA Media Interface' plugin. There are plugins for custom tag handling so if it doesn't sort as you'd like out of the box you can probably configure it as you'd like. I can't say how this will carry over to any DLNA control points though.
I pretty much gave up on UPnP/DLNA because of the gapless issue - it's not that it's impossible, but the difficulty of finding a combination of server, endpoint and control point that are all capable and interoperate as needed for it to actually work. If you're not firmly set on UPnP/DLNA you could try a native client for LMS instead, which will certainly do gapless. SqueezePlayer is the one I remember but there may be others. The Material Skin plugin works well with phone browsers for control, or you can use a native app like Squeezer.

 

[Vincent Kars]

To the best of my knowledge, gapless playback is not even part of the DLNA standard.
Maybe you have more luck using https://minimserver.com/features.html

Maybe Foobar Mobile on the DAP or on a mobile running a more recent version of Android.

Maybe Dsik # isn't part of the DLNA specs as well: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=97279.0

 

[freemansteve]

As far as I know, the server is not involved in gapless playback. At least, I have just done a quick test for you.

1 start UMS on my PC (win)
2 point UMS at 2 MP3 files with gapless-ness which I put in a folder on the desktop. Last two tracks of "wish you were here".
3 started foobar2000, and added loopback (127.0.0.1) as a location.
4 UMS now shows various servers on my LAN, inc. UMS. Also NAS/RAID which has built-in DLNA.
5 select the 2 tracks and to playlist.
6 all tags and artwork present and correct (well, at least name/artist/album/track num...)
7 started 1st track 5 sec from end.
8 2nd track played haplessly as expected.
9 Played the same two tracks, directly in FB2K (no server), same result
10 played the 2 tracks in VLC, which does not support gapless and as expected, I got a gap

It seems to prove that in your case, when using UMS, at least, it's the renderer (player) that is not doing gapless playback.

I don't recall the details now, but I did see that some ripping tools were unable to identify gapless material on a CD, so it could that in your case.

Now, with the MP3s, although they played without gaps, above, there was a small noise in between the tracks, it's a feature of ripping to MP3 I think. When I retry using the FLAC versions the same files ripped as FLAC from the CD, it appears far better.

 

[Vincent Kars]

it's a feature of ripping to MP3 I think.

Correct, MP3 uses fixed frames so there will be some "white space" at the end.
FLAC has variable frames so you can glue them together seamless.

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi guys,

Thanks a lot for your answers.

I made some progress :

- if I use KODI as a media server from my computer ;
- and if I use Hi-Fi cast on my Android DAP appearts an option to set the option for the server => gapless.

Enabled that and now I can have what I was looking for :
- tracks separated as disks AND gapless playback.

Remains one thing to settle : if I close the window on KODI then the server shuts down... And I'd like the server to remain alive despite me not displaying the window...
But I will probably be able to wirk that out...

THANKS A LOT for your hints that helped me sorting this out. I am now super happy

 

[somebodyelse]

I misremembered from my research some years back - the server isn't part of gapless playback as @freemansteve said. The author of a control point has a section explaining it here:
https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/pages/homenet-audio.html#_the_building_blocks

 

[freemansteve]

I just did some more tests on different releases of the same CD....

With CD of WYWH, bought when CDs first became commonly available (about 1629? ), I ripped tracks 4 & 5 to FLAC, and also to MP3 (both from the CD, not one from the other!)...

-> On Foobar2000, both played gaplessly in sequence, but with a slight noise at the point of change. A little worse on the MP3.

With a later WYWH CD, remastered in the 90's (my son stole my original but gave it back)...

-> On Foobar2000, both played gaplessly in sequence, and no noise at all at point of change on either FLAC or MP3.

Interesting - Only the physical version of the CD was changed in the test.
I read somewhere that some CDs with gapless tracks would not rip and preserve gapless-ness - I didn't believe it, but I have just tested it, found it to be the case, and cannot explain it! It must be about how samples at boundaries on the CD fall into FLAC or MP3 frames....

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi,

As a follow-up, for some obscure reason, Hi-Cast DLNA stopped working properly on Android with KODI.
It coudl see the KODI server, no problems.
But once connected it took AGES to retrieve files and start to play them :-(

Other apps like Shanling, Fiio or BubbleUPnp did not have any problems streaming from that exact same KODI server...

So, despite having paid Hi-Fi Cast DLNA (I can survive the cost I think) I searched for something else.
And I found Foobar2000 and Emby server.

Emby offers a nice feature KODI does not have : it can play in the background with no problems, and so even if I log out of computer, the server remains active. Nice...

Foobar offers gapless playback out of the box.
BUT : the UI is quite ugly :-( I think there are skins for Foobar but I haven't really been able to find them or use them :-(

 

[somebodyelse]

I just did some more tests on different releases of the same CD....

With CD of WYWH, bought when CDs first became commonly available (about 1629? ), I ripped tracks 4 & 5 to FLAC, and also to MP3 (both from the CD, not one from the other!)...

-> On Foobar2000, both played gaplessly in sequence, but with a slight noise at the point of change. A little worse on the MP3.

With a later WYWH CD, remastered in the 90's (my son stole my original but gave it back)...

-> On Foobar2000, both played gaplessly in sequence, and no noise at all at point of change on either FLAC or MP3.

Interesting - Only the physical version of the CD was changed in the test.
I read somewhere that some CDs with gapless tracks would not rip and preserve gapless-ness - I didn't believe it, but I have just tested it, found it to be the case, and cannot explain it! It must be about how samples at boundaries on the CD fall into FLAC or MP3 frames....

That's odd. Do both CDs play gaplessly? The normal process for gapless ripping is to do audio extraction as a continuous disc-at-once stream, encode as a stream then split at the frame nearest to the track transition if you want separate files rather than having a cue file, or tags in FLAC, tell you where they are.

 

[freemansteve]

That's odd. Do both CDs play gaplessly? The normal process for gapless ripping is to do audio extraction as a continuous disc-at-once stream, encode as a stream then split at the frame nearest to the track transition if you want separate files rather than having a cue file, or tags in FLAC, tell you where they are.

Yes the CDs play gaplessly. The weird thing is I tried a few other albums that have gapless playback (just the FLACs so far) and they all work perfectly like the CD, with both FB2K on my PC, and on my Evo 75...

I just want to rip and play though, and have 10s of thousands of individual tracks, so I kept the ripping as simple as possible and never had many issues with gapless, so the process is fine, but this one CD bugged me. I'll delete the FLACs & MP3s of that version and use the later remaster - it sounds fine.

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi,
So now I can stream my music from my computer to the DAP.
Now, the 1000 dollars question.

Is there a way to control the DAP from a smartphone ?
I am more or less able to control the DAP with my phone, but if I do that I can only play local files from the DAP.

So what I'd like to achieve would be to be able to have the DAP being more or less installed at at a fixed place.
And having the DAP getting it's files from the computer (over DLNA or any other method.
And then use my smartphone as a remote control for the DAP.

Not sure I am clear enough and if it is feasible at all :-(

Regards.

 

[Vincent Kars]

It is.
Install Foobar Mobile on the DAP, if not get a Android phone + DAC.

The Well-Tempered Computer

 

[Jmudrick]

I'm using BubbleUpnp player's Audio Cast function to get gapless playback of my Emby server files via my WiiM streamer.

 

[PenguinMusic]

It is.
Install Foobar Mobile on the DAP, if not get a Android phone + DAC.

The Well-Tempered Computer

Hi,

Hum... What do you mean ?
I have Foobar installed on both the smartphone and the DAP.
No way they can connect together :-( At least none that is obvious enough to me :-(
Regards.

 

[freemansteve]

No. There is a remote control app for foobar. Maybe I don't follow your topology - it seems complicated.... Tell us one more time, where do the music files live, and which device(s) are the headphones or speakers connected to, to play the music for you?

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for thrying to help me.

So here is what I would like to do.

Music is stored on computer.
The music is streamed to a DAP that I have connected to a dedicated headphone amp. Cable is short so DAP isn't really mobile.
To retrieve the music from the computer, I have installed Foobar2000 on the DAP.

Because the DAP isn't really mobile anymore I would like to remote control it with a phone.

I have seen that there is a remote control app for Foobar, but obviously it is only for Foobar on a computer.
Not on Android phone :-(

I have thought about mirroriing the DAP's display, but that requires to activate some services that are not present in the Android version of the DAP (a Shanling M3x).

It's not too big a problem if it can't be done. I can also decide to buy a longer cable for the DAP to connect into the HP amplifier

Regards.

 

[Chazz6]

To the best of my knowledge, gapless playback is not even part of the DLNA standard.
Maybe you have more luck using https://minimserver.com/features.html ...

Minimserver might not give you gapless, but it can be configured in a versatile way for tags. You might need to play with BubbleUPnP too in order to complete your view of the tagging you have set up. Minimserver has a Linux version.

 

[freemansteve]

Gapless playback has nothing to do with DLNA, AFAIK; if your renderer (playback device) supports it, and if the files you're playing have been correctly ripped, I think you are sorted.

Having said that, I have just tested 2 DLNA servers, and gapless worked fine, but there was no transcoding involved - other servers or configs may vary....

NB my Evo works fine as DLNA renderer for gapless, as does Foobar2000 on my PC, but VLC does not support gapless whether playing files directly or via a DLNA server...

Tags seem to be perfect no matter what, but Evo does not respect ReplayGain tags, while both FB2K & VLC do!

 

[somebodyelse]

Gapless playback has nothing to do with DLNA, AFAIK; if your renderer (playback device) supports it, and if the files you're playing have been correctly ripped, I think you are sorted.

You missed the control point which also has a part to play.