I built a network streaming app over the weekend

[bogdansrb]

I was curious as to why the streaming protocols that I've tried are so bad - chromecast, DLNA, even spotify connect, all have issues such as audio dropping, sender losing connection with the receiver, unresponsive behaviour. For this reason I kept using bluetooth.
I then started to investigate what would take to "cast" audio over the network bluetooth-style, not being tied to a specific protocol.
So with the help of AI I built an android app that captures audio and sends it via UDP to a receiver (that simply decodes and plays the audio). And to my surprise it actually works. There are some caveats of course, like wifi reception, lost packets, but there are fixes for these.

So if it can be done, why isn't there a proper open solution like this?

 

[ZolaIII]

There are solutions even for near the real time AV streaming that work quite well like Moonlight.

Moonlight Game Streaming Project

Moonlight Game Streaming Project has 14 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

github.com

No one whose really intrasted in audio solo as that's considered easy and not compute intense anymore. I do use DLNA and it's not exactly problematic, it ain't responsive but that ain't problem for not live streaming. Play around with Moonlight to see how much it's posible (H265, AV1 HDR in 2K/4K 60 FPS) with live and smooth control's (in games and otherwise).

 

[voodooless]

So if it can be done, why isn't there a proper open solution like this?

I was curious as to why the streaming protocols that I've tried are so bad - chromecast, DLNA, even spotify connect, all have issues such as audio dropping, sender losing connection with the receiver, unresponsive behaviour.

I generally don’t have any of these issues. And if they occur I bet all of them are rooted in poor programming, underpowered hardware, or networking issues, not the protocols used.

 

[john61ct]

You are using wired Ethernet right?

 

[bogdansrb]

You are using wired Ethernet right?

When I was using those protocols? Yes and no, but it didn't make a difference. It's a matter of protocol and implementation. Unfortunately none of those protocols are open or standardized, so some devices might work well, others might not.

 

[john61ct]

I have had no such issues that weren't caused by my implementation, not at the protocol level.

I use LMS' open source slimproto / squeezelite, Wiim Ultra implements it

That is FOSS, and of course there are many others in RaspberryPi / linux world

 

[Redacted]

I don't recognise the problem here. I have used DLNA servers on my LAN since it was first economically possible, with FLAC rips of all my CDs and there has never been a situation where playback was not perfect, except where WiFi was too weak to penetrate some parts of my house (easily cured). I would however, not attempt to play my guitar over my LAN.