Qobuz Connect, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Deezer Connect - Why???

[LawrenceL]

Can someone adequately answer the question? It would be great to hear from Qobuz officially on this… Maybe it's buried here somewhere, but here we go…

We’ve all been told that Qobuz is working on the facility of “Qobuz Connect”. All of the major streaming services either have, or are floating the idea of a service-to-device connect API like Spotify.

But why should we even need this?

The UPnP and DLNA protocol for has been in place for almost twenty years. Almost all AVRs and streamers support DLNA. In a time when most companies benefit from using open and interoperable standards, Why are these companies creating walled gardens.

Some have said that the issue is digital rights management. But that can’t be true. DNLA has had DRM as a feature of the protocol for almost ten years.

It’s not lost to me that Qobuz used to support DNLA. Take note of this tutorial which was published in April of 2018. It can be still found by a search of the Qobuz Magazine:

https://open.qobuz.com/story/DWG6ZKEHVFPSXB4CDJ72AOVCJI

It seems maddening that companies have to develop a new stream connection API, and then spend ongoing resources to support devices to use their unique API “sauce” when they could free up all of those resources and be more responsive by using one that has been in place for over 20 years.

We also now have the more modern Google Chromecast API which effectively can do the same thing as DNLA. Many devices support this natively as well. And Qobuz supports this natively today.

In fact, with my new WIM Pro, I effectively have a view of what the Qobuz Connect link would be. By utilizing Chromecast I can deliver bit-perfect streams at up to 24bit/96kHz from all my devices. And Qobuz has been supporting Chromecast seemingly for at least 8 years.

https://open.qobuz.com/story/NK5DORN25ROWPCDH6VWFCKDUEI

So it blows my mind. I want to pull my hair out. Because I can’t figure out why these companies feel the need to saddle themselves with seemingly “reinventing the wheel” when they can use the existing APIs, and move on to focusing time and attention and monies to other aspects of their streaming business.

What am I missing here? Feel free to join me to explain WHY?

 

[majingotan]

None of them come close to my Multi-room streaming experience with Roon

 

[sarumbear]

View attachment 299564

Can someone adequately answer the question? It would be great to hear from Qobuz officially on this… Maybe it's buried here somewhere, but here we go…

We’ve all been told that Qobuz is working on the facility of “Qobuz Connect”. All of the major streaming services either have, or are floating the idea of a service-to-device connect API like Spotify.

But why should we even need this?

The UPnP and DLNA protocol for has been in place for almost twenty years. Almost all AVRs and streamers support DLNA. In a time when most companies benefit from using open and interoperable standards, Why are these companies creating walled gardens.

It is possible that you miss the way "connect" software works.

DLNA is for data transfer between two devices. Once the selection is made there is no connection between the controller and the player. The player becomes a stand-alone unit. There is no data transfer then between the controller and the player.

PS. Apple Music does not have a "connect" option.

 

[anome]

IMO the issue is the legal hurdles put up to restrict access via the API to apps that have been certified; i.e. LMS/Squeezelite Qubuz plugin is very good, but FOSS cannot get all the way there.

 

[Keith_W]

None of them come close to my Multi-room streaming experience with Roon

Great for you. Unfortunately, Roon only supports Qobuz and Tidal. I want to use Idagio (which is a classical only streaming service). When I cancelled my subscription, I clearly told them (Idagio) the reason why - no DLNA support, no casting from phone to PC of any kind supported. It has been months and they haven't done anything about it. At the moment, Spotify is the only streaming service that casts from phone to PC. None of the others support it, as far as i'm aware.

 

[Zensō]

Great for you. Unfortunately, Roon only supports Qobuz and Tidal. I want to use Idagio (which is a classical only streaming service). When I cancelled my subscription, I clearly told them (Idagio) the reason why - no DLNA support, no casting from phone to PC of any kind supported. It has been months and they haven't done anything about it. At the moment, Spotify is the only streaming service that casts from phone to PC. None of the others support it, as far as i'm aware.

I'm not sure if this is what you're saying, but I'm currently streaming music to my desktop Mac from my iPhone using Airplay 2.

 

[Jimbob54]

Great for you. Unfortunately, Roon only supports Qobuz and Tidal. I want to use Idagio (which is a classical only streaming service). When I cancelled my subscription, I clearly told them (Idagio) the reason why - no DLNA support, no casting from phone to PC of any kind supported. It has been months and they haven't done anything about it. At the moment, Spotify is the only streaming service that casts from phone to PC. None of the others support it, as far as i'm aware.

Yup- Spotify is the only one I have encountered that seems to "get" Connect properly. Every device logged into one's account knows which other device is actually playing the stream and all the others can control that stream remotely. Very elegant.

 

[kemmler3D]

2 major and IMO good reasons DLNA is not used for sharing streamed audio around a home network.

1) DLNA is designed for locally stored media, Qobuz, Spotify, etc are not that. You need to share a live audio stream as well as synchronize it across multiple devices, which AFAIK DLNA doesn't do. Or, you need to use one device to remotely control another device (ala Spotify Connect) which DLNA also doesn't do.

2) The DLNA group dissolved 6 years ago, nobody is going to build anything on a spec that's stopped development that long.

A better question is why WiSA and Play-Fi never took off, either. Having looked into this problem at my previous job, it boils down to one major stumbling block: IIRC neither iOS nor Android expose the raw audio stream from one app to another app at the OS level.

This means that even if DLNA was still being developed, and they wanted to cover this use case, they couldn't do it without building support for every music streaming app individually.

You also can't just build Chromecast or Airplay into your device, you need permission from Google or Apple, which is not necessarily easy or cheap to get.

So if you want to stream Spotify, Qobuz, or whatever to another device, you actually have to get Spotify or Qobuz to collaborate with you to build that feature into your streamer.

The fact that the dominant smartphones don't let you capture the audio stream basically leads to this crappy patchwork of protocols and proprietary solutions. You might say "well what about Windows or MacOS or Linux", and that's valid, but no sane audio company is going to build a streaming device or service that doesn't support iOS and Android in 2023.

Your observation that there is no REAL technical obstacle to this is correct, but the features that the dominant tech companies choose to build or not build pretty much determines the outcome.

 

[sarumbear]

It seems many on this thread have not understood what "connect" type operation is. There is no streaming between the apps and devices, the only streaming is between the player and the music service (Spotify, etc.)

It’s not AirPlay, not Chromecast and not DLNA. It’s not streaming, it’s akin to master/slave.

 

[Zensō]

It seems many on this thread have not understood what "connect" type operation is. There is no streaming between the apps and devices, the only streaming is between the player and the music service (Spotify, etc.)

It’s not AirPlay, not Chromecast and not DLNA. It’s not streaming, it’s akin to master/slave.

Understood. When Keith mentioned “casting” from phone to PC it wasn’t clear to me if he meant “streaming” from phone to PC, which is possible using Airplay 2, or actual casting which, as you’ve stated, even Spotify doesn’t do between two local devices.

 

[miguelito]

First lets see why Spotify did “Spotify Connect”:
1- Same user interface as regular Spotify - this allows for a common user experience (this is very important to Spotify which purportedly has about 1,600 developers ensuring everything works properly and it is a seamless experience)
2- Tracking all of your moves to gather preference data - not just what you play, but what you browse, your playlists, etc
3- UPnP/DLNA implementations for various devices are all over the place (apparently) so how/what will work is not clear whereas if they control their implementation, they can ensure everything works properly
4- More reliable playback - going over Airplay puts your controlling device in the middle of the data flow, which means not only less reliability but also noone else can control the music (which you can do with Connect), and doing Chromecast has other issues (see below)

All of these reasons apply to everyone else.

Now what’s wrong with Chromecast?
1- It is not gapless
2- Google’s support for Chromecast (which is true of about everything Google has ever released) is uncertain. The ChromecastAudio protocol is not maintained anymore to my knowledge and only those bits and pieces related to audio+video are maintained (I am not 100% sure about this)
3- Resolution is limited to 24/96 (not that I have an issue with that)

So in this day and age, it makes sense to create a “Connect” piece of code that seamlessly connects to your control point and servers.

 

[jensgk]

Now what’s wrong with Chromecast?
1- It is not gapless

When streaming from the Tidal or Spotify Apps on an iPhone, Chromecast is not gapless, but when streaming a flac file from a PC with foorbar2000 via BubbleUPnP to a Chromecast Audio device, it is gapless. So it depends on the client implementation.

 

[miguelito]

When streaming from the Tidal or Spotify Apps on an iPhone, Chromecast is not gapless, but when streaming a flac file from a PC with foorbar2000 via BubbleUPnP to a Chromecast Audio device, it is gapless. So it depends on the client implementation.

Yet another reason why the whole ecosystem of UPnP/Chromecast/etc is not suitable for a robust "Connect-like" solution and why Spotify and TIDAL have developed their "Connect" solutions.

 

[popej]

When streaming from the Tidal or Spotify Apps on an iPhone, Chromecast is not gapless, but when streaming a flac file from a PC with foorbar2000 via BubbleUPnP to a Chromecast Audio device, it is gapless. So it depends on the client implementation.

IMO "connect" type of player, means that player connects directly to streaming service and plays preprogrammed set of tracks. Chromecast can do it, but with gaps. To get gapless playback with Chromecast, you need a device in the middle, like for example BubbleUPNP, which merge multiple tracks into singe piece, which can be played without breaks. But then it is BubbleUPNP which becomes "connected player" and you are left with services, that are supported by Bubble.

If you use BubbleUPNP then you can use DLNA instead of Chromecast.