Streamer functionality - dedicated touchscreen?

[ahofer]

I tend to use Chromecast and a full-functioned streamer (Cambridge Audio), with a remote server running Minimserver and BubbleUPnP running on a tablet.

This has generally been fine for me, but I find my family and friends have trouble using it. Have any of you used another renderer or Raspberry Pi-based streamer with a dedicated touchscreen monitor? It seems you could set up Volumio and have it auto-boot to a screen where the user could make their selections from the server, or my Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions.

 

[BillG]

I don't particularly care for BubbleUPnP myself, although I have it installed as a backup. (I'm a computer scientist/software engineer with 3+ decades experience, just to give you an idea of my level of technical competence.) I prefer Emby instead as I find it to be much more user friendly:

https://emby.media/

In regards to your actual question, though, there's this:

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/03/howto-building-and-installing-raspberry.html

 

[BillG]

Emby for Android on my tablet, streaming from Emby Server on Windows, casting to a Chromecast Audio:

 

[ahofer]

I'll check Emby out. I did try Plex. My problem with programs like that (which have their own server system) is they impose their own cover art and hierarchy on the music, ignoring the tags. I use Minimserver because with a little tagging, it's much easier to explore my large classical collection. It is tagged with composer, genre, piece. Thus I can see versions of Beethoven's Opus 51 no 1 by drilling down composer-Beethoven, genre-chamber music, piece -string quartet op. 51 no. 1. Theoretically, this isn't a problem with good search, but then they'd need good search....

 

[somebodyelse]

I'll check Emby out. I did try Plex. My problem with programs like that (which have their own server system) is they impose their own cover art and hierarchy on the music, ignoring the tags. I use Minimserver because with a little tagging, it's much easier to explore my large classical collection. It is tagged with composer, genre, piece. Thus I can see versions of Beethoven's Opus 51 no 1 by drilling down composer-Beethoven, genre-chamber music, piece -string quartet op. 51 no. 1. Theoretically, this isn't a problem with good search, but then they'd need good search....

You might like the custom scan and custom browse options in logitechmediaserver (as in the archimago link above) for your classical collection. This should give you an idea of the options available, and you can get it to use your existing tags. It'll also use the cover art you provide.

 

[BillG]

My problem with programs like that (which have their own server system) is they impose their own cover art and hierarchy on the music, ignoring the tags.

Emby is merely a very polished DLNA server with an SQL backend - it's open source, by the way. As for the cover art, it doesn't touch this unless you ask it to. As for tags, it's never replaced mine, and it maintains its own seperate metadata database. However, it can link songs and albums to the MusicBrainz, Last.fm, and ListenBrainz online databases if one wishes.

I'm aware that European Classical can present a problem for various media players due to the somewhat unique tagging requirements - Jazz lovers have similar on occasion.

As for Emby, if you do wish to review it, I'd suggest creating a test library of a subset of your music, and seeing whether it meets your requirements before just running against the entire thing...

 

[Totoro]

You might like the custom scan and custom browse options in logitechmediaserver (as in the archimago link above) for your classical collection. This should give you an idea of the options available, and you can get it to use your existing tags. It'll also use the cover art you provide.

I’ve been using logitechmediaserver for years for pretty much exactly this use case. I’m confused about plex not using tags though, as I have used it on my work laptop and it handled my tags and artwork just fine.

 

[ahofer]

This looks interesting. No screen.

https://www.primare.net/products/np5-prisma/

Ahem - Chromecast and Roon built-in. Attn @orchardaudio

 

[AudioSceptic]

I don't particularly care for BubbleUPnP myself, although I have it installed as a backup. (I'm a computer scientist/software engineer with 3+ decades experience, just to give you an idea of my level of technical competence.) I prefer Emby instead as I find it to be much more user friendly:

https://emby.media/

In regards to your actual question, though, there's this:

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/03/howto-building-and-installing-raspberry.html

Archimago did a sequence of articles on using an RPi as a streamer. Well worth a read.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I tend to use Chromecast and a full-functioned streamer (Cambridge Audio), with a remote server running Minimserver and BubbleUPnP running on a tablet.

This has generally been fine for me, but I find my family and friends have trouble using it. Have any of you used another renderer or Raspberry Pi-based streamer with a dedicated touchscreen monitor? It seems you could set up Volumio and have it auto-boot to a screen where the user could make their selections from the server, or my Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions.

Do you have a TV or monitor connected? Not touch-screen but Kodi has a great "10 foot GUI" so you use a Kodi remote (or app on a smartphone or tablet) to navigate the menus and play music from across the room.

 

[ahofer]

Do you have a TV or monitor connected? Not touch-screen but Kodi has a great "10 foot GUI" so you use a Kodi remote (or app on a smartphone or tablet) to navigate the menus and play music from across the room.

No TV, nor desirable. You can see the target system for a newbie-friendly streamer here in my weekend place:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/room-challenge-and-dsp.9178/#post-236327

 

[AudioSceptic]

No TV, nor desirable. You can see the target system for a newbie-friendly streamer here in my weekend place:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/room-challenge-and-dsp.9178/#post-236327

Do you want AirPlay or similar? Kodi and Volumio can do that.

 

[Soniclife]

Not touch-screen but Kodi has a great "10 foot GUI"

Kodi supports touchscreens now I think, not tried it myself.

 

[ahofer]

The HQ Player embedded option looks pretty interesting. Could put it in a fanless CPU (NUC or something) with a touchscreen. It isn't that easy to find the price of that software....

 

[AudioSceptic]

Kodi supports touchscreens now I think, not tried it myself.

That would be good. I think Kodi will be easier for most civilians to use as its menus are more like TV/DVR interfaces.

 

[ahofer]

Do you want AirPlay or similar? Kodi and Volumio can do that.

1. UPnP/DLNA (for me. I'm happy with a tablet running Bubble control point)
2. Touchscreen music selection for people who don't understand network streaming-talk (e.g. a player on the device)
3. No putzing around with the O/S or selecting renderers each time under (2)

 

[AudioSceptic]

1. UPnP/DLNA (for me. I'm happy with a tablet running Bubble control point)
2. Touchscreen music selection for people who don't understand network streaming-talk (e.g. a player on the device)
3. No putzing around with the O/S or selecting renderers each time under (2)

I didn't mean "instead of", I meant "as well as", in case visitors wanted to hear their own music on your system.

 

[ahofer]

I didn't mean "instead of", I meant "as well as", in case visitors wanted to hear their own music on your system.

Let’s not let these guests get out of hand!

Actually, if it shows up on Tidal and Spotify, that usually does it. Chromecast shows up in Tidal and Google Music.

 

[graz_lag]

Here's my music streaming setup, if it can be of any help.

UPnP Server (OS Linux): MinimServer (https://minimserver.com/index.html)
UPnP Renderer: several but the most used one is based on the Odroid-C2 single board computer with it's board DAC (HiFi Shield), with Linux as OS
UPnP Control Point: BubbleUPnP, the full paid version (4 EUR?), on both my Android phone and tablet

I stream both in WiFi towards the Odroid-C2 and thru the LAN towards my other renderers, everything runs really smoothly.

If I want to remotely shut down the server, I do it via the VNC Viewer from the phone/tablet, X11VNCServer on the server.

 

[Soniclife]

This has generally been fine for me, but I find my family and friends have trouble using it.

How many of these people don't have a phone with a streaming service like Spotify on it? I used to want the same sort of thing, before I realised that Spotify connect solved all the problems. If will turn my amps on, select the right input, and control the volume, all from an app they already know how to use.