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What is a good system (server + app) to stream and transfer music from a NAS to an iPhone

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halloleo

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No not by default but it is in the standard package store. see the screenshot. It might be named slightly different in your country but it s from Synology.

Hi HarmonicTHD, I found the package, installed it and mconnect sees the music. :)
 
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freemansteve

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I'd avoid servers that report any of your data "back to base" like, I have read, Plex.
 

HarmonicTHD

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Hi HarmonicTHD, I found the package, installed it and mconnect sees the music. :)
Great to hear.
Just as a hint, for mconnect and most other renders to display the album cover art, the cover art needs to be named Folder.jpg.
enjoy.
 
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freemansteve

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Great to hear.
Just as a hint, for mconnect and most other renders to display the album cover art, the cover art needs to be named Folder.jpg.
enjoy.

That may be true for mconnect, (also for my Evo streamer) but not for say, FB2K, VLC and others. I just tested this with two different DLNA servers.

If you want the best chance of a renderer being able to show cover art, embed the art (as front cover) into the files using MP3tag in conjunction with AlbumArtDownloader. You can adjust all art in the files to be consistently sized, say 220x220 is good enough without using much storage space.

Another common thing, is that sometimes covers never display, embedded or as separate file - there is a lot of cover art you can download that appears as a jpg file but sometimes is a different format, like png. Sometimes only a true jpg will be displayed - but you can scan your (separate) cover art files in your folders using a program like trid.exe (https://mark0.net/soft-trid-e.html ) which can id and batch convert to jpg, and then you can batch include the art using MP3tag. Just saying, as this had me puzzled for several days when I could not see why no cover art was displayed in some of my systems!
 

Smitty2k1

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That may be true for mconnect, (also for my Evo streamer) but not for say, FB2K, VLC and others. I just tested this with two different DLNA servers.

If you want the best chance of a renderer being able to show cover art, embed the art (as front cover) into the files using MP3tag in conjunction with AlbumArtDownloader. You can adjust all art in the files to be consistently sized, say 220x220 is good enough without using much storage space.

Another common thing, is that sometimes covers never display, embedded or as separate file - there is a lot of cover art you can download that appears as a jpg file but sometimes is a different format, like png. Sometimes only a true jpg will be displayed - but you can scan your (separate) cover art files in your folders using a program like trid.exe (https://mark0.net/soft-trid-e.html ) which can id and batch convert to jpg, and then you can batch include the art using MP3tag. Just saying, as this had me puzzled for several days when I could not see why no cover art was displayed in some of my systems!
I really need to mass tag my library with embedded cover art. I've used mp3tag for years but never the album art.

By the way, a few months ago my mo3tag started writing tags REALLY slow. Not sure what changed or if it's related to my network. Need to check into this more.
 

Pe8er

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+1 for Plex Media Server on Synology and Plexamp on iOS. Painless setup, great UX, good performance, streams without a hitch inside and outside my house, download feature works very well.
 

HarmonicTHD

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+1 for Plex Media Server on Synology and Plexamp on iOS. Painless setup, great UX, good performance, streams without a hitch inside and outside my house, download feature works very well.

When I looked at Plex at the time, it did not provide a Qobuz interface, which was the killer criteria for me. Things might have changed, since then.
 
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freemansteve

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I really need to mass tag my library with embedded cover art. I've used mp3tag for years but never the album art.

By the way, a few months ago my mo3tag started writing tags REALLY slow. Not sure what changed or if it's related to my network. Need to check into this more.

I've tried various tag+artwork mechanisms since such things existed, and have ended up with >60K files, most are MP3, but all the good stuff stuff as FLACs.

I am OCD about consistency of which tags I used, and for the covers, I wanted to match all the physical CD inserts and vinyl sleeves. This kind of ruled out the automated (set and forget), batch cover downloads for me as covers vary a lot (e.g, US release vs UK release, remix versions etc). I ended up having to go back and correct! I also wanted embedded cover art to be the same X x Y pixels and of similar visual quality as a JPGs. The tags all needed to be the same ID3 version and APE tags for MP3Gain for me, as I run multiple media players, and multiple DLNA renderers and servers, and you end up with inconsistencies if you don't have a process that always works for all players.

I am probably just weird, but the end result, especially when seem on the pretty Evo front panel, or on a variety of media players, is good.

So, every time I buy an album or several, and rip them, I follow the same process.
- Rename filenames as needed, preceded with track numbers, right caps, right accents, umlauts etc, using NIYW or Bulk Rename Utility.
- Open files in MP3Tag and convert filename->tag filename, tag track, correct genre, correct date etc etc. and remove any pointless tags
- Right click on any one file in each album in MP3Tag, and run tools->Album art download
- Select the right-looking artwork from the artwork pop-up panel. Usually is Qobuz (Deezer is mostly PNG files for some reason). And it saves a high quality JPG in the album folder.
- Run an "action" to import the art to all selected files, and adjust size to 220 (my preference, no big reason). And save it all.
- For files ripped as MP3's, run MP3Gain, or run FB2k on FLACs to set ReplayGain tags correctly.
- For MP3's, run MP3Diags, to remove any crud and check the files.

All taggers on large numbers of files are slow (even with SSDs), but there was an issue a few years in MP3Tag that made it worse (now gone). Try the latest! Always copy files to local SSD and don't tag to files over a network - faster to copy/move completed files.

Sorry to bore everyone with "Tales from Planet OCD", but I'm happy to explain how to set this all up and make it streamlined, if anyone is curious!
 

Smitty2k1

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I've tried various tag+artwork mechanisms since such things existed, and have ended up with >60K files, most are MP3, but all the good stuff stuff as FLACs.

I am OCD about consistency of which tags I used, and for the covers, I wanted to match all the physical CD inserts and vinyl sleeves. This kind of ruled out the automated (set and forget), batch cover downloads for me as covers vary a lot (e.g, US release vs UK release, remix versions etc). I ended up having to go back and correct! I also wanted embedded cover art to be the same X x Y pixels and of similar visual quality as a JPGs. The tags all needed to be the same ID3 version and APE tags for MP3Gain for me, as I run multiple media players, and multiple DLNA renderers and servers, and you end up with inconsistencies if you don't have a process that always works for all players.

I am probably just weird, but the end result, especially when seem on the pretty Evo front panel, or on a variety of media players, is good.

So, every time I buy an album or several, and rip them, I follow the same process.
- Rename filenames as needed, preceded with track numbers, right caps, right accents, umlauts etc, using NIYW or Bulk Rename Utility.
- Open files in MP3Tag and convert filename->tag filename, tag track, correct genre, correct date etc etc. and remove any pointless tags
- Right click on any one file in each album in MP3Tag, and run tools->Album art download
- Select the right-looking artwork from the artwork pop-up panel. Usually is Qobuz (Deezer is mostly PNG files for some reason). And it saves a high quality JPG in the album folder.
- Run an "action" to import the art to all selected files, and adjust size to 220 (my preference, no big reason). And save it all.
- For files ripped as MP3's, run MP3Gain, or run FB2k on FLACs to set ReplayGain tags correctly.
- For MP3's, run MP3Diags, to remove any crud and check the files.

All taggers on large numbers of files are slow (even with SSDs), but there was an issue a few years in MP3Tag that made it worse (now gone). Try the latest! Always copy files to local SSD and don't tag to files over a network - faster to copy/move completed files.

Sorry to bore everyone with "Tales from Planet OCD", but I'm happy to explain how to set this all up and make it streamlined, if anyone is curious!
Thanks for the tips. I never used to have slow file writes on mp3tag over my network but I guess that doesn't mean something didn't change!
 

Berwhale

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I really need to mass tag my library with embedded cover art. I've used mp3tag for years but never the album art.

By the way, a few months ago my mo3tag started writing tags REALLY slow. Not sure what changed or if it's related to my network. Need to check into this more.

I always copy files to a local NVMe drive to tag, rename and add cover art in MP3Tag. It's always been quicker this way for me (especially if I need to play around with the tags a bit to get things straight).
 

sarumbear

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When I looked at Plex at the time, it did not provide a Qobuz interface, which was the killer criteria for me. Things might have changed, since then.
OP is asking solutions to stream from his own NAS, not from a streaming service.
 

HarmonicTHD

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OP is asking solutions to stream from his own NAS, not from a streaming service.
Correct. That’s why I wrote I in order to indicate that my requirements might very well be different to the OPs. Sorry if that was confusing.

Personally I like when I can do both stream from a NAS and use the streaming service of my choice in the same app. But of course the OP might not care about this.
 

Mickle Pickle

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I’m responding months late here but, based on personal experience, MusicStreamer is the IOS app you want. In a nutshell:
- it reads directly from your Synology NAS. This is my configuration.
- No “server” software runs on the NAS, only data files. My FLAC library is more than a terabyte.
- MusicStreamer indexes all the music, including tags, in the selected NAS folder.
- If desired, multiple libraries can be indexed. You select which one to use.
- When you update your NAS library, simply re-index with Music Streamer. It takes a few minutes.
- When you play songs or a playlist, the files are streamed from the NAS.
- You can download music for offline play but not large libraries.
- User interface is pretty good, very usable.
- Audio quality is excellent.
- The app is inexpensive.

I’ve been using the system for several months without issues.
 

Manu4jc

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Plot twist. What if I want to view/control my media from an ipad/iphone but have the audio playback happen on the server?

I want the audio stream to physically play from server to dac to amp to speakers without using my server keyboard and mouse to click and play a flac file.

Any ideas?
 

Beershaun

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Plot twist. What if I want to view/control my media from an ipad/iphone but have the audio playback happen on the server?

I want the audio stream to physically play from server to dac to amp to speakers without using my server keyboard and mouse to click and play a flac file.

Any ideas?
Plex works like this and Roon works like this on iOS. I'd you had an android device there are more options like bubbleupnp and other apps that support Chromecast which are designed to be control points and not necessarily a streaming endpoint. The bummer of iOS is airplay only works by streaming from the iOS or MacOS device so it's the streaming endpoint instead of just the control point.
 

Manu4jc

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Plex works like this and Roon works like this on iOS. I'd you had an android device there are more options like bubbleupnp and other apps that support Chromecast which are designed to be control points and not necessarily a streaming endpoint. The bummer of iOS is airplay only works by streaming from the iOS or MacOS device so it's the streaming endpoint instead of just the control point.
Thank you, I am currently playing with Plex to see if I can get it to work. This article was a good starting point: https://www.simplehelp.net/2019/12/03/how-to-use-an-iphone-as-a-remote-control-for-plex/

It addresses using Plex as a “remote” to cast to a google browser or apple tv etc. My main hurdle is the plex server (where my media resides) is ALSO the source I’m trying to “cast” to remotely. Hardware wise: The server connects via usb to a DAC which connects to a whole home audio system matrix, which routes to speakers in various zones (rooms of the house). I want to use my phone to tell the server to play hi-fi lossless audio from itself to its usb out (DAC), enabling me to hear the audio in various rooms of the house (depending on the zones selected in my matrix).
 

Berwhale

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Thank you, I am currently playing with Plex to see if I can get it to work. This article was a good starting point: https://www.simplehelp.net/2019/12/03/how-to-use-an-iphone-as-a-remote-control-for-plex/

It addresses using Plex as a “remote” to cast to a google browser or apple tv etc. My main hurdle is the plex server (where my media resides) is ALSO the source I’m trying to “cast” to remotely. Hardware wise: The server connects via usb to a DAC which connects to a whole home audio system matrix, which routes to speakers in various zones (rooms of the house). I want to use my phone to tell the server to play hi-fi lossless audio from itself to its usb out (DAC), enabling me to hear the audio in various rooms of the house (depending on the zones selected in my matrix).

Once the Plex app on iOS is connected to the Plex Server for casting, the phone becomes a remote control for the server. When you select tracks to play using the phone, it will play locally on the server (i.e. it's not actually casting, even though the UI suggests that it is)


I believe the same applies to PlexAmp which has a much nicer interface for browsing and playing music on a Plex server...


IIRC, you may need a Plex subscription to use PlexAmp (I bought a Lifetime pass in 2014, it's the gift to myself that keeps on giving :) )
 
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NiagaraPete

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Plex app looks like more for video. Is it any good just for music listening (and diwloading frommthe server)?
Plex can be used for music two ways. It has DLNA, it also has a premium Plexamp app. Which is quite good.

Depending on your NAS, I use QNAP. It has its own DLNA plus an app which is free so it’s my first choice.
 

Beershaun

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Thank you, I am currently playing with Plex to see if I can get it to work. This article was a good starting point: https://www.simplehelp.net/2019/12/03/how-to-use-an-iphone-as-a-remote-control-for-plex/

It addresses using Plex as a “remote” to cast to a google browser or apple tv etc. My main hurdle is the plex server (where my media resides) is ALSO the source I’m trying to “cast” to remotely. Hardware wise: The server connects via usb to a DAC which connects to a whole home audio system matrix, which routes to speakers in various zones (rooms of the house). I want to use my phone to tell the server to play hi-fi lossless audio from itself to its usb out (DAC), enabling me to hear the audio in various rooms of the house (depending on the zones selected in my matrix).
You need a plex App or Renderer running on the hardware hooked up to your DAC. So the server software itself is not a Renderer or App. What is the hardware? You would need to install the plex app and have it running on that hardware I believe (if it's a PC/Mac/android device). Or you need a cheap dlna endpoint like a Wiim mini or raspberry pi running Moode or equivalent plugged into the DAC.
 
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