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Author Topic: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller  (Read 6341 times)

JimH

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PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« on: February 06, 2010, 09:20:31 am »

It's like a remote for a TV, but PlugPlayer can access media from a DLNA server and send it to a DLNA Renderer:



Another screenshot
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Robo983

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2010, 08:56:08 pm »

I spent way too many hours messing with this today. I really like the PP interface. I could not get it to control MC nicely though. The iphone as a Renderer worked perfectly for audio and I haven't messed with Video and Images enough to seriously say I can not get them to play although I had images working at one point but have never been able to play any of my video.

As a control point, I could create playlist on the 3GS but at the end of the song the next one would load but not play unless I seleted the play button. I was very please to see I could use PP to play music from MC server to my modified XBOX XBMC without turning the TV on and it worked flawlessly so I belive it is something with MC handling keeping it from play the next track. I also thought it was cool that as a control point I had scroll (FF/RW) capability that is missing when it is a renderer. Not sure if that is PP thing or a MC thing to implement.

I also saw PP show as a zone only breifly and can not get it to show consistly. This happened during one of my many changes I was testing and can not duplicate it to get it as a Zone.

I have an iPhone 3GS on 3.1.2, MC 144, latest PP, and using the Generic DLNA with nothing else checked at the moment in the advanced tab but have tried many combinations.

What are the setting to make this work consistently with MC?

It was a tough choice to purchase an Apple product knowing it would not sync with MC. After seeing how my kids touches played MC files with PP I decided I could live with not puting music on the iPhone if I could use it to play around the house. So I would like to get the settings working and documented for others.
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neFAST

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2010, 04:40:03 pm »

Does not work well her but maybe I'm missing something?
Timebar and sound level do work but anything else (title, cover art, play, FFW, RW buttons) don't.

Is there something specific to configure?
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Robo983

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2010, 02:02:05 pm »

Everything but FFW/FRW work for me audio only. Check DNLA only in Advance setup for generic DNLA on MC14 144. I can do next and previous track np.
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JimH

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2010, 02:12:58 pm »

Bob found that he had to set the option for "Omit Host Portion of URL" in MC's advanced DLNA settings for PP to work correctly.
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neFAST

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #5 on: February 16, 2010, 03:48:17 pm »

Bob found that he had to set the option for "Omit Host Portion of URL" in MC's advanced DLNA settings for PP to work correctly.
Still not working :(
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JimH

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #6 on: February 16, 2010, 03:52:03 pm »

If it isn't working at all, then it could be a firewall issue.  MC uses ports 52100 to 52199.
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neFAST

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #7 on: February 16, 2010, 04:01:20 pm »

I was about to edit my post but since you already answered I post a new one.

In fact it works, but only for files added from my iPod. If I add one song from the iPod and then one within MC, I will get the cover art, title and everything for the first song, but only the time position for song #2.
Is it expected?
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neFAST

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2010, 10:04:32 am »

bump ?
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bob

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2010, 10:27:13 am »

I was about to edit my post but since you already answered I post a new one.

In fact it works, but only for files added from my iPod. If I add one song from the iPod and then one within MC, I will get the cover art, title and everything for the first song, but only the time position for song #2.
Is it expected?
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you are doing here. What are you using for the renderer and the server? Also, I assume you are only using PP for the controller??
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sunfire7

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2010, 01:29:43 am »

I dont know if this is a bug of MC or PlugPlayer:

*Set an MC Zone as Render

*Set Generic DLNA of MC as Server (Default settings, "Convert Unsupported Formats" selected)

*Browse and play a Flac File

= MC will convert the flac to mp3 and play insted of play in flac (flac is supported by MC, so it should not convert it to mp3)
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bob

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #11 on: August 02, 2010, 11:37:42 am »

I dont know if this is a bug of MC or PlugPlayer:

*Set an MC Zone as Render

*Set Generic DLNA of MC as Server (Default settings, "Convert Unsupported Formats" selected)

*Browse and play a Flac File

= MC will convert the flac to mp3 and play insted of play in flac (flac is supported by MC, so it should not convert it to mp3)
The "Convert unsupported formats" option will convert anything not specified by DLNA spec as natively playable (mp3 or L16 wave). DLNA renderers are not required to play other formats. Many DLNA renderers (including MC) can play other formats but there isn't a uniform set of formats other than mp3 and L16 that all renderers can play.

I suggest you create a server based off of generic DLNA (give it a new name) and choose to never convert audio. Choose this server when MC is the renderer. If you are only using MC as a renderer, you can simply turn off the audio conversion option in the Generic DLNA server profile.
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sunfire7

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #12 on: August 02, 2010, 11:49:30 am »

thank you for clarify that bob, and thanks for answer.
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gojita

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #13 on: September 01, 2010, 12:29:56 pm »

The "Convert unsupported formats" option will convert anything not specified by DLNA spec as natively playable (mp3 or L16 wave). DLNA renderers are not required to play other formats. Many DLNA renderers (including MC) can play other formats but there isn't a uniform set of formats other than mp3 and L16 that all renderers can play.

I suggest you create a server based off of generic DLNA (give it a new name) and choose to never convert audio. Choose this server when MC is the renderer. If you are only using MC as a renderer, you can simply turn off the audio conversion option in the Generic DLNA server profile.

I attempted to do this with both PlugPlayer and the new TagnPlay app from PSAudio using MC as server and renderer so that I could just use my iphone as a remote. If MC is set to Never Convert, or if it is set to Convert to Uncompressed Stream, MC as a renderer will always fail. It hangs, will not abort and needs to be shut down. If MC is set to Convert unsupported formats with one of the MP3 options selected, then everything works fine.

There seems to be some problem with native/uncompressed files when MC is used as both server and renderer. I don't know if it is MC specific or if it is a problem with the control features of DLNA. I can say that neither of the control programs get the correct track time information unless the convert option is selected in MC.

Jason
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bob

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #14 on: September 02, 2010, 02:59:12 pm »

I attempted to do this with both PlugPlayer and the new TagnPlay app from PSAudio using MC as server and renderer so that I could just use my iphone as a remote. If MC is set to Never Convert, or if it is set to Convert to Uncompressed Stream, MC as a renderer will always fail. It hangs, will not abort and needs to be shut down. If MC is set to Convert unsupported formats with one of the MP3 options selected, then everything works fine.

There seems to be some problem with native/uncompressed files when MC is used as both server and renderer. I don't know if it is MC specific or if it is a problem with the control features of DLNA. I can say that neither of the control programs get the correct track time information unless the convert option is selected in MC.

Jason

There is a bug in the uncompressed wave conversion when going from MC to MC with DLNA. That will be fixed in a future build.
If you're set to "Never Convert" and MC is the server and renderer, it should work. I'll give it a spin with my PP....
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gojita

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #15 on: September 03, 2010, 02:07:47 pm »

If you do get this to work please let me know what your other settings are. So far "Never Convert" always fails for me. Maybe I just haven't found the magic combination. Also, is gapless playback possible when using plugplayer as a controller? I seem to always get a slight pause before the next track will load -- of course the tracks are being converted so maybe the processing is delaying things.

Thanks...
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bob

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Re: PlugPlayer on an Apple Touch as a DLNA Controller
« Reply #16 on: September 07, 2010, 10:09:43 am »

If you do get this to work please let me know what your other settings are. So far "Never Convert" always fails for me. Maybe I just haven't found the magic combination. Also, is gapless playback possible when using plugplayer as a controller? I seem to always get a slight pause before the next track will load -- of course the tracks are being converted so maybe the processing is delaying things.

I just tried "Never Convert" with my PP on a touch and one computer running a MC server and the other running a MC renderer. It played the types I tried, mp3 and wma without a glitch. In Settings->Plug Player on the touch, do you have the ignore stop events turned ON? I needed it to be OFF or I got weird behavior.

As far as gapless is concerned, the synchronization in the DLNA protocol is a bit of a time consuming process, it may be possible to get close to gapless without conversion. With conversion I think the delay involved in starting up the conversion would keep you from getting the music played gaplessly.
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