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Author Topic: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage  (Read 1756 times)

Gatherum

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[24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« on: October 08, 2018, 11:30:00 pm »

So I've brought this up before but I figure it wouldn't be a bad time to try again.

I want to transfer my music from my local RAID controller to OneDrive and then play it back on my Windows 10 machine with MC. This does work to a point but it's not currently feasible because for each file MC tries to play, it initiates a local download of that file in full before it will actually play back. What I want to happen instead is for MC to stream the file from the cloud location.

There are a number of apps that can do this like BubbleUPnP on Android so I know it's possible. The now-discontinued Groove Music could also do it on all devices provided that everything was encoded as MP3 and dropped in OneDrive's default Music folder. MC cannot, unless I'm missing something. This article implies that it's possible depending on which service you use, with the best results coming with use of Amazon S3; however, I was hoping not to have to sign up for new services if I can help it.

Am I missing something? If not, is there some third-party application or service I could install on my Windows machine that would allow for this? I've tried the BubbleUPnP service for Windows but I haven't found any settings pertaining to this.
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Scobie

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2018, 12:09:26 am »

Almost sounds like what you want is to set up a private Internet Radio station, like Sam Broadcaster or Airtime.
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Gatherum

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2018, 02:25:56 am »

I guess you could say that? Mostly, I would just like to move all of my media assets from local storage to the cloud and then stream it on-demand to my device with MC
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JimH

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #3 on: October 09, 2018, 06:35:41 am »

Radio JRiver is headed in that direction.  It will support playlist upload soon.  It uses a JRiver server with data store on Amazon S3.
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Gatherum

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2018, 06:44:55 am »

Where-as, I could access my files via Radio JRiver's relevant server(s) as a mapped network location?
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carlismysecondname

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #5 on: October 11, 2018, 03:25:17 am »

What would be the advantages of putting your files in someone else's cloud instead of hosting it yourself? I'm thinking speed maybe if you're accessing your files from an outside location and have slow upload server speed... Other than that, what other advantage, if any, is there?

*from my own testing I could play regular Blu-rays or 10GB/hr bdmv file with a client computer in my sister's house about 3 blocks away from my own house (which has the server). Then, there is also probably a bandwidth cap for these cloud services that you should take into consideration.
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Gatherum

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #6 on: October 11, 2018, 04:04:52 am »

What would be the advantages of putting your files in someone else's cloud instead of hosting it yourself? I'm thinking speed maybe if you're accessing your files from an outside location and have slow upload server speed... Other than that, what other advantage, if any, is there?

*from my own testing I could play regular Blu-rays or 10GB/hr bdmv file with a client computer in my sister's house about 3 blocks away from my own house (which has the server). Then, there is also probably a bandwidth cap for these cloud services that you should take into consideration.

A couple of benefits:
  • I am using my own external four-bay RAID controller, connected via USB 3.0, for asset storage. This has been a competent solution but HDD's fail and while RAID 5 will allow me to recover my assets provided a replacement drive, it's not something I really want to have to do eventually. Note that this RAID controller isn't a NAS or otherwise network-capable; it is entirely dependent on my server PC to be useful.
  • Said server PC currently resides in my bed room, away from all of my other devices in the living room—including the router—and is currently reliant on an n-wifi connection for connectivity that, unfortunately, isn't the highest-quality or most consistent. This leads to egregious bottlenecks when trying to stream lossless content through the cloud to my mobile device (MO 4Media). I've considered MoCA but frankly, I'm kind of tired of having my HTPC as an always-on, never-sleeps machine in the first place. If there is a viable consumer-level cloud storage solution that offers enough space for my library without cost (probably not happening), I'd take it and run with it for now. Unfortunately, the best-performing service I've tested is Dropbox; however, enabling cloud-only file hosting (as opposed to file syncing) requires a professional subscription. Meanwhile, Google Drive demonstrated similar issues as OneDrive. At this point, I'm actually favouring remote virtualisation via Microsoft Azure or some such, though I've yet to actually test it. See here.
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carlismysecondname

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #7 on: October 14, 2018, 09:24:14 am »

Yeah, wifi isn't really reliable. Even I still have connectivity issues with wifi ac (or wifi 5 as they call it nowadays) every so often on my dinky netbook. In my case just about every device in the house is connected directly to the router with an ethernet cable -- yet I am still lusting to get 10Gb connection in the future as I'm still not quite satisfied with the 1Gb speed. Luckily there are enough ethernet cables already laid out within the walls to support such in the future -- although not all houses, esp. older ones have been built with 10Gb networking in mind.

It's not just power consumption you have to think about when you have some devices running 24/7, but also the reliablity of the city's power grid. You also need a UPS for your HTPC/servers and so on...

*Forgot to mention: on my NAS I've experience parity check failures twice already as well -- maybe took two or three days to reconstruct the raid, and so I can actually understand your desire to move everything you have to bigger online cloud services.

---

For simple compressed audio books/radio/podcasts/lectures I actually prefer to use the app Capriccio + Dropbox (there's even support for WebDAV & ftp [not sure of sftp]) on my iPhone rather than JRiver's JRemote. The reason being that JRemote does not yet have a SPEED CONTROL setting in its audio playback options (not to mention EQ). And so far, I haven't experienced any connectivity problems with Capriccio and the free version of Dropbox.

I remember from a few years back that one could stream videos from one's PC to a phone using VLC as well -- but don't really know if they even support streaming from cloud services now such as dropbox as it's been a while since I tried those apps.

As with Microsoft Azure. Unfortunately, I really have no clue, and would just rather prefer not to use any of their services if I can avoid it.
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carlismysecondname

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Re: [24.0.52; Query] Streaming from cloud storage
« Reply #8 on: October 14, 2018, 01:30:01 pm »

I did some tests with lossless files in Capriccio today. It's able to stream various large flac files 15MB to 400MB and even skip between tracks quickly with no hiccups using the free version of dropbox. Reading the reviews, at least one other person was able to stream his music library with overdrive. The app's cheap as well just in case you want to test the full version of it. Who knows, it might just work for your needs -- for lossless audio streaming using a commercial cloud service, that is, at least.  ;)

*oops, totally forgot your first post stating that you wanted it to stream to another windows 10 PC, not necessaarily a smartphone. There probably is some other way for that as well with another software, just don't know what or which option might work as I never had the need.
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