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[BigCat]

In your recent email on September 29, 2018, it includes:

"JRiver on Android is coming in 2018.  Please watch the forum for more information."

Two questions:

1) When might we hear more?

and

2) Which sub-forum will it be posted in? You may want to alert more than one sub-forum when its appropriate.

Or did I already miss it? I am definitely interested...

Go Team JRiver!
BC

[Listener]

In your recent email on September 29, 2018, it includes:

"JRiver on Android is coming in 2018.  Please watch the forum for more information."

Two questions:

1) When might we hear more?

and

2) Which sub-forum will it be posted in? You may want to alert more than one sub-forum when its appropriate.

I am interested too.

[JimH]

The steps for us are:

1.  Get the source to compile on Android.   We've just done this.

2.  Get it to initialize and run.  Soon, I think.  At this point, there will still be no user interface.  It will just be the MC engine running, but things like MCWS, the DLNA Server, and the DLNA Renderer might work.

3.  Build or adapt a user interface.  This may be Panel first.  Others may follow.  It probably won't be the usual MC Standard View because of screen size, but I won't say we'll never do that.  I use a PixelBook (ChromeOS) that has a big enough screen and can run some Android programs.  The interface stage might take a month.

So something rough around mid-December.  We'll announce what we have when it's at that stage on this board and the MC24 for Windows board.

[Z0001]

So will this Android development mean that MC might run on an Android TV or box like Shield?

I want to be able to send my media from MC to Shield.

Thanks!
Z

[Dhero84]

Home Theatre View would look great on Android, especially on the Shield.

[Awesome Donkey]

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,118031.0.html

[JimH]

The steps for us are:

1.  Get the source to compile on Android. 

Done.

2.  Get it to initialize and run.

Done

At this point, there will still be no user interface.  It will just be the MC engine running, but things like MCWS, the DLNA Server, and the DLNA Renderer might work.

Done and some of this does work already.

3.  Build or adapt a user interface.  This may be Panel first. 

Panel is built in and works now.

So something rough around mid-December.  We'll announce what we have when it's at that stage on this board and the MC24 for Windows board.

[Z0001]

Done.DoneDone and some of this does work already.Panel is built in and works now.

And just so I'm clear. Is this development intended for Android mobile devices or Android TV like is built into smart TVs and Nvidia Shield?

[JimH]

I don't know enough about Android TV to say.  Sorry.

[jmone]

There is a separate certification for SW to also be marked for Android TV on the Play Store and I would hope that JRiver would do this as well.  In the interim you can side load the APK and it should run.

[Awesome Donkey]

In the interim you can side load the APK and it should run.

Keep in mind though some Android TV boxes don't include a web browser by default. On my new Mi Box S I noticed right off the bat Chrome wasn't included, and didn't appear in the Play Store. I can see how trying to use a web browser on an Android TV box can be a somewhat cumbersome task even with a mini keyboard/touchpad. Nonetheless I figure I'm probably going to have to sideload it just in case I ever need it, like I did with the Amazon Prime Video app.

So that might be a problem with Android TV and the new JRiver Android app, since Panel is accessible from a web browser... but I suppose you can just control it from another device, which is the beauty of Panel.

[Z0001]

There is a separate certification for SW to also be marked for Android TV on the Play Store and I would hope that JRiver would do this as well.  In the interim you can side load the APK and it should run.

Definitely MC needs to be on the broad consumer platforms like Android TV to stay relevant. The company has a huge opportunity to leverage its wonderful capabilities for the die-hard audio and videophiles and its quality for all, while integrating into an environment of streaming services that seem to clearly be the future. I am certainly not buying as many discs as I used to and Netflix is a convenient option with reasonable content.

I think the Lounge room should just have one box to stream the content wherever it comes from.

[jmone]

Without a doubt, a fully mature Android Port should:
- support both Normal and Android TV with
- have a fully functional UI for use with Fingers (Android) and RC (Android TV).
- support playback of Audio, Video, Pics etc

From what I can tell this will be an end goal and the first version is better described as a Headless MC Instance which can:
- Play (audio only) an Android Device
- Be controlled as a Zone using another MC Instance
- Be controlled as a Zone using another MC Remote / Panel (note: the MC Remote or Panel could also be running on the Android Device itself or another other device).

[JimH]

The initial version will have Panel as its interface. 

With respect to your "headless" description, yes and no.  Technically it is headless, but since the interface is part of JRiver for Android, it won't feel like it's headless..  Panel is built in to it, but runs in a browser.  It should look and feel like a user interface.

Yes, we'll do more than audio, but audio is our first step.

[jmone]

I understand.  The actual app (minus Panel), I presume, will still have a basic UI for now to do stuff like "run on startup", the ability to set credentials etc.

[JimH]

We hope to add what we need to Panel settings.  This has the side benefit of adding functionality to MCWS that other applications could use.

It would be nice to know what you think is needed, at a minimum.

[jmone]

So if you moved much of the config setup to MCWS, the only things I think you would need in the initial App UI would be:
- Authentication Setup (so Panel could do the rest), and
- Start up Behavour (eg run on boot)

[mattkhan]

I think this is a great direction to go in and provides an opportunity to produce a nicer cleaner mcws interface as the current one is relatively confusing/unwieldy as APIs go.

 My preference would be to add a v2 to the API which adopts a more typically restful style and talks JSON (so is easier to use from many languages). Settings is a fairly obvious fit for this as the settings are basically a tree so being able to GET or PUT nodes would be easy.

GET /settings/:zone/audio/
GET /settings/:zone/audio/output
GET /settings/:zone/audio/dsp
GET /settings/:zone/video/

and so on

In terms of the minimum required, I would think that includes

- audio device setup
- import configuration
- Auth
- startup options
- library server configuration (i.e. media network)

Not sure what else, would probably need to try to use it to find out more.

When do you think the initial release will be?

[JimH]

mattkahn,
That's useful.  Thanks.

[Hendrik]

Designing a v2 JSON API seems like a good idea for longevity, and slowly adding clear designed functions over to that.
Of course it would end up being something like /MCWS/v2/settings/:zone/audio for the namespace.

The real problem with settings is to somehow figure out a way to not have them desync with the options dialog all the time. This will take some brain juice.