- control (pause/play etc) then passes to the renderer - that is, the device I asked the phone to play to (as opposed to JRiver on the Android phone)
I just ran JRiver for Android on my phone (DLNA Controller), connected to the MC Server on my Workstation (DLNA Server), and played a FLAC file to my TV (DLNA Renderer). I retained full control of Play/Pause and Volume from the phone, controlling the TV, even after the phone screen went to sleep. If you lost control of the Renderer either the Controller lost connection to the Renderer, or your Renderer isn't behaving as it should.
My phone is a Sony Xperia XZ Premium phone running Android 9.
My TV is a Sony KD-65X9300D
My Workstation is a Windows 10 PC running version 1903
- I can even power-off the phone but the album still plays.
I hope this is the desired behaviour. I would describe it as MC on the phone "tells" the server to send the selected content to the renderer and then has no further involvement. The server and renderer just do their stuff. Happy to learn more / be corrected.
You are correct. As long as the Controller tells the Server to send the full track list, or actually I think it is Renderer that is told to ask for the full list from the Server. I forget which way around it is. AndrewFG has explained it previously.
Although what happens depends on your equipment a bit. I just closed JRiver for Android (both the main window and the notification) while it was playing to the TV as above, and my TV rebooted! I don't think it liked losing its DLNA Controller. But when I got it playing again and shutdown the phone, the TV kept playing just fine, as you noted.
Of course, if you power down the phone it will lose control of the Server/Renderer, so when it powers up again it won't be able to act as a Controller for the current tracks. I tried that and when the Phone connected to the Workstation Library again, playback stopped on the TV. So you just need to be aware of those sorts of issues.
With this release I noticed WOL worked from JRiver for Android to my HTPC MC Server. Nice.
I also noticed that Playing Now in JRiver for Android didn't update which track was playing on the TV in the above scenario. It just kept the first track highlighted. I could select any track in the list and jump to playing that though.