Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ckewinjones]

I'm setting up a Raspberry PI 4 as a MC 26 client, and I have several questions about the best way to go about this.

My goal is to use the PI to send audio to my Denon 2112ci AVR, and from there to the best speakers in the house (and likely the best I will ever be able to afford).  I've tried to use the Denon's onboard DLNA client to play music from MC, but it's so flaky as to be unusable.

I have installed MC 26 for Linux on the 4GB PI 4, and it's working fine as a client to my MC 26 Media Server.  The PI is sending the audio data to the Denon over HDMI.

My main question is, how to control the PI when it's running MC.  Ideally I would use Theater View with a remote control.  Failing that, I could use an Android-based solution.  I thought I could use JRemote2, but it seems only to connect to an MC server, not to an MC client instance.  With the PI connected to the Denon AVR via HDMI, what is shown on the TV is the user interface of MC running on the PI.  Given that, it won't do me any good to have JRemote2 controlling the server (whose UI I cannot see).
I'd appreciate any advice about how to achieve a ten-foot interface for an MC client running on the PI.

I have a couple of other questions, less important but still I'd like to know:

MC is working fairly well on the PI as a client to my Media Server, but every once in a while it will be playing an album and will stop after a track is complete (not going on the play the next track).  Any idea why that might be happening, and if so if there is something in the MC options that would mitigate it?
Finally, a question about zones.  When MC is running on the PI, after a few minutes the PI shows up on the UI of the Media Server as a zone.  I will admit that my understanding of zones is inadequate, but my understanding is that a zone is either (A) a distinct sound device on the computer that MC can send audio data, or (B) a DLNA device on the network that MC can send audio data to.  Can a zone also be (C) an instance of MC running on a device on the network, that is connected to the server?  Or when the PI shows up on the server as a zone, does that mean that it is a DLNA client (not an MC client)?

I reiterate that I don't understand the zone concept very well.

[mwillems]

You can definitely control client computers with Gizmo/JRemote/2, either directly, or using the server as a controller (see below).  Direct control is preferable.  Just make sure that media network is enabled on the Pi and then enter it's access code in JRemote as another server.  Then you should be able to control it directly with JRemote.  Don't be fooled by JRemote referring to the pi as a server, as long as the pi is client to your actual server you should see your actual server's content but be controlling the pi's playback directly.

To answer your "zone" question, the pi appears because MC instances with Media Network enabled show up as DLNA renderers by default.  You could control the client's playback from the server using that zone, but you would be using DLNA to do it; MC servers don't have a direct way to control clients (although confusingly clients *can* directly control server zones using the "display server zones" client option aka Tremote).  Another way to solve your problem would be to connect JRemote to the server and then play to the pi's zone from the server.  This will work, but is generally less robust than direct control as described above IME.

No idea about the halting, except that I sometimes experience that when using DLNA to control playback on a pi.

[ckewinjones]

Thanks, mwillems.  Your reply was right on point.  I didn't remember enabling Media Network on the Pi, but I had done so, and that is why it was showing up as a zone.  I connected to the Pi from JRemote2 and it does everything just the way I wanted.

Thanks very much.