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[swcng2001]

Hello,

I have MC 28 on my Mac mini and I've not been able to configure it to play gapless files (for example Pink Floyd "Dark Side of The Moon"). I know it works in a non DLNA setup.

My current config is as follows -

Mac mini (MacOS 10.14.6/MC 28.0.105)
==> LAN
==> SOtM sMS-200 ultra (in MPD/DLNA mode)
==> USB
==> SOtM tx-USBultra (with latest firmware)
==> USB
==> Ayon Stealth DAC

I have tried the setting "Disable SetNext support" as advised by some but it does not solve the problem.

There is no issue with the SOtM as I know it works in Roon Ready mode.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

[JimH]

Roon doesn't use DLNA / UPnP.

[swcng2001]

You're correct. I could be wrong, but I'm merely pointing out that its probably not the SOtM that's the problem.

[swcng2001]

Hello everyone,

It appears no one is really interested in this problem, perhaps because it’s a setup that no one uses.

I’d be surprised though that no one is currently using MC as a DLNA/UPNP server.

Anyway, I tried various setting on the SMS-200 which did not solve the gapless playback problem. I then decided to verify if the SOtM is to blame and installed MinimServer 2 on my Mac Mini. Gapless playback works without any problem. I did not change any of the settings on the SOtM.

So I can only conclude that MC as a DLNA server is incapable of playing gapless albums.

[bob]

Hello everyone,

It appears no one is really interested in this problem, perhaps because it’s a setup that no one uses.

I’d be surprised though that no one is currently using MC as a DLNA/UPNP server.

Anyway, I tried various setting on the SMS-200 which did not solve the gapless playback problem. I then decided to verify if the SOtM is to blame and installed MinimServer 2 on my Mac Mini. Gapless playback works without any problem. I did not change any of the settings on the SOtM.

So I can only conclude that MC as a DLNA server is incapable of playing gapless albums.

That would be an incorrect conclusion.
First of all, this is not a function of the DLNA server.
It is a function of the device acting as a controller and the device acting as a renderer.
MC as a DLNA server plays gaplessly to any rendering device that properly supports SetNextAVTransportURI.
The device acting as the controller needs to determine if the renderer supports that and if so implement it.
MC as a controller does this.
Examples of properly working DLNA renderers that MC will play gaplessly to include
Sonos devices in DLNA mode
Volumio, used often on raspberry Pi devices.
Any MC acting as a DLNA renderer including all of our Id hardware devices.

[blgentry]

It may or may not help you to know that MC is very good at gapless with direct attached devices.  If you connected your DAC via USB to your computer, you would get gapless playback with no issues.

I understand that this might not be your ideal configuration.  Just giving you some information in case it might help.

Good luck,
Brian.

[swcng2001]

Brian,

Thanks for taking the trouble to respond. I've used JRiver for many years with a direct connection USB-USB from my Mac to my DAC and there were no issues with gapless playback at all. I've been trying to get better sound quality and purchased a SOtM sMS-200ultra and their txUSBultra after reading many good reviews. In my system I would say that there was a definite improvement in the total musicality of the presentation when using MC as a DLNA server and also using Roon.

The problem with gapless playback was the only issue I found with MC as a DLNA server.

Thanks again.

[swcng2001]

Hello Bob,

Somehow your explanations do not jive with my real world experience. If you say that its not the responsibility of the server to provide gapless then why is it other servers work perfectly playing gapless. As for the Control points responsibility, is it not the main purpose of the control point to act as a  means of accessing the library and present it to the user. Once the songs are cued up it basically gets out of the way and does not perform any function at all (this explanation was in one of the MinimServer forum posts). I used MC as the control point in my experiments with the MC as a DLNA server and it made no improvement to the gapless problem.

The SOtM renderer is definitely behaving as it should. There was no problem playing gapless when I used MinimServer with Lumin as the control point.

I asked SOtM if there was any configuration that I could try. There are 4 different parameters (I have included my last setting and the default) -

Audio Buffer size (8MB; default 4.0MB)
Buffer time (0.5 sec; default 0.2 sec)
Buffer before play (10%; default 0%)
and, Period time (5ms; default 5ms)

I played around with these parameters and found they had absolutely no effect on the gapless problem. I used the same parameters with MinimServer (their original default and various values that I entered) and they it worked without hitch. I also enabled and disabled the "SetNext" option on MC and it made no difference.

[MikeyFresh]

Hello Bob,

Somehow your explanations do not jive with my real world experience. If you say that its not the responsibility of the server to provide gapless then why is it other servers work perfectly playing gapless. As for the Control points responsibility, is it not the main purpose of the control point to act as a  means of accessing the library and present it to the user. Once the songs are cued up it basically gets out of the way and does not perform any function at all (this explanation was in one of the MinimServer forum posts). I used MC as the control point in my experiments with the MC as a DLNA server and it made no improvement to the gapless problem.

The SOtM renderer is definitely behaving as it should. There was no problem playing gapless when I used MinimServer with Lumin as the control point.

I asked SOtM if there was any configuration that I could try. There are 4 different parameters (I have included my last setting and the default) -

Audio Buffer size (8MB; default 4.0MB)
Buffer time (0.5 sec; default 0.2 sec)
Buffer before play (10%; default 0%)
and, Period time (5ms; default 5ms)

I played around with these parameters and found they had absolutely no effect on the gapless problem. I used the same parameters with MinimServer (their original default and various values that I entered) and they it worked without hitch. I also enabled and disabled the "SetNext" option on MC and it made no difference.

I have used MC as a DLNA/UPnP server for many years, and absolutely do stream gapless to a variety of endpoint renderers including the Sonore microRendu, and Raspberry Pi based units running either Moode or Volumio.

The problem I have in giving any advice is that the MC settings required for gapless playback were determined by me in 2016, and I no longer recall what was required. The lack of documentation on this type of subject is a real issue for MC that has never been adequately addressed, I had to figure all of this stuff out on my own.

So the good news for you is that the MC server does absolutely perform in gapless fashion and has for many years. The bad news is that you will likely have to figure it out through trial and error.

[bob]

Hello Bob,

Somehow your explanations do not jive with my real world experience. If you say that its not the responsibility of the server to provide gapless then why is it other servers work perfectly playing gapless. As for the Control points responsibility, is it not the main purpose of the control point to act as a  means of accessing the library and present it to the user. Once the songs are cued up it basically gets out of the way and does not perform any function at all (this explanation was in one of the MinimServer forum posts). I used MC as the control point in my experiments with the MC as a DLNA server and it made no improvement to the gapless problem.

The SOtM renderer is definitely behaving as it should. There was no problem playing gapless when I used MinimServer with Lumin as the control point.

I asked SOtM if there was any configuration that I could try. There are 4 different parameters (I have included my last setting and the default) -

Audio Buffer size (8MB; default 4.0MB)
Buffer time (0.5 sec; default 0.2 sec)
Buffer before play (10%; default 0%)
and, Period time (5ms; default 5ms)

I played around with these parameters and found they had absolutely no effect on the gapless problem. I used the same parameters with MinimServer (their original default and various values that I entered) and they it worked without hitch. I also enabled and disabled the "SetNext" option on MC and it made no difference.

I'd suggest the AndrewFG's media renderer analyzer if you have a windows PC handy.
Look at his sig in this thread for a link.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,131817.msg914024.html#msg914024

It will tell you if your device properly supports the SetNextAVTransportURI function.

It's absolutely the job of the controller to queue up the tracks and present them to the renderer. The server has nothing to do with that other than supply the tracks when the renderer calls for them. The renderer needs to get the next track started buffering before the current track finishes so it can be gapless. This is what the SetNextAVTransportURI function is for. Pretty clear logic if you think about it.

[MikeyFresh]

I've always used JRemote as the Control Point app, but in some cases I just queue up an album to play in a specific zone right from the desktop.

In that case there isn't necessarily a seperate Control Point, or is that simply MC acting as the Control Point in that scenario?

[swcng2001]

Sorry, I should get my terminology right!!

I used JRemote with MC28 DLNA feature as a control point. As I mentioned, I also played with the "SetNext" option and it made no difference.

Bob, I do not own a windows computer, so I cannot use the media analyser. Sorry.

If it's the job of the control point to cue the files and to handle gapless playback, and it seems JRemote is misbehaving in my setup, I will try and conduct one more experiment. I'm hoping I can use a different control point app for MC's DLNA setup. I'll let you know the result later.

[MikeyFresh]

Sorry, I should get my terminology right!!

And I should be more specific, I use JRemote 2 for Android.

[swcng2001]

Bob, Mikey,

I setup my system to once again use MC 28 as the DLNA server and used the LUMIN app as the Control Point on my iPad. Much to my surprise, gapless playback works 😳. This leaves me with the question why it does not work correctly when using JRemote as the controller.

For completeness, I did not change any of the settings on the SOtM. I have “Disable SetNext support” turned on in MC.

[bob]

I've always used JRemote as the Control Point app, but in some cases I just queue up an album to play in a specific zone right from the desktop.

In that case there isn't necessarily a seperate Control Point, or is that simply MC acting as the Control Point in that scenario?

MC is acting as the control point and JRemote is acting as a remote control into that control point.

[bob]

Bob, Mikey,

I setup my system to once again use MC 28 as the DLNA server and used the LUMIN app as the Control Point on my iPad. Much to my surprise, gapless playback works 😳. This leaves me with the question why it does not work correctly when using JRemote as the controller.

For completeness, I did not change any of the settings on the SOtM. I have “Disable SetNext support” turned on in MC.

I have no idea what your LUMIN app is doing.
Disable SetNext only applies to MC as the control point. That's why it's in the DLNA controller options for the zone.
SetNext should NOT be disabled on MC as a control point. It's the only way gapless will work with MC as the control point.

Did you test the device as I suggested?

[swcng2001]

Hello Bob,

I do not have access to a Windows based machine so I'm unable to run the test. Sorry.

[bob]

Hello Bob,

I do not have access to a Windows based machine so I'm unable to run the test. Sorry.

So what happens when you remove the SetNext disable option and try using MC as the controller on the Mac?

[swcng2001]

Hello Bob,

Just managed to find time to try your suggestion of not enabling "SetNext" in MC for the SOtM. It took bit of fiddling around as it did not work immediately until I restarted MC. Then my preliminary experiments show that --"drum roll"-- it cured the gapless playback problem when using JRemote on my iPad as the control point. But that was a little short-lived. It did not work with .DSF files 😩

I suppose I can live with this for now.

Thanks and regards.

[bob]

Hello Bob,

Just managed to find time to try your suggestion of not enabling "SetNext" in MC for the SOtM. It took bit of fiddling around as it did not work immediately until I restarted MC. Then my preliminary experiments show that --"drum roll"-- it cured the gapless playback problem when using JRemote on my iPad as the control point. But that was a little short-lived. It did not work with .DSF files 😩

I suppose I can live with this for now.

Thanks and regards.

I'm guessing that your device isn't getting enough time to buffer up enough of the next DSF track before it has to play it.
Of course that is assuming there is a different control point that does work with DSF otherwise it's a generic issue.

Is it connected ethernet or wireless?
Can you set any of it's parameters (like buffer settings)?