Networks and Remotes > Remotes

Chromecast Audio & WiiM Pro Plus

<< < (2/6) > >>

markf2748:

--- Quote from: madbrain on November 03, 2023, 10:42:38 pm ---So, I tried BubbleUPNP server on Windows. I created 21 DLNA renderes for all the CCAs, CCUltra, CCGtvs, and the 4 groups. JRemote2 unfortunately does not see those DLNA devices. Do I need the BubbleUPNP for Android program for that to work ?
...
Edit: I tried the BubbleUPNP Android app also. It doesn't change the behavior for JRemote2 unfortunately - the DLNA renderers for the Chromecasts still don't show up.
--- End quote ---
I find that when using BubbleUPnP Server, recognition of DLNA CCA renderers by MO 4Media, JRemote 2, and JRiver Panel corresponds 1-1 with what appears under MC Server's tree Playing Now.  If renderers disappear from the apps, then it means MC Server is not seeing them.  Closing and restarting the processes Media Center 31 and Media Center Server in Windows Task Manager usually resolves the issue.  In contrast, the BubbleUPnP player app is generally more robust in this regard than the other apps, I think because it communicates directly with the BubbleUPnP Server which I find to be extremely reliable.  Bubble just needs MC running to access the MC library.


--- Quote from: madbrain on November 03, 2023, 10:42:38 pm ---The BubbleUPNP app itself shows a lot of devices to render to - all my CCAs, plus the corresponding CCA DLNA renderers, the video Chromecasts, the Airplay Marantz AVRs, and even some FireTV.
I set it to play from my MC31 library server onto a CCA BubbleUPNP DLNA renderer, and it worked fine (with gaps). Directly playing onto the CCA worked too, unlike JRemote2 and MO4 Media ... It is still very mysterious why some Android apps can cast successfully to the CCAs, and others can't.
--- End quote ---
In the past, implementation quality of Google Cast varied widely between different Android MC player apps, and Google CCA firmware was also less robust.  For the longest time I found "Casting" from these apps was totally unreliable, sometimes crashing the phone or hanging MC Server.  Hence my move to Bubble and never looking back, until today.  I tried "Casting" from the apps today and it actually worked without issue.  I'll try using it more often, out of curiosity.

The other advantage of Bubble and DLNA CCAs on the server is MC Playing Now > Overview allows you to see and control all playlists for DLNA renderers.  The Cast renderers do not show up at all in the MC Server Overview.

Be aware that off-normal activity on the MC server can cause DLNA CCA renderers to disappear from Playing Now and hence disappear from apps.  In particular, a windows update downloaded in the background, but waiting to be installed, can wreck havoc here (no idea why, but I have seen it repeatedly).  I recently experienced an outage from my internet provider.  Local Wi-Fi kept working, but after the internet came back, I had to close and restart MC Server to get DLNA CCAs back to normal in MC.

markf2748:

--- Quote from: madbrain on November 04, 2023, 08:31:24 pm ---I have been unhappy with the lack of gapless support in the CCAs for a long time. So, I ordered a Wiim Pro Plus a couple days ago. I received it today. I have been playing with it. After struggling a little bit, I got it to play my gapless albums with MC31 for Windows. I then got the JRemote2, BubbleUPNP and MO 4Media apps working with this as well.
The only thing I haven't gotten to work is native DSD, which the Wiim device is supposed to support up to DSD512. I'm just trying to play DSD64/SACD ISOs. So far I had to enable transcoding to stereo PCM 24/192 kHz because I otherwise just got playback errors. I haven't tested the grouping feature since I only have one Wiim, but that will probably change soon.
--- End quote ---
I seem to recall others reporting success with Wiim devices recently.  The clear advantage is that they are DLNA renderers so MC sees them directly without Bubble and that should be good news for the Android apps.  Great to hear that it works gapless with MC; it would be nice if you further report your experiences.  Wiim is on my list if I ever decide to abandon those $35 CCAs.

madbrain:

--- Quote from: markf2748 on November 04, 2023, 08:55:32 pm ---I find that when using BubbleUPnP Server, recognition of DLNA CCA renderers by MO 4Media, JRemote 2, and JRiver Panel corresponds 1-1 with what appears under MC Server's tree Playing Now.

--- End quote ---

Yes, that mirrors what I see, when I use these apps on my LAN subnet.
However, when I put my phone on 4G/5G (the signal is borderline so it constantly switches, sigh), and connect home using my pfSense VPN, BubbleUpNP fails to find my MC serve. As far as I can tell, it's only doing automatic discovery in the VPN subnet, which is why it doesn't find my MC Server.
Whereas when I use JRemote2 and MO 4Media, they can find the MC IP using the access key or hostname. And then all the home DLNA renderers can be controlled as well.
Is there no possibility of manual server discovery in BubbleUPNP ? I looked but couldn't find one.


--- Quote ---In the past, implementation quality of Google Cast varied widely between different Android apps, and Google CCA firmware was also less robust. 

--- End quote ---

I can attest that this was still the case in my home environment, great variability of casting reliability between apps. Can't speak about the firmware, but I think my CCAs are all on the same one. I wonder what code the other companies integrating CCA use (such as Wiim!) if they are licensing Google code or re-implementing stuff.


--- Quote ---Be aware that off-normal activity on the server can cause DLNA CCA renderers to disappear from MC Server and hence apps.  In particular, a windows update downloaded in the background, but waiting to be installed, can wreck havoc here (no idea why, but I have seen it repeatedly).  I recently experienced an outage from my internet provider.  After the internet came back, I had to close and restart MC Server to get DLNA CCAs back to normal in MC.

--- End quote ---

I see. Windows updates really are a PITA. I am going out of the country late next week and I hope that doesn't happen while I'm there. This is why I care about VPN access to MC.

I have some advanced home automation measures to try to recover from network/Internet outages, but hadn't thought about Windows updates. I use Home Assistant with some Z-Wave smartplugs (both on UPS) to reset both the pfSense router and the cable modem, if either becomes unpingable over IP for a given time (I set it to 30 minutes, to allow for them to do lengthy firmware updates). For power outages, I haven't yet bothered to connect the UPS serial cables and detect the power outage situation - not sure exactly what I would do in those cases if I'm away from home - I couldn't just automatically shutdown the server as it wouldn't come back up on its own when the power is back (or if the outage is short and power doesn't actually run out). I suppose the pet sitter could always power things back up the next day if things shut down.

Someone in the WiiM forum just responded that DSD is not natively supported yet in the Wiim Pro/Pro Plus. They really shouldn't advertise DSD512 in the specs ! The only thing that works is passing DSD as DoP over DLNA, and using an external DSD DAC to decode that. Needless to say, I don't have an external DSD DAC. Let alone one for each zone.
I guess I'll let MC31 do the DSD to PCM conversion. I placed an Ebay bid for 11 more Wiim Pro Plus, hope it's accepted.

madbrain:

--- Quote from: markf2748 on November 04, 2023, 09:19:40 pm ---I seem to recall others reporting success with Wiim devices recently.  The clear advantage is that they are DLNA renderers so MC sees them directly without Bubble and that should be good news for the Android apps.  Great to hear that it works gapless with MC; it would be nice if you further report your experiences.  Wiim is on my list if I ever decide to abandon those $35 CCAs.

--- End quote ---

So far, I can report a few things. The $219 Wiim Pro Plus is well built. Unlike the Chromecast Audio, it uses RCA connectors, and the cables should stick in place. As you know, the CCA uses a 3.5mm headphone jack. My cats are always playing with the wiring and have often partially disconnected the cable, creating ground loops and noise in many of the ceilings, and it's is hard to track down which in the sea of CCA cables.
It also has an Ethernet port built-in, unlike the CCA. I didn't want to use Wifi for my CCAs given the number of units I have and multi-casting. So, I bought a $15 Ugreen OTG Gigabit Ethernet NIC for each of my CCAs. That makes each CCA a sort of spider, and extremely messy wiring, especially when you have multiple of them in one spot - I have two spots, each with 6 CCAs, and two 7.1 receivers, where each CCA is connected to the multi-channel inputs, either as L/R, SL/SR, or SBL/SBR. This is how I power all those zones inexpensively. This type of receiver (without any HDMI) is almost free for the taking on Craigslist if you look.
Anyway, I couldn't be happier about the way the hardware interfaces. There is also an analog input (stereo RCA) two digital outputs (coax and optical) and a trigger output, which would come in handy to power the receiver on/off, but that only works if you have a single zone.

There is a Chromecast audio built-in, so if you like the CCA, you can continue to use the Google cast feature. It's actually an optional feature. If you turn it on, you can't disable it later without a factory reset, which is rather silly. Most Android audio apps don't support DLNA, but many support Google cast, so it's probably best to keep the feature enabled.

Since I only have one WiiM, I couldn't test the native grouping support. I successfully grouped the built-in CCA with my native CCAs, though. That probably means there will be 2 sets of groups, one CCA group and one native group.

There is Alexa support, which I haven't tried, nor did I try the voice remote. I'm not an Alexa user, and not big on voice support in general.
On the downside, the advertised DSD512 support is not actually there (yet, hopefully ?).

WiiM has an app of its own that's not just for setting up the device, but also playing music from either local servers, or streaming services. I was able to browse my MC31 Media Server using the app. It is quite slow, though, with a 10-11 seconds delay when opening a large folder (Artists, Albums).  No such delay when browsing with other apps (Bubble UPNP, JRemote2, MO 4Media). My server is hosted on an AMD 5700G, a completely silent box. Besides the slowness of the app, the Search feature does not work. So, be prepared to do a lot of scrolling if you use this app. However, if you manage to select your content in this app, it will play nicely and gaplessly.

I tried one music service with the Wiim Home app, Qobuz. It worked great. The search is instant. The playback is gapless. It even showed my previous playlist with the 400 Goldberg variations versions, which I had created with Roon. Speaking of which, I let my Roon trial expire. It is a very nice program and app, but I had a hard time accepting relinquishing manual control of my library. I was attracted to the gapless CCA support. But that was only for the Roon app. With WiiM, I'll get gapless in a bunch more apps/services.

As to how it sounds, I can't say that I am able to notice an obvious difference between it and the CCA. But I hooked it up to a zone  with a lot of resonance (12ft ceiling, ceiling speakers more than 20ft apart). I played a few SACDs with DSD->PCM transcoding, and they sounded good.

Anyway, I only had the device for about 5 hours, those are just my first impressions.

madbrain:
Responding to myself - a few more things. The Wiim app only works in portrait mode. Found that out the hard way on my tablet with its keyboard case, which is normally in landscape mode. Too bad, the keyboard comes really handy in searches, but I'm not going to rotate my head 90 degrees to use this app. Unfortunately the Samsung tab S9 ultra keyboard case only supports landscape.
At least the Qobuz app works in landscape mode, as does JRemote2.

Speaking of remotes, since that is the subject of this forum, I saw a few odd instances with all the remote apps. Sometimes they showed the wrong album/track name, but the correct timeline, and the controls worked. The track names weren't fixed when switching to the next track. Very odd.
It looks like I can reproduce the following way :
1) play an album from MC31 onto the WiiM using JRemote2
2) use the WiiM app to play an album from Qobuz on the Wiim
3) go back to JRemote2. It's still showing track names from the album from step 1. But the play controls work, track number updates, time updates as well. Even the track name changes, but to the track number from the other album. Not sure what happens if there is a disjoint number of tracks between the 2 albums and one goes "past the end". I just tried it actually. Played a 7 track organ album in step 1, up to track 3, and a 32 track piano album in step 3. Played track 12 on that second album. Then when I went back to JRemote2, it was still showing that it was the track 3 on the organ album, but with the time scale of the piano album, while hearing track 12 of the piano album. I use JRemote to skip tracks, and it went to track 4 of the organ album and played it. Anyway, there seems to be an issue with data not updating correctly when using the Wiim from multiple apps.

I also saw another situation where playback wasn't gapless with the wiim receiver, even though I was careful to select the DLNA receiver and not the built-in Chromecast. Not sure what that was about. I switch to another remote and the same album played gapless.

Lastly, after stopping playback in one remote, a few seconds later, the playback started again, presumably because of another remote app.

So, for now, I uninstalled MO4 Media and BubbleUPNP Android app from my tablet. I may uninstall them from my phone too. I also uninstalled the BubbleUPNP server on Windows. I'll keep just JRemote2 for browsing/playing my MC31 server content. It works well both on the phone and tablet, and on my WLAN and VPN.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page