Jim asked me to detail some of the ongoing concerns/issues I have with MC on Android, so I have spent some time reacquainting myself with the Android variant of my favorite media center application.
In terms of good, because there are good things here, it's easy to connect to a remote library and get up and running fairly easily. I don't use MC while traveling or anything, so my sharing is all internal. Last time I tried it, back when I had to actually go into the facilities at work, it just required me to open a port on my router. Wasn't a big deal.
Audio playback is bang on simple to get working.
Video looks good.
All below details are from my Google Pixel 7 Pro device. I plan to kick around Android MC on my Shield as well to see if I get different results.
Anyway, things I would still like to have resolved or addressed so I can recommend MC for Android to users:
1) Directly map network shares. Today, my only option is to connect to a remote library, not create an Android specific library for my content (I was acting as if this was my ONLY MC device). Not a huge deal but to get MC Android to a point that, to me, is a full solution on its own, this would be solved. MC assumes direct attached storage which is fine w/ USB drives.
Why do I know this is tricky? Connecting to remote shares via any Android device for any app is a PITA. It's possible it can't be solved without rooted devices but if that is the case, it should be documented as a limitation (of MC only by virtue of it being an Android limitation)
If this can't be fixed, to me, it limits the possibility to really use this as a standalone MC server for the content I own.
2) Video playback can be wonky. I tried playing back proper 1080p content, ripped BDs, and it works great and sounds amazing. I have some BDs that I ripped that are "SD on BD" discs, so they aren't HD and still run 480p, no upscaling. Those work fine.
480i DVD rips? I get audio, no video. I don't see any options for scaling on Android so I can't get them to work at all, so I don't even know what to do to troubleshoot or up/downscale if up/downscaling is an option.
4K Rips I also only get audio, no video. I assume this is likely due to my screen not being 4K but I can't up/downscale either, so I can't see what's playing either way.
Obviously, all these formats playback perfectly on my Windows machine without me having to fuss with them, so I would hope for the same on a device I would want to make my MC Android library device.
I can also use JRVR on Windows which is another reason I prefer the Windows version.
3) Audio output is only done by the device. There is no way to bypass the Android audio subsystem on devices with an external DAC or built in, better DAC. I tried on my Pixel with an external DAC, and it plays but I can't confirm this is going through the DAC properly or if it treats the USB C DAC as if it is just part of the Android audio subsystem. I also powered up my Tempo Tec V6 and the options are all the same, with nothing available to change audio routing.
For me, on my Pixel, not a big deal, but for a MC Android only library, it would be important to use an external DAC without any Android audio "enhancements" or changes to the audio stream.
4) Cannot control audio bit depth at a scale like you can Windows. On Windows, I output to a DAC and send it at specific sample rates etc depending on the input format. As an example, I playback audio that is 44.1 at 88.2 to the DAC. Does it sound better or different? My old ears can't tell but my brain doesn't let me just ignore it. Because it is an option for Windows, I would love for it to be possible on Android.
Will MC Android ever be a full replacement for MC on Windows? Maybe that isn't the intention, but as it is designed today, for my use case, I will choose JRemote2 since I have to use a remote library anyway. JRemote2 plays back SD and 4K content, no problem. I can't route audio to bypass Android Audio but it works as well as Android MC for me, so I just keep coming back to JRemote2.
I come back every couple months to check it out to see where we've progressed, but each time I just revert back to JRemote2 because it works.
Author
Topic: Ongoing Issues (Read 1303 times)