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[sskings]

JimH, and others,

Media Server is an excellent piece of work and I'm very appreciative of your responsiveness to requested fixes and features on the board.  So, in that spirit, here's one for you....   

I love the DLNA capabilities.  It's why I purchased the product. And using a high end Denon amp and some lower end stuff plus a JRiver ID I've got my entire house wired for sound via wired and wireless networking.  Fantastic.  One little thing is bugging me though.  I store my albums as separate tracks in MC as recommended by many on this board....  Many, many albums have tracks that run together.  They were intended that way and the 0.5 sec between-track gap across the DLNA network is killing me (think Alan Parsons Project, CCR, etc).  Could you PLEASE, add an optional feature to Media Center such that when I move an album over to Playing Now, MC will string the separate tracks together into a gapless single file and send that file over the DLNA.  Yes, I understand this could result in a small delay while MC does the work.  Yes, I understand it would happen an album at a time...but that's all that matters.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE.
Steve

[AndrewFG]

One possible way to solve this, would be if both MC and the respective player would both support SetNextAVTransportURI. See my own thread on this subject.

This optional UPnP action is specifically designed to allow control points and player to set up the next track while the current track is still playing. Obviously it requires both MC and the player to suuport this action.

[pcstockton]

The obvious fix for this is actual Gapless playback via DLNA. 

[AndrewFG]

The obvious fix for this is actual Gapless playback via DLNA.  

Which means everybody should implement SetNextAVTransportURI...

2.4.2 SetNextAVTransportURI()
This OPTIONAL action specifies the URI of the resource to be controlled when the playback of the current resource (set earlier via SetAVTransportURI()) finishes. This action allows a device to prefetch the data to be played next, in order to provide a seamless transition between resources. This type of prefetching or buffering is particularly useful for protocols such as HTTP, where the data is usually buffered before playback.

[pcstockton]

is that what "linn style" playlists are?

Many UPnP servers and control points can send an entire playlist to a renderer, not just the current track as MC does.

[AndrewFG]

Many UPnP servers and control points can send an entire playlist to a renderer, not just the current track as MC does.

Yes. It is true that you can send (say) an .m3u or a .pls file as the "track" to be played. And in this case the player (if it supports .m3u or .pls playlists) will sequentially play all tracks within that list. Nevertheless it is a bit of a kludge since the player has to play or skip through all the tracks in the playlist before it can start to play a new track that the control point may be now be asking it to play.

A much better solution is to only queue up two tracks at a time, using SetAVTransportURI and SetNextAVTransportURI, and have the control point  manage the rest of the playlist. Basically the control point can either force a particular track to play now (using SetAVTransportURI) or it can queue a track to play next (using SetNextAVTransportURI). If you think about it, this is actually all you need. This model also has the benefit (compared to .m3u or .pls files) that if you have more than one control point, each can independently force a track to play now, respectively queue tracks to play next (albeit on a last come, first served basis).

[pcstockton]

Andrew,

I am saying they work like J River does when not sending to a renderer, e.g. when using J Remote or WebRemote.

[GerdW]

Dear JRiver-Team,

any news about the gapless playing through DLNA?
Yesterday I tried to play the Dark side of the moon FLACs and had these terrible gaps.
Playing it with the Yamaha controller works fine.....

Yamaha NP-S2000
MC 17.163

Greetings from Germany,
Gerd

[bob]

Dear JRiver-Team,

any news about the gapless playing through DLNA?
Yesterday I tried to play the Dark side of the moon FLACs and had these terrible gaps.
Playing it with the Yamaha controller works fine.....

Yamaha NP-S2000
MC 17.163

Greetings from Germany,
Gerd

Hello Gerd,
We did implement SetNextAVTransportURI which will play gaplessly if your Yamaha supports that function.
It would be interesting if you install the Developer tools for UPnP on your PC
http://opentools.homeip.net/dev-tools-for-upnp
then run Device Spy and look under your Yamaha, expand AvTransport:1 and see if SetNextAVTransportURI exists.
I would be interested in seeing a screen shot of the function list under AvTransport:1 if you get a chance, I'm trying to see what other devices support...

Thanks,
Bob

[AndrewFG]

We did implement SetNextAVTransportURI which will play gaplessly if your Yamaha supports that function.

Dear All,

If your device does not support SetNextAVTransportURI please lobby your device manufacturer to get it implemented. If everybody gets on this bandwagon, we may all eventually succeed to persuade manufacturers to implement this vital function so that gapless playback can be acheived.

If you get a chance, I'm trying to see what other devices support...

Hi Bob,

Just a thought: You could easily have MC do a test if a particular device supports SetNextAVTransportURI, and either display that info somewhere on a device properties dialog, or in the log. That way you could avoid the need for users to download the Device Spy tool...

[GerdW]

Hi Folks!

Thank you for taking care! Here is my screenshot and unfortunately my Yamaha NP-S2000 does not support SetNextAVTransportURI
I will talk to their support.

Greetings,
Gerd

[bob]

...
Hi Bob,

Just a thought: You could easily have MC do a test if a particular device supports SetNextAVTransportURI, and either display that info somewhere on a device properties dialog, or in the log. That way you could avoid the need for users to download the Device Spy tool...

Added to the todo list :-). It'd be nice if we could actually tell if was working properly too ;-)

[kamimeguro]

Hi Bob, all,

Just installed a TX-NR818 from Onkyo and love the DLNA implementation (v 1.5) as well as 24/192 capability.
I checked the function list and it seems that it is accepting the 'SetNextAVTransportURI'
Is there any settings that I missed preventing gapless dlna playing?

Regards
Kami

[bob]

Hi Bob, all,

Just installed a TX-NR818 from Onkyo and love the DLNA implementation (v 1.5) as well as 24/192 capability.
I checked the function list and it seems that it is accepting the 'SetNextAVTransportURI'
Is there any settings that I missed preventing gapless dlna playing?

Regards
Kami

In general, it looks good from your screen shot. Try invoking it to see if it's implemented.
SetNext works when you push to the device. Try right-clicking on an album in MC and doing
send to
play
play (your Onkyo name)

There are DLNA controller options if you right click on the Onkyo zone in your Playing Now list. The one that says "disable setnext" should not be checked.

Give it a try, report back!

[kamimeguro]

Hi Bob,

Thank you for the answer.
I did give it a try this morning and will do again tonight:

'disable setnext' is not checked
Did try to play from server through right click>send to  play>play 'My Onkyo'

No luck so far, but take it with a pinch of salt as it was early morning, not yet at full speed...
I'll try more combinations tonight.

Regards
Kami

[kamimeguro]

Bob,

Second chance to go through minutes ago:
No luck, there is always a 2/3 sec between 2 files when pushed to the receiver, as well as through Gizmo on my tablet (XOOM) while it goes as expected on the server internal soundboard...
Did 'reboot' the receiver, the server, tried with a well known Gapless CD (Dark Side of The Moon), to avoid incorrectly ripped music
Use Gapless for sequential is checked (I even tried with switch tracks: gapless)

Any idea?
Regards
Kami

[bob]

Bob,

Second chance to go through minutes ago:
No luck, there is always a 2/3 sec between 2 files when pushed to the receiver, as well as through Gizmo on my tablet (XOOM) while it goes as expected on the server internal soundboard...
Did 'reboot' the receiver, the server, tried with a well known Gapless CD (Dark Side of The Moon), to avoid incorrectly ripped music
Use Gapless for sequential is checked (I even tried with switch tracks: gapless)

Any idea?
Regards
Kami

Kami,
The only settings that affect DLNA are the ones in the controller options (right click device name, dlna controller options) and the ones in Media Network under "add or configure DLNA servers".

I'd guess that the Onkyo doesn't implement SetNextAVTransportURI properly or more likely that it's unable to move to the next track without closing the audio device.
I see the same behavior from 2 Sony devices I test with (a DLNA TV and Networked Media Player). They support the call fine but each track involves an open and close of the audio device (the next track isn't requested until the first one is done playing).

It seems the list of devices that support SetNextAVTransportURI gaplessly is somewhat restricted.

[kamimeguro]

Hi Bob,
Yes it looks like that the function is not activated...
A pity since I love the sound I have now with this receiver...
I'll try to get in touch with Onkyo, but do not expect much since I bought the 818 in Tokyo where I am living now.

Also, if I push a song from my server to the Onkyo directly from server or using Gizmo, it is double counted in the 'number plays' field. Next is a direct effect on Last.fm: double submission.
To my knowledge, Last.fm submission is controlled within the option> services > Last.fm and I cannot set any other parameter.
From observation, number plays increments at the very beginning of the song and then after switching to the next one.
Not doing that when playing on the local server player.

Best
Kami

[bob]

Hi Kami,
Can you disable SetNext support in the DLNA controller options in MC for the Onkyo zone and see if the problem with the last.fm doubling goes away?
Also it might be interesting to see if that has an effect on the gap between songs (I'm not expecting it to get smaller, just curious).

Thanks,
Bob

[kamimeguro]

Ok Bob, will try tonight.

By the way, why the lag when using Gizmo as the receiver (on my tablet Xoom) ? Is Gizmo not compliant with SetNextAVTransportURI or is it tablet dependant?
Same behavior with Bubbleplayer, but using MC17 as a client on another computer works well.

Kami

[kamimeguro]

No luck on double post on number play with SetNext checked... as well as no effect on gap. Limited test tonight, but will report more by the end of the week.
Kami