Playback Advice Needed

[schliden]

Hi,

I'm a MacOs/iOS/iTunes user, have used home sharing from iTunes in the past, but it seems there is a limited future in local music streaming using the apple ecosystem.

I recently installed MinimServer on my Qnap NAS, streaming to an iPhone running Foobar2000.

I'm a little lost about the way I am supposed to interact with my music collection ...

I can browse via the various categories that minim provides, but there does not seem to be any way to queue music, only play 1 track at a time.

I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the player or UPNP AV streaming in general ?

Playlists that I prepare do appear in the "Library" served by Minim, but I only seem to be able to drill into the playlist and play individual tracks..

Apologies for my ignorance, but I have never used UPNP/DNLA streaming before.

Thanks

[simoncn]

I tried this and it appears that foobar2000 on the iPad/iPhone (unlike foobar2000 on Windows) does not play files or albums directly from a UPnP server but can only download files or albums to the local device.

Edit: This is incorrect; foobar2000 can play files directly from the server as well as downloading them. See later posts on this thread.

To play files and albums on your iPhone directly from MinimServer on your NAS, you use the mConnect app on iPad/iPhone. The user interface leaves much to be desired but it does seem to work.

I haven't been able to find any good UPnP browsers/players for iPad/iPhone that work correctly with MinimServer. On Android, both BubbleUPnP and Hi-Fi Cast are excellent. Other users might have some suggestions.

[schliden]

(28-02-2020 11:15)simoncn Wrote:  I tried this and it appears that foobar2000 on the iPad/iPhone (unlike foobar2000 on Windows) does not play files or albums directly from a UPnP server but can only download files or albums to the local device.

To play files and albums on your iPhone directly from MinimServer on your NAS, you use the mConnect app on iPad/iPhone. The user interface leaves much to be desired but it does seem to work.

I haven't been able to find any good UPnP browsers/players for iPad/iPhone that work correctly with MinimServer. On Android, both BubbleUPnP and Hi-Fi Cast are excellent. Other users might have some suggestions.

Thanks Simon.

I have an old android phone, so will try that, but my sense is that the DAC in the android phone will not be as good as the iphone.

Do you have any suggestion on using either (android/iphone) device as a renderer and another mobile device as a controller ?

Thanks

[simoncn]

It is unlikely that you will find an iPhone UPnP renderer that doesn't also include a UPnP control point. Have you tried mConnect on your iPhone?

[schliden]

(28-02-2020 15:57)simoncn Wrote:  It is unlikely that you will find an iPhone UPnP renderer that doesn't also include a UPnP control point. Have you tried mConnect on your iPhone?

I've tried mConnect (lite) and can confirm that it does work (unbelievably they still offer a version that works on my iPhone 4 running iOS 6.x).

BTW, Foobar2000 does play the minimserver UPNP stream.. I was a little confused how it worked at first, but once I drill into a folder listing tracks and select one to play, the rest of the tracks in that folder do play automatically.

[simoncn]

Thanks fo this information. I have confirmed that this works and foobar2000 can play files directly from a remote UPnP server without downloading them first. I will update my earlier post.

[steamfan]

(28-02-2020 15:57)simoncn Wrote:  It is unlikely that you will find an iPhone UPnP renderer that doesn't also include a UPnP control point. Have you tried mConnect on your iPhone?

Hello,

I use 8Player (see 8player) in iPhone and iPad to either listen directly in the iOS device or stream to any renderer. I can also access my music library from outside my home network.