Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

2014-10-20 11:55:38

My mp3s are on a NAS with Twonky.

My Android phone is on the same network.

I just want to play my mp3s on the phone (across my home network, without loading them all onto the phone or Google Play Music) with a reasonable interface, gaplessly.

Has anyone managed this?

Cheers,
David.

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #1 – 2014-10-29 16:26:55

Sorry to thread-bump, but - really? No one?

That's rather disappointing.

David.

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #2 – 2014-10-29 18:07:01

I could test some..., which one did you already test? (also a short two-clips sample would be useful)

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #3 – 2014-11-04 14:52:34

I use BubbleUPnP foobar2000 plugin as a UPnP media server and BubbleUPnP 2.0.12 player on my CM11 (Android 4.4.4) Galaxy S2 and gapless playback of FLAC is working good. Never had any problems.

I didn't tested the gapless with Twonky, though.

Hope this helps you.

Cheers

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #4 – 2014-11-04 15:12:11

Thanks for the replies.

I tried MediaHouse, BubbleUPnP, UPnPlay, and something else which was so bad I deleted it immediately.

I only tried mp3s though. I'll try FLACs (though with mp3s the gaps were seconds long), and I'll try the fb2k server - though I'd rather not need a PC-based server.

Please don't assume I have a clue what I'm going though.  If I'm missing something very obvious, please tell me.

Cheers,
David.

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #5 – 2014-11-04 16:54:21

Basically, you can put BubbleUPnP server on your NAS, if it's supported, so no need for a PC. And I've just tested with MP3, works perfectly.
I'm planning to get a NAS, so at the moment I use this setup. And forgot to mention, I use a paid, full version of Android app, I'm not sure gapless it available on free one.

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #6 – 2014-11-05 10:39:13

Thank you eevan - I shall try BubbleUPnP server. It seems to have lots of other useful functions too.

Cheers,
David.

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #7 – 2014-11-11 13:54:53

I'm trying to achieve the same thing. I'm running a WD My Book Live as a NAS, with WD's DLNA server running on it, and BubbleUPnP running on my Nexus 5. I've not been able to achieve gapless, even though I have gapless selected both in BubbleUPnP's renderer settings and its UPnP Tweaks settings. The gap is short, but there. The files play gaplessly in Foobar and PowerAmp.

I'm not sure what else to try. I don't understand DLNA well enough to know whether it is the server that is the problem or the renderer.

I have learned a lot about how the WD DLNA server handles files, though. When I started converting my CDs to mp3 many, many years ago for my NEO 25 (!) hard drive player, I pretty much ignored tags, using the file structure and filenames. Now that's coming back to bite me with DLNA. Even if I browse by folder structure, once I get into a folder, the sort order is dependent on the tags, not on the filenames. I've found that within a folder, it will sort correctly only if all the track numbers are in order without duplicates and album title is the same for each file. It took me a little bit to figure this out in folders consisting of a double album put together in one folder, where the album title was sometimes "Disc Title CD 2" for half the tracks. That would cause the DLNA server to sort alphabetically by track title in the tags.

All of that I can sort out with mp3tag, but I'm not sure what to do about gapless.

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #8 – 2014-11-12 06:01:09

I really don't know what could be the problem with your setup. I have tested gapless playback in mine with FLAC, MP3 and OGG Vorbis, and all played fine without gap.
It could be that WD's server is making the problem. Try to serve some gapless files from your PC with foobar2000 and foo_upnp plugin (because it includes a BubbleUPnP server) and play them on your Nexus. If it works (and I think it should) then the server in your WD NAS is your problem. Then try to install BubbleUPnP server on it if you can.

Cheers

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #9 – 2014-11-12 13:23:05

eevan, good idea! I'll try serving up from the laptop and see if I get different results.

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #10 – 2014-11-13 00:58:40

Yep, DLNA appears to play gaplessly from my PC when running Foobar's DLNA plug-in. That means it must be the NAS. Elegant experiment.

Off to research how easy it is to install an alternate DLNA server on my NAS...

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #11 – 2014-11-13 04:35:04

I'm glad I was able to help you.
Good luck with installing a server on your NAS!

Cheers

Android UPnP player that supports gapless playback?

Reply #12 – 2014-11-14 22:06:30

Rather than messing around with the NAS, I've refocused on playing over SMB. The Neutron app, for instance, appears to be able to play gaplessly from the NAS. And it orders by filename, so I can defer mucking about with the tags. Listening to it right now, and it's working flawlessly.

It looks like it is possible to install an alternate server on the WD My Book Live (miniDLNA, for instance, appears totally doable), but even then it's not clear that it would be gapless, so SMB seems like the path of least resistance for now.