Annouce: SB Player, a software Squeezebox player app for Android.

[wt0]

SB Player, a software Squeezebox player app is now available for Android
4.1+ (Jellybean) devices.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.angrygoat.android.sbplayer

Features
--------
- Supports both local servers and MySqueezebox.com (you will need to
have a MySqueezebox.com account)
- Automatically discovers local servers on your network.
- Supports playback of music files on your server and internet streams.
- Natively decodes Flac, MP3, AAC, Ogg, Alac, and PCM (AIF and Wav)
audio.
- Natively supports playback of 24bit audio by converting to 16bit (with
dithering).
- Continues playing when the app is in the background.
- Can handle music with lower than 44.1Khz sampling rates, common with
internet radio.
- Supports fade in, fade out, and crossfading between songs.
- Supports synchronized playback with other players.
- Supports single channel mode for using two sync'd players as left and
right channels
- Supports track/album gain for songs.
- Automatically pauses playback for phone calls.
- Option to launch directly into the notification area without showing
an app view.
- Option to limit playback to only lossy compressed formats for low
bandwidth situations.
- Option to disable 24->16bit dithering and/or use lower quality
resampling for use on slower devices.
- Works with the apps in MyApps that are allowed by Logitech to work on
software players.

Limitations
----------
- Only works with ShoutCast and plain http internet streams, which
accounts for the majority
of streams. Will not work with MMS and MMSH streams, which are mainly
used for WMA audio.
- Apps like Rhapsody (and possibly Spotify) will not work with this app
because Logitech restricts
them to hardware players only. I've been told that paid Pandora should
work.
- The quality of synchronized playback can vary a lot depending on the
device.
It works well on a Galaxy Nexus, but it won't be perfect and will need
to be adjusted in your server
settings.


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[erland]

Great work, I just installed it on my Nexus 7 and tried it briefly.

Seems to have a bit more settings than the competing Squeeze Player app,
not sure how many of the settings I have a need for myself but I think
some of them could be useful for more advanced users.

This is probably a stupid question for people used with Android, but if
I uncheck the "Show this screen at launch" checkbox is there any way to
get back to the initial connection screen except for uninstalling and
reinstall the app ?

I first thought it wasn't possible to change the player name but then I
realized I could do it through LMS even if it wasn't available as a
setting in the app. What about letting the user specify the player name
the first time the app is started and default it to something named the
same as the Android device, if I run it on multiple Android devices it's
going to be confusing if they all is named "SB Player" in LMS by
default.

Is the reason it requires Android 4.1 that you use the new API's
available for audio stuff or is it just that you don't want to test and
support all older Android versions ?

At first I was confused about the low volume but then I realized that
there is two volume controls, the one on the Android device and the one
in the app, so if the volume on the Android device is set too low it's
not possible to raise the volume through a Squeezebox remote control
app. I think I would prefer that the SB Player app controlled the
Android volume control, this is what Squeeze Player does and it avoids
the scenario that you have to go to your Android device in the docking
station to adjust the volume, you can do it all through your normal
Squeezebox remote control.

When I launch SB Player from Squeeze Control, I would like it to launch
SB Player and automatically connect it to the same LMS server as Suqeeze
Control is connected to, currently it seems to launch SB Player with the
last server SB Player was connected to. I think it could also be useful
to have some setting in Squeeze Control so it automatically launch SB
Player when Squeeze Control is started.


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[wt0]

erland wrote:
> This is probably a stupid question for people used with Android, but if
> I uncheck the "Show this screen at launch" checkbox is there any way to
> get back to the initial connection screen except for uninstalling and
> reinstall the app ?
Pull down the notification area and tap the SB Player notification.

erland wrote:
> I first thought it wasn't possible to change the player name but then I
> realized I could do it through LMS even if it wasn't available as a
> setting in the app. What about letting the user specify the player name
> the first time the app is started and default it to something named the
> same as the Android device, if I run it on multiple Android devices it's
> going to be confusing if they all is named "SB Player" in LMS by
> default.
This is actually how hardware Squeezeboxes behave. When the player
connects, it sends it's name to the server so it would be possible to
specify what it sends. However I'm not sure what happens if the name
that it sends is different from the name that the server already has for
it. I don't know which one will take precedent. I'll have to run some
tests.

erland wrote:
> Is the reason it requires Android 4.1 that you use the new API's
> available for audio stuff or is it just that you don't want to test and
> support all older Android versions ?
Yes SB Player uses the new MediaCodec API in Android 4.1, which allows
it to use the system's audio decoders in an SDK app instead of having to
use the NDK.

erland wrote:
> At first I was confused about the low volume but then I realized that
> there is two volume controls, the one on the Android device and the one
> in the app, so if the volume on the Android device is set too low it's
> not possible to raise the volume through a Squeezebox remote control
> app. I think I would prefer that the SB Player app controlled the
> Android volume control, this is what Squeeze Player does and it avoids
> the scenario that you have to go to your Android device in the docking
> station to adjust the volume, you can do it all through your normal
> Squeezebox remote control.

I'll consider adding this.

erland wrote:
> When I launch SB Player from Squeeze Control, I would like it to launch
> SB Player and automatically connect it to the same LMS server as Suqeeze
> Control is connected to, currently it seems to launch SB Player with the
> last server SB Player was connected to. I think it could also be useful
> to have some setting in Squeeze Control so it automatically launch SB
> Player when Squeeze Control is started.

You can already do this in Squeeze Control. Look in Preferences >
General.


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[HellG]

Hi,
do you think it would be possible to use a Android TV stick like this
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2013-New-IPTV-MK806-RK3066-Dual-Core-1-6Ghz-Cortex-A9-Android-4-1-jelly-bean/669898733.html
with SB Player in autostart as headless Squeezebox Player? I am not sure
about the quality of the headphone output but it could make a quite
descent Squeezebox Player with Wifi and everything already on board.


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[wt0]

HellG wrote:
> Hi,
> do you think it would be possible to use a Android TV stick like this
> http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2013-New-IPTV-MK806-RK3066-Dual-Core-1-6Ghz-Cortex-A9-Android-4-1-jelly-bean/669898733.html
> with SB Player in autostart as headless Squeezebox Player? I am not sure
> about the quality of the headphone output but it could make a quite
> descent Squeezebox Player with Wifi and everything already on board.

I've been thinking for a while that SB Player on an Android stick or
similar devices would make a decent player, but I can't be sure if it
will actually run on one. SB Player was developed on a Galaxy Nexus and
this thing has faster clocked version of the same CPU so hardware-wise
it's definitely capable. Theoretically it should work as long as its
running Android 4.1 (or better) and it has access to Google Play, unless
the 4.1 it's running is crippled somehow. The only way to really know is
to try it.

Of course you'll still run into the limitation of certain Squeezebox
apps not being allowed to run on software players.

Another thing I've wondered is if SB Player will run on Google TV,
though I don't think Google TV was ever upgraded to Android 4.1.


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[bpa]

HellG wrote:
> I am not sure about the quality of the headphone output

Most android stick do not have headphone out just USB and HDMI. You
might be able to add a USB device audio out device but depends in the
Android build has the necessary driver. An alternative might be to use a
Bluetooth speaker.


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[wt0]

bpa wrote:
> Most android stick do not have headphone out just USB and HDMI. You
> might be able to add a USB device audio out device but depends in the
> Android build has the necessary driver. An alternative might be to use a
> Bluetooth speaker.

Well if you have to use Bluetooth and you're more serious about audio
quality, you can try something like this:
http://www.arcam.co.uk/products,rseries,wireless-dacs,rBlink.htm

They make USB DAC'S too.


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[HellG]

bpa wrote:
> Most android stick do not have headphone out just USB and HDMI. You
> might be able to add a USB device audio out device but depends in the
> Android build has the necessary driver. An alternative might be to use a
> Bluetooth speaker.

Hi,
I bought this stick:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2013-New-IPTV-MK806-RK3066-Dual-Core-1-6Ghz-Cortex-A9-Android-4-1-jelly-bean/669898733.html
. I installed SB Player on it and so far I can say that it works.
Unfortunately Wifi reception is not the best and the signal is so low
next to my HiFi set that I ordered already an USB-to-Ethernet adapter. A
soon as it is working I can directly compare the analog audio and HDMI
out of the TV stick with my Raspberry Pi with USB DAC (SPDIF). I am no
audio expert so don't give to much on my opinion, but I already can say
that this one sounds horrible: http://www.ebay.de/itm/290687235460

HellG


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[wt0]

HellG wrote:
> Hi,
> I bought this stick:
> http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2013-New-IPTV-MK806-RK3066-Dual-Core-1-6Ghz-Cortex-A9-Android-4-1-jelly-bean/669898733.html
> . I installed SB Player on it and so far I can say that it works.
> Unfortunately Wifi reception is not the best and the signal is so low
> next to my HiFi set that I ordered already an USB-to-Ethernet adapter. A
> soon as it is working I can directly compare the analog audio and HDMI
> out of the TV stick with my Raspberry Pi with USB DAC (SPDIF). I am no
> audio expert so don't give to much on my opinion, but I already can say
> that this one sounds horrible: http://www.ebay.de/itm/290687235460
>

For that price I wouldn't have expected it to be anything but horrible
:)

When audio is still in digital format you can get by with cheap
components, since price in general just buys you speed. However, once
that audio is converted to analog its quality becomes quite dependent on
the price/quality of the components and things get expensive pretty
quickly.


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[HellG]

Hi wt0,
is there a way to start SB Player automatically on startup? I would like
to run my TV Stick "headless" just as SqueezeBox audio sink so this
would be quite convenient.


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[bs01890]

I had purchased a fire TV for video streaming, but thought it might be
useful as a music streaming device, i.e. squeezebox client, as well. I
hoped I could use iPeng as the controller, SB player as the player, and
the fire TV as the hardware. I had contacted Wayne, the developer of SB
player, about possibly using it on the fire TV and he was kind enough to
provide a test copy. I think I'm probably the "somebody" that he refers
to above. The bottom line is that the program works and you can stream
output from your LMS through the fire TV through two channel output
through the optical output port into a DAC. The fire TV supports Dolby
Digital, but I don't use that, so I can't comment on surroundsound.

My impressions:

1. Downloading. The test copy downloaded automatically from the Amazon
app store and installed itself.

2. Set up. The first setup attempt was successful, but not seamless. The
Amazon controller clicks through the various setup fields, but it's hard
to tell what field you're actually using as initially they weren't
highlighted, except for the buttons. So it was a bit of trial and error.
The player did not automatically identify the server. When I manually
inputted the server IP address into the correct field, it found the
server and connected, and then I was able to save the server, and it
found the server every time after the first. After connecting, "SB
player" automatically showed up as a device in the iPeng controller app,
and all the normal iPeng controller features worked. Yesterday when I
set up the app, the fields were actually highlighted as I clicked
through them, but when I had to reinstall the program today again they
were not. Don't know why the fields are highlighted sometimes and
sometimes not.

A. The default bandwidth is set to auto. I think the app is designed
for an android phone, and the options are low (for 3G/4G) or high (for
wireless). I was using a wired connection. There is no option for a
wired connection. I think it defaulted to low bandwidth on auto, and
would not stream my ALAC music on low bandwidth, which is about 95% of
my collection. If I set it to "high" bandwidth it streamed ALAC (and
MP3) without difficulty.

B. When I initially set this up, I was streaming through the HDMI
connection to my TV set. When I plugged in the SPDIF cable I was able to
stream two channel directly to a Schiit Modi DAC and then to my two
channel system (Emotiva amp and preamp, with magnepan speakers). Sounded
really good.

3. Use:

After five minutes, the TV screen goes into the screensaver mode, which
defaults to some pretty pictures that Amazon provides. You can download
your own photos from the Amazon cloud if you want to leave the TV on.
Can you look at album art on the TV? Don't know- worth looking into.
Can you turn the TV off? Yes, but after five seconds the fire TV
defaults into standby mode and the music stops. The player still shows
up in iPeng, but is paused. If you click play at that point, it will
begin to play again even with the TV off, and doesn't shut off again.
Can you disconnect the HDMI connection? I don't know for sure, but I
don't think so. The one time I tried it the music stopped immediately. I
didn't think to check what had happened in iPeng. I'm concerned that the
fire TV requires detection of an HDMI output in order to function, but I
don't know this for sure.
Can you use the "wake on LAN" function in iPeng? I don't think so, as I
don't think the fire TV supports wake on LAN. I was able to get my
server to wake up and my other squeezebox player, but not the fire TV.
This means that in order to use it you have to turn on the TV set, and
the fire TV comes out of standby automatically. You then have to
manually load the player each time. There is an option in the player to
connect automatically on start up, but I think it defaults to "auto"
with automatic startup, which doesn't work with a wired connection if
you are trying to stream anything but MP3. I gather there are other apps
that will auto load the player, but I haven't tried them.
What codecs does it support? Don't know for sure. The fire TV supports
MP3 natively as far as I can figure out. The SB player supports multiple
codecs, and most of my music is in ALAC which works well. Didn't try
FLAC.

I was able to listen for a few hours yesterday without difficulty. I
shut the system off and came back a few hours later, and the player
wouldn't load, even though it was present in the app list. I eventually
had to uninstall and reinstall for it to work. Don't know where this
glitch came from, as it's the first (and only) time it's happened.

Bottom line: it works, but it's not completely seamless. It has to be
set up manually each time. I understand there are apps that will auto
load other apps, which might be worth a try, but it defaults to the low
bandwidth auto setup with a wired connection. From the above post, it
looks like Wayne is fixing this. If the fire TV really does require an
HDMI connection in order for the fire TV to boot, that will limit its
usefulness as a standalone music player; I don't know if this is true or
not yet, or whether this requirement could be hacked.

I actually think that this is pretty neat. I was concerned about
maintaining the squeezebox ecosystem when my multiple Logitech hardware
devices start to fail, and this offers at least an pretty
straightforward store-bought option, at least if your music system is
connected to a TV. For about $200 (fire TV plus DAC plus the apps), it's
a nice player- think Duet equivalent. You could spend a lot more on a
high-end DAC if you wanted.

Wish list: I will try to sort out if an active HDMI connection is really
required. If so, it would be nice to figure out a way to eliminate this.
It would be nice to have the app load automatically on start up, and not
default to a low bandwidth connection when it connects automatically. It
would be great if Amazon could introduce wake on LAN functionality as
well. I hope they realize there's a potential market for this as a music
streamer as well as video streamer, and while they are probably just
interested in it as a means to sell their video content, it's great that
they allow other options.

Brooke


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[bluegaspode]

GTV is a mess, only a very crippled version of Android.
I don't think they ever upgraded the Android version.

I do know that some people have been successful to run SqueezePlayer on
Android sticks so I guess this should be working for SB Player as well.
As far as I know those sticks run a full blown Android version without
limitations but of course might heavily depend on the actual stick.
In any case I guess every App developer has no problem refunding a
purchase if kindly asked, so really no risk in trying (well if you own
such a stick already that is)


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[jimbobvfr400]

There's apps to do this I.e.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.autostart

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


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[gorman]

Does it do gapless playback?


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[wt0]

gorman wrote:
> Does it do gapless playback?

Yes

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk



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[dafiend]

Does SB player run on the Amazon Fire TV? From what I understand, it
runs a variant of Android 4.4.2 KitKat that's heavily modded by Amazon.

I have one on pre-order here in Germany and am very interested about
this. If you expect SB Player to run, how would I go about purchasing
and installing it? It's my understanding that it's somewhat tricky to
install the Google Play Store on the FTV. (Of course, I found infos on
various forums about installing APKs on the FTV, I just read that the
Play Store is one of the harder things to get running.)


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[kidstypike]

dafiend wrote:
> Does SB player run on the Amazon Fire TV? From what I understand, it
> runs a variant of Android 4.4.2 KitKat that's heavily modded by Amazon.
>
> I have one on pre-order here in Germany and am very interested about
> this. If you expect SB Player to run, how would I go about purchasing
> and installing it? It's my understanding that it's somewhat tricky to
> install the Google Play Store on the FTV. (Of course, I found infos on
> various forums about installing APKs on the FTV, I just read that the
> Play Store is one of the harder things to get running.)


See below.


+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
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kidstypike
1 x SB3 - 1 x Boom - 1 x (Squeezebox) Radio - 2 x Touch - 2 x
piCorePlayer
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[wt0]

dafiend wrote:
> Does SB player run on the Amazon Fire TV? From what I understand, it
> runs a variant of Android 4.4.2 KitKat that's heavily modded by Amazon.
>
> I have one on pre-order here in Germany and am very interested about
> this. If you expect SB Player to run, how would I go about purchasing
> and installing it? It's my understanding that it's somewhat tricky to
> install the Google Play Store on the FTV. (Of course, I found infos on
> various forums about installing APKs on the FTV, I just read that the
> Play Store is one of the harder things to get running.)

It runs fine on the FireTV, someone has tried it already. SB Player is
actually already on the Amazon App Store for 3rd gen Kindles and the
Fire phone and I'm in the process of the getting it approved for the
FireTV. So far Amazon has been stupidly picky about very minor issues
for the FireTV approval process. I've fixed the UI issues they've
complained about, but the latest complaint has been that it couldn't
connect to MySqueezebox.com. SB Player has a permanent
"MySqueezebox.com" entry in the saved server list, so I guess they think
that it is primary feature.

I've been trying to tell them that MySqueezebox.com is a site that may
sometimes be reachable for a variety of reasons and that it is only an
optional feature, but the testers just can't seem to grasp that concept.



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[pippin]

Ha. Sounds like Apple testing in the early days. They eventually learned
about it....



---
learn more about iPeng, the iPhone and iPad remote for the Squeezebox
and
Logitech UE Smart Radio as well as iPeng Party, the free Party-App,
at penguinlovesmusic.com
*New: iPeng 7, the Universal App for iOS 7*
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[wt0]

pippin wrote:
> Ha. Sounds like Apple testing in the early days. They eventually learned
> about it....

Yeah kind of reminds of the early webOS days too, though it wasn't quite
this bad. I still remember my Boom blasting music at random times cause
I had to give them a server to test Squeeze Control and I hadn't added
MySb support yet.



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[pippin]

Well, these days Apple demands videos of everything which can also be
pretty bad if you've got a lot of functionality. Only for new Apps,
though. Updates these days are quite relaxed, they've got automated
testing for everything they really care about and the rest is really "if
there are many user complaints we might look more carefully but
otherwise it's probably fine".



---
learn more about iPeng, the iPhone and iPad remote for the Squeezebox
and
Logitech UE Smart Radio as well as iPeng Party, the free Party-App,
at penguinlovesmusic.com
*New: iPeng 7, the Universal App for iOS 7*
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[bluegaspode]

pippin wrote:
> Well, these days Apple demands videos of everything which can also be
> pretty bad if you've got a lot of functionality. Only for new Apps,
> though. Updates these days are quite relaxed, they've got automated
> testing for everything they really care about and the rest is really "if
> there are many user complaints we might look more carefully but
> otherwise it's probably fine".
Videos of everything is relative. Just needs to show the main stuff you
are proposing.
In the early days I shot a video for each update on the meantime the
video from the very first version is good enough.
Still my Apps hang around 5 days in the 'in review' state.

Funny to hear that Amazon still got real testers.



Did you know: *'SqueezePlayer' (www.squeezeplayer.com)* will stream all
your music to your Android device. Take your music everywhere!
Remote Control + Streaming to your iPad? *'Squeezebox + iPad =
SqueezePad ' (www.squeezepad.com)*
Want to see a Weather Forecast on your Radio/Touch/Controller ? => why
not try my 'Weather Forecast Applet'
(http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=73827)
Want to use the Headphones with your Controller ? => why not try my
'Headphone Switcher Applet'
(http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=67139)
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[dafiend]

kidstypike wrote:
> See below.
Thanks!
wt0 wrote:
> It runs fine on the FireTV, someone has tried it already. SB Player is
> actually already on the Amazon App Store for 3rd gen Kindles and the
> Fire phone and I'm in the process of the getting it approved for the
> FireTV.
Great news, looking forward to trying it out!


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[lomdar67]

wt0 wrote:
> Yes it's the same version as the one under review.
>
> Thanks for mentioning that server discovery doesn't work with a wired
> connection. It turns out that I was only allowing server discovery to
> work through the Wifi connection, which made sense at the time since
> Android devices were mostly phones and tablets.
>
> I'll add launch at boot to the next version, let's hope it won't violate
> some FireTV restriction. In the meantime you may be able to find apps
> that will allow you to choose what to auto launch. I know they are
> available in Google Play, but I'm not sure if you can find them on
> Amazon.

Got it working with llama. Now everytime the Fire TV starts SB Player
also starts. Only "problem" there is, that it is starting in the
foreground. When you implement autostart, could you also add an option
to start it in the background?

On the Fire TV I see SB Player more as a service. Once it is configured
it should allways run in the backround, no need to turn on the tv, never
see the interface (unless you need to reconfigure something) ;-)

Best regrads, Michael

BTW: I tested SB Player intensely for almost three days now, without any
problem. Didn't have to restart it or anything! No problem with starting
other apps or streaming a video while SB Player is running in the
background. The music simply stops and continues when I close the other
app!


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[wt0]

lomdar67 wrote:
> Got it working with llama. Now everytime the Fire TV starts SB Player
> also starts. Only "problem" there is, that it is starting in the
> foreground. When you implement autostart, could you also add an option
> to start it in the background?
>
> On the Fire TV I see SB Player more as a service. Once it is configured
> it should allways run in the backround, no need to turn on the tv, never
> see the interface (unless you need to reconfigure something) ;-)
>
> Best regrads, Michael
>
> BTW: I tested SB Player intensely for almost three days now, without any
> problem. Didn't have to restart it or anything! No problem with starting
> other apps or streaming a video while SB Player is running in the
> background. The music simply stops and continues when I close the other
> app!

It is meant to always run in the background, and in fact it starts first
in the background and then launches the main screen. On everything else
except for the FireTV the main app screen has a checkbox that allows you
to not show that main screen when the app launches. However on one of
the early times I tried to get it approved for the FireTV, Amazon
complained about the app not launching if that checkbox was un-selected.
So I now detect that it's running on the FireTV and not show that
checkbox. It just seem simpler than trying the explain the "running in
the background" concept to them.

Sometimes I suspect about the familiarity the Amazon reviewers actually
have with Android, aside from checkbox thing one complaint was that on
Kindles the three dots in the upper right that open the app menu do not
appear on the FireTV, even though that is the standard Android behavior
for devices that have a hardware menu button.

The auto launch option will have an always launch in the background
option, hopefully it will pass thru the review unnoticed.

BTW, the auto music stop thing was actually just fixed in the current
version. It was in much earlier versions, but at some point I
accidentally deleted a single line of code and disabled that function.
It was actually the Amazon review that noticed the problem. That's
about the only truly constructive thing to come out of the review
process so far.



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[dwkdnvr]

This seems like a cool app. I've been struggling with how to replace a
flakey SB Receiver in the living room, and this may be the ticket. I've
installed it on my Galaxy S5, and confirmed that both the Sirius/XM and
Pandora apps work fine, which means it'll satisfy all our needs. We'd
been thinking of getting a FireTV box anyway, so this may put it over
the top.

Question on installation on the Fire TV (hopefully it'll get approved
and make it a moot point). Do I somehow grab the .apk from my phone and
sideload it on the FireTV, do I have to contact Wayne directly for a
special version?


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[Furry]

I've just installed SB Player and Squeeze Control on both my Nexus 4
phone and Nexus 7 tablet.

When I press the Chromecast button, the TV displays whichever station or
whatever that I'm listening to, but not the 'squeezebox' menu screen.

Also, the sound does not get 'cast'; it still comes from the 'phone or
tablet.

Am I being dense, or are these intended modes of operation?

TIA



Living room: SB Touch, Audiolab 8000A (c1985) + TDL RTL3 speakers.
Dining room: SB Boom.
Kitchen: SB Radio 1/3, with battery.
Bedroom 1: SB Radio 2/3, no battery.
Bedroom 2: SB3, AE 2.1. speakers.
Bedroom 3: Slim Devices SB3, Edirol MA-15D powered monitors.
Bathroom: SB Radio 3/3 (in white), with (and running on) battery.
LMS v7.8.0 on WHS 2011 running on HP Proliant N40L (1.5GHz, 8GB).
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[wt0]

Furry wrote:
> I've just installed SB Player and Squeeze Control on both my Nexus 4
> phone and Nexus 7 tablet.
>
> When I press the Chromecast button, the TV displays whichever station or
> whatever that I'm listening to, but not the 'squeezebox' menu screen.
>
> Also, the sound does not get 'cast'; it still comes from the 'phone or
> tablet.
>
> Am I being dense, or are these intended modes of operation?
>
> Edit: I've found that, while the Chromecast button within the app
> doesn't do what I'd expected, if I Chromecast the screen from the
> Android settings screen, then I do see what I expected on the TV - and
> the sound is also 'casted.
>
> TIA

Yes that is how the Chromecast button in Squeeze Control is intended to
work. Squeeze Control does not have audio output, it's just a remote
control, and that's where the button is located. It also doesn't show
the menu because there's no way to interact with it on the TV so there's
no point in showing it. I guess showing a playlist would be useful, but
I prefer a simpler design.

Chromecast is not really built to play media directly from the device
and while it is possible to get SB Player cast sound directly to the TV,
none of the methods of doing so is really ideal and worth the trouble.
The ideal method to get squeezebox music to the Chromecast would be to
build a software player to run directly on the Chromecast, but that's
not possible given the limitations of the Chromecast.

When you use cast from the Android settings screen, you're mirroring
your device to the TV, so everything goes through. It's basically like
using a remote desktop program from your TV, except you can't interact
with it.



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[wt0]

Update about SB Player on the FireTV:
Failed the review process again, fortunately it's a simple problem.
Apparently the FireTV doesn't have a web browser app, so it couldn't
handle the contact info links in the About dialog box. Resubmitted an
updated version, lets see how long it will take this time.

BTW, just updated on the Play store too. This one adds the launch at
boot option and improves synchronization across track changes.



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[wt0]

SB Player is now available for the FireTV in the Amazon App Store.



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[lomdar67]

wt0 wrote:
> SB Player is now available for the FireTV in the Amazon App Store.

Great News!


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[dafiend]

lomdar67 wrote:
> Great News!
+1

Thanks, will purchase as soon as my Fire TV arrives. (Unless I resell it
on Amazon and get a Nexus Player instead LOL. But right now, I actually
think the Fire TV is more attractive.)


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[d6jg]

wt0 wrote:
> SB Player is now available for the FireTV in the Amazon App Store.

Perfect timing as Amazon UK have confirmed despatch of my Fire TV for
delivery tomorrow.

A question. If you are using the SB Player app what appears on the TV
video wise ? Presumably just the Fire TV menu etc or is there a "now
playing" implementation ?



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser HDR 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
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[wt0]

d6jg wrote:
> Perfect timing as Amazon UK have confirmed despatch of my Fire TV for
> delivery tomorrow.
>
> A question. If you are using the SB Player app what appears on the TV
> video wise ? Presumably just the Fire TV menu etc or is there a "now
> playing" implementation ?

I don't know since I don't have a FireTV, but I would assume the main
menu when SB Player is in the background. Actually any app that doesn't
have audio output (or just intermittent audio) could run in the
foreground when SB Player is in the background. However since the FireTV
is mainly a media consumption device, it probably doesn't have too many
apps the do not produce audio.

SB Player is just a player, not a controller, so there is no Now Playing
screen.



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[bs01890]

d6jg wrote:
> Perfect timing as Amazon UK have confirmed despatch of my Fire TV for
> delivery tomorrow.
>
> A question. If you are using the SB Player app what appears on the TV
> video wise ? Presumably just the Fire TV menu etc or is there a "now
> playing" implementation ?

I've tested the app. The SB player main screen shows up. If you let it
sit there (you can control the time in the Fire TV), the default fire tv
screensaver shows up-- a bunch of pretty pictures. You can download your
own photos from the amazon cloud if you want.

If you turn the TV off, iPeng goes into pause mode and the music stops,
but you can hit play in iPeng (with the TV off) and it starts to play
again & continues indefinitely.

There's no onscreen "Now playing" feature.

Brooke


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[dwkdnvr]

Cool. Got the FireTV hooked up last weekend, so will pick this up.

I'm sure it's not in the Fire TV store, but I thought there was a
squeezebox 'now playing' app in the google play store. Might be worth
looking into trying to sideload it. My wife has been playing pandora
through our DirecTV box lately, and in comparison to the SB Receiver
it's actually nice to have a display rather than having to run to the
tablet to figure it out.


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[d6jg]

I have got the now playing app on my Galaxy Tab but as it stands it
isn't available for the Fire TV yet and I am not sure how the artwork
would render on an HDTV. In full screen mode it would not be very good I
imagine so if either developer is reading a Fire TV now playing
implementation in a smallish window would be great. Better still if it
could overlay onto whatever else the Fire TV is outputting and if you
could select the audio output to optical only so another app could play
audio via HDMI then that would be ideal for my use case. SWMBO watching
TV and me listening via headphones. I can't see the point of
incorporating a controller when iPeng and OrangeSqueeze etc are so
readily available.
The Fire TV has arrived but no chance to hook it up as yet.



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser HDR 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
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[d6jg]

Got the UK Amazon Fire TV hooked up in my office to configure before
shifting it to its home position. Bedroom I am thinking but what to do
with the Apple TV that is already there.

MUSIC
SB Player bought (£1.86) and loaded. Sounding good. Music sorted apart
from the now playing that I would really like but ...
I am not at this stage going to sideload the now playing app because it
seems highly unlikely that it is going to look any good (apologies to
the developer) and the manner in which you would need to launch it (see
later) instead I have uploaded some photos to the Amazon Cloud for
screensaver purposes.

MOVIES & TV
Amazon Prime
Netflix
TV Player - live UK TV incl BBC, ITV, C4 & 5 but SD I think.

CATCH UP TV
BBC iPlayer
5 OD
STVPlayer
No ITV or C4 as yet

MOVIES STORED ON MY NAS.
Tried VMU Player an official app costing a few pence which said it would
do the job. It played the video but with no audio. Rubbish.
Sideloaded XBMC (Frodi). Up and running in no time. The only downside is
that you can't it seems add the app to the home screen you have to
launch it via System/Applications/Manage Applications/ scroll to XBMC
and then launch. The Fire TV remote controls it for the most part but
won't let you do a select and hold. iPhone remote will however so no big
issue.

OTHER APPS
Haven't tried anything else as yet.

The hardware is very good (Ethernet/Wireless, HDMI,Optical & USB) and at
£80 is about the real price of a Raspberry Pi once you have added in the
SD card, case etc
So far impressed.



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser HDR 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
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[atrocity]

d6jg wrote:
> Sideloaded XBMC (Frodi). Up and running in no time.

I'm curious if this can be used to output multichannel PCM (e.g., tracks
taken from DVD-Audio discs) via HDMI.


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[d6jg]

I meant Kodi rather than Frodi.
I will check the audio later. It was playing through the TV speakers
while I was configuring so wasnt really looking into that aspect but I
expect it will output whatever the video is encoded with and your system
supports.



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser HDR 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
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[wt0]

Ran some tests with SB Player on the Android 5.0 Developer preview build
on a Nexus 7 to try out some of the new audio features.

_Higher_Sampling_rates_
The existing version of SB Player will already pick these up and you can
set it in Preferences > Performance. It works fine for all sampling
rates with tracks that uses the same sampling rate, but the Nexus 7
definitely cannot handle up-sampling 44.1k to 96k.

_24bit_Audio_
Turns out 5.0 doesn't specifically support 24bit audio, instead it
supports 32bit floating point audio which was the same dynamic range.
Fortunately it's trivial to convert lower bit depths to it. It works
fine but synchronized playback is a little off. It could be that I just
need to do some tweaking or the audio of the preview build of Android
isn't quite optimized yet. Also it's kind of pointless to use it right
now (see below).

_USB_DAC_support_
Works as advertise. I plugged a USB OTG cable into the Nexus7 and
plugged a USB DAC into the cable and the audio automatically routes to
the DAC. When I unplugged it, the audio paused like when you unplug
headphones. However, audio output seems to be locked at 16/44.1 right
now which makes supporting 24/96 audio kind of pointless.

Does anyone know if the FireTV can output 24/96 to it's spdif
connection?



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[dafiend]

My Fire TV finally arrived. Just wanted to say thanks! It's great that
you added support for the FTV. SB Player is running without any issues
on the FTV for me.

While I'm happy with how the FTV works as a Squeezebox player, I have
some serious issues with other functions. For one, I'm not quite content
with the start screen situation. For another, I can't figure out how to
get XBMC (well, I'm actually using SPMC 13.3.3) to add my NFS shares.


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[wt0]

dafiend wrote:
> My Fire TV finally arrived. Just wanted to say thanks! It's great that
> you added support for the FTV. SB Player is running without any issues
> on the FTV for me.
>
> While I'm happy with how the FTV works as a Squeezebox player, I'm not
> quite content with the start screen situation.
What's the start screen situation?



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[dafiend]

wt0 wrote:
> What's the start screen situation?
It's solved. It had nothing to do with SB Player and I guess it was a
beginner's problem.

In Amazon's default setup, only certain apps (such as Amazon Music,
Amazon Video, and certain apps approved specifically for the FTV) are
allowed to appear on the start screen.

This wasn't convenient as I mostly want to use the FTV for two purposes:
(i) XBMC (or SPMC) and (ii) SB Player. So the problem of the automatic
launch of XBMC was solved via the Amazon FireTV Utility app. It's pretty
sweet. With a few clicks, you install llama and a llama config. The
llama config is such that the FTV boots into XBMC. By hitting the home
button, you can get to Amazon's default start screen (which gives you
access to things like your Amazon Prime Watchlist). But, if you let the
FTV idle for 15 secs, it goes to sleep and, when waking it up from
sleep, your back in XBMC. So that's pretty sweet. You don't really have
to bother anymore with Amazon's really convoluted way of accessing
non-approved apps such as XBMC in the default config.

Last thing I need now is some llama rules for SB player. I don't think
it will be mission impossible, I may post back here with a setup. I want
to have SB player to start at boottime. Actually, I would like to always
have it running so that I don't have to turn on the TV when I just want
to listen to music.

I mean, it's pretty sweet that you can launch SB player from XBMC. But
it would be still sweeter if I don't need to launch it at all.


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[wt0]

dafiend wrote:
> It's solved. It had nothing to do with SB Player and I guess it was a
> beginner's problem.
>
> In Amazon's default setup, only certain apps (such as Amazon Music,
> Amazon Video, and certain apps approved specifically for the FTV) are
> allowed to appear on the start screen.
>
> This wasn't convenient as I mostly want to use the FTV for two purposes:
> (i) XBMC (or SPMC) and (ii) SB Player. So the problem of the automatic
> launch of XBMC was solved via the Amazon FireTV Utility app. It's pretty
> sweet. With a few clicks, you install llama and a llama config. The
> llama config is such that the FTV boots into XBMC. By hitting the home
> button, you can get to Amazon's default start screen (which gives you
> access to things like your Amazon Prime Watchlist). But, if you let the
> FTV idle for 15 secs, it goes to sleep and, when waking it up from
> sleep, your back in XBMC. So that's pretty sweet. You don't really have
> to bother anymore with Amazon's really convoluted way of accessing
> non-approved apps such as XBMC in the default config.
>
> Last thing I need now is some llama rules for SB player. I don't think
> it will be mission impossible, I may post back here with a setup. I want
> to have SB player to start at boottime. Actually, I would like to always
> have it running so that I don't have to turn on the TV when I just want
> to listen to music.
>
> I mean, it's nice that you can launch SB player from XBMC. (Or from the
> Fire TV start menu -- SB Player is actually one of the few start-screen
> approved apps.) But it would be still sweeter if I don't need to launch
> it at all.
SB Player has a start at boot option. Just look in General Preference.
It's at the bottom.



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[dafiend]

wt0 wrote:
> SB Player has a start at boot option. Just look in General Preference.
> It's at the bottom.
Thanks a lot for your help! Very happy with the setup right now :)


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[BenH73]

Fire TV stick looks like an interesting option for a squeezebox player.
I assume this will work on it.

HDMI only, so OK for people with a HDMI receiver.

There's a usb, but the Amazon specs say "for power only". Hopefully this
can be made to work with a usb dac like one of those cheap PCM2704
boards for about $8.

Otherwise there's those HDMI to VGA and 3.5mm audio adapters like
someone's used for the chromecast:
http://liliputing.com/2014/02/10-adapter-turns-chromecast-into-cheap-sonos-competitor.html

Could make for a very cheap player.

Ben


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[wt0]

BenH73 wrote:
> Fire TV stick looks like an interesting option for a squeezebox player.
> I assume this will work on it.
>
> HDMI only, so OK for people with a HDMI receiver.
>
> There's a usb, but the Amazon specs say "for power only". Hopefully this
> can be made to work with a usb dac like one of those cheap PCM2704
> boards for about $8.
>
> Otherwise there's those HDMI to VGA and 3.5mm audio adapters like
> someone's used for the chromecast:
> http://liliputing.com/2014/02/10-adapter-turns-chromecast-into-cheap-sonos-competitor.html
>
> Could make for a very cheap player.
>
> Ben

I've already been approached by Amazon to put SB Player on the Fire TV
Stick. Of course with the request they mentioned some problems that need
to be fixed before it can be put on the Fire TV Stick, which is somewhat
nonsensical since SB Player is already accepted for use on the Fire TV
and the Stick is basically the same the thing with less outputs.

On a side note, considering that SB Player is a pretty niche app, for
Amazon to approach me about it they must be really desperate to get apps
onto the Stick.



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[dwkdnvr]

wt0 wrote:
> I've already been approached by Amazon to put SB Player on the Fire TV
> Stick. Of course with the request they mentioned some problems that need
> to be fixed before it can be put on the Fire TV Stick, which is somewhat
> nonsensical since SB Player is already accepted for use on the Fire TV
> and the Stick is basically the same the thing with less outputs.
>
> On a side note, considering that SB Player is a pretty niche app, for
> Amazon to approach me about it they must be really desperate to get apps
> onto the Stick.


Interesting. I'm up and running with SB Player on my Fire TV, and am
very satisfied - thanks for putting the app out there. Given how well
the Fire TV is working in general I was eyeing the Stick for a couple
other locations in the house - I had no idea that the App selection
would be different. I agree that it makes little sense - you'd think
that they'd take it on themselves to ensure that the Stick itself would
ensure graceful degradation for anything that worked on the Fire TV.

Anyway, Fire TV + SB Player == good SB replacement strategy as far as
I'm concerned.


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[slimfast]

wt0 wrote:
> I've already been approached by Amazon to put SB Player on the Fire TV
> Stick. Of course with the request they mentioned some problems that need
> to be fixed before it can be put on the Fire TV Stick, which is somewhat
> nonsensical since SB Player is already accepted for use on the Fire TV
> and the Stick is basically the same the thing with less outputs.
>
> On a side note, considering that SB Player is a pretty niche app, for
> Amazon to approach me about it they must be really desperate to get apps
> onto the Stick.


I recently got a Fire TV and SB Player was one of the first apps I put
on it. Very useful, and it is a perfect match for these 'media streamer
box' type of devices. It would also be great for the stick, can't see
why they have separate approval processes as the two are practically
identical as you say, save some reduced specs on the stick which surely
wouldn't be an issue for something like SB Player.

One very slight niggle with SB Player is that when it's running, it
won't let the FireTV go fully into sleep mode. The Fire TV Screen saver
will run but the box never fully goes to sleep. I can understand that
you'd want to keep the app running in case someone wanted to start
playing music, hence keeping the box from fully sleeping, but it would
be nice if there was a menu option to let it go to sleep after 'x' time
inactive in the screen saver.

It might even be possible to allow it to wake the box from sleep (the
bluetooth remote or my FLIRC will wake it so it's possible), though I
don't know how that mode is implemented with respect to network traffic.
I'm guessing that SB player devices are constantly talking to the
server though based on how I see my network lights flicker with my SB3.


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[slimfast]

PS: You might want to look into the possibility of porting it to PS
Vita for the PSTV box. Not sure just how different their OS is to
Android based ones, though.


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[bwaldron]

slimfast wrote:
> I recently got a Fire TV and SB Player was one of the first apps I put
> on it. Very useful, and it is a perfect match for these 'media streamer
> box' type of devices. It would also be great for the stick, can't see
> why they have separate approval processes as the two are practically
> identical as you say, save some reduced specs on the stick which surely
> wouldn't be an issue for something like SB Player.

I got my Fire Stick yesterday (don't have a Fire TV box), purchased
another copy of SB Player via the Amazon Appstore (already own it via
Google Play) and was able to sideload the APK to the stick. It's working
fine.


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[wt0]

bwaldron wrote:
> I got my Fire Stick yesterday (don't have a Fire TV box), purchased
> another copy of SB Player via the Amazon Appstore (already own it via
> Google Play) and was able to sideload the APK to the stick. It's working
> fine.

Good to know, though I was pretty sure it would work fine. The
complaints Amazon had were about text not being legible in the UI
because of the color and Netflix not pausing when playback was resumed
in the SB Player. I have a suspicion that whoever at Amazon tested it
with the Fire TV Stick was using an older version that was on the Kindle
before I had fixed both issues to get the app accepted for the Fire TV.

Next time I do an update, I'll tick the checkbox for Fire TV Stick
support and see if they'll accept it.



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[lomdar67]

dwkdnvr wrote:
> This seems like a cool app. I've been struggling with how to replace a
> flakey SB Receiver in the living room, and this may be the ticket. I've
> installed it on my Galaxy S5, and confirmed that both the Sirius/XM and
> Pandora apps work fine, which means it'll satisfy all our needs. We'd
> been thinking of getting a FireTV box anyway, so this may put it over
> the top.
>
> Question on installation on the Fire TV (hopefully it'll get approved
> and make it a moot point). Do I somehow grab the .apk from my phone and
> sideload it on the FireTV, do I have to contact Wayne directly for a
> special version?

Buy it on the Playstore, extract the Apk, and sideload it to the Fire
TV. But if you do it this way you have to sideload it every time the app
gets updated. So best way is to wait until it is approved by Amazon.

Best regards,
Michael




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[wt0]

I'm thinking of adding Nexus Player compatibility too.



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[BuddyRich]

wt0 wrote:
> I'm thinking of adding Nexus Player compatibility too.

Has anyone tested compatibility with it and the Nexus Player now that
its out and for that matter squeeze control with a remote?

Also any plans to make the Wp8.1 app a full on metro app for full win
8.1 tablets? I just picked up a dell venue pro 8 and was hoping for a
decent touch enabled metro controller app. Aside from the web
interface.


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[wt0]

BuddyRich wrote:
> Has anyone tested compatibility with it and the Nexus Player now that
> its out and for that matter squeeze control with a remote?
>
> Also any plans to make the Wp8.1 app a full on metro app for full win
> 8.1 tablets? I just picked up a dell venue pro 8 and was hoping for a
> decent touch enabled metro controller app. Aside from the web
> interface.

I know neither Squeeze Control or SB Player is available in the Play
Store for the Nexus Player. Apps need to implement a specific Android TV
interface to be technically compatible with the Nexus Player.
Sideloading the apps may work, but the Nexus Player might not run an app
that doesn't have an Android TV interface. Eventually I do plan on
making SB Player directly available for Android TV devices, but I don't
think Squeeze Control is a good fit for a TV.

I have no idea how well Squeeze Control will work with a remote, but I
would assume not well since it really wasn't designed for remote use and
the interface is kind of complex. Also I didn't add any indicators to
any of the custom themed buttons, which means that while you can move
the cursor to the button and trigger it, you won't be able to see that
you've move the cursor to the button.

SB Player isn't really possible to do as a metro app, since metro apps
cannot run in the background (with the exception of location apps).

As to Squeeze Control... well the WinPhone 8 version is the fourth full
app of Squeeze Control I've done in four years (webOS phone, webOS
tablet, Android, winphone). I just can't motivate myself to write yet
another version and a win tablet version would require a major rewrite
since the WinPhone version was written right before the Universal App
specs were available. Also the Windows Tablet interface is so different
from anything else, it would require a complete rethink of how the
Squeeze Control interface should work. Besides, the market for windows
tablets is still so small, there just isn't much of an incentive.



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[BuddyRich]

Ah. I didn't realise you weren't already utilizing the universal app
apis in it.

I figured sideloading would work. Sb player would likely be OK but from
what Ive seen of phone apps, ui appears horizontal. Not sure if it
would detect the wide tablet mode? Then there's the input.


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[wt0]

BuddyRich wrote:
> Ah. I didn't realise you weren't already utilizing the universal app
> apis in it.
>
> I figured sideloading would work. Sb player would likely be OK but from
> what Ive seen of phone apps, ui appears horizontal. Not sure if it
> would detect the wide tablet mode? Then there's the input.
I was a little annoyed about the universal app thing. MS announced it
right as I was finishing the app to be released. It was a major api
change going from wp7 to wp8 and then they went to Universal Apps. So
the WP8 api was basically the "preferred" api for only about a year,
which is just ridiculous.

There's a specific Android TV activity that apps have to have to
officially support those devices, so I'm not sure if the Nexus Player
would even run apps that do not have that activity.



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[BuddyRich]

The tablet is a full win 8.1 build with x86 processor so i have plenty
of open source player options, I just don't know of any compiled purpose
built windows remote applications aside from the web interface.
Especially designed for a touch input like iOS and android. It does
suck that the apis changed so rapidly.


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[wt0]

BuddyRich wrote:
> The tablet is a full win 8.1 build with x86 processor so i have plenty
> of open source player options, I just don't know of any compiled purpose
> built windows remote applications aside from the web interface.
> Especially designed for a touch input like iOS and android. It does
> suck that the apis changed so rapidly.

I think there are a few "metro" style Squeezebox controller apps for
windows. I remember trying them when I first upgraded to Windows 8. I
don't remember the names though.



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[bs01890]

So I've been running SB player on the Fire TV with output through the
SPDIF to my DAC and controlling with iPeng; it works well. The new
version defaults to high bandwidth with a wired connection to the
network, which is nice. I can turn the TV off and even disconnect the
HDMI and after an initial return to "pause," hitting play on the iPeng
again will restart the music indefinitely without an active HDMI
connection.

The fire TV has no on-off button and as far as I can tell only comes out
of standby when the TV is turned on.

Is there any way (software hack or hardware) that would force the fire
TV out of standby without a connected TV? with SB player loading
automatically at startup it would have the same functionality as a duet
receiver.


Any thoughts?


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[wt0]

bs01890 wrote:
> So I've been running SB player on the Fire TV with output through the
> SPDIF to my DAC and controlling with iPeng; it works well. The new
> version defaults to high bandwidth with a wired connection to the
> network, which is nice. I can turn the TV off and even disconnect the
> HDMI and after an initial return to "pause," hitting play on the iPeng
> again will restart the music indefinitely without an active HDMI
> connection.
>
> The fire TV has no on-off button and as far as I can tell only comes out
> of standby when the TV is turned on.
>
> Is there any way (software hack or hardware) that would force the fire
> TV out of standby without a connected TV? with SB player loading
> automatically at startup it would have the same functionality as a duet
> receiver.
>
>
> Any thoughts?

SB Player is now officially available on the Fire TV Stick.

There are basically two reasons that cause SB Player is automatically
pause the playback:

1) SB Player receives a "Noisy Audio" event (I don't remember the exact
name), which is what happens when you unplug headphones from the device.
The Fire TV does not have headphones, but going to sleep may do
something to the audio outputs that will trigger this event.

2) SB Player loses Audio Focus, which is usually what happens when
another media app launches into the foreground and requests Audio Focus.
The Fire TV may just rescind Audio Focus from all apps when it goes to
sleep. Technically losing audio focus is just a notification to the app,
it doesn't actually prevent audio from playing, but apps are strongly
encouraged to handle the event correctly.

If it is just the first case, then you can disable that behavior in
Settings > General > Pause on headphones unplug.

If it is the second case, there's nothing I can really do about it since
pausing is the accepted method of dealing with audio focus loss and the
app will not pass the Amazon review process if it does not behave that
way.



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[adam2434]

Wt0, thanks for this app and thread!

I’ve been searching for alternatives for if/when my SB3 dies, and
have also been considering a Fire TV.

As I understand it, a TV needs to be connected and powered-on for the
Fire TV to operate. Is that correct?

If so, would an HDMI connection to a powered-on AV pre/pro or AVR allow
(fool) the Fire TV to operate, even if the TV is off or not connected to
the AV Pre/Pro or AVR.

I would be feeding the Fire TV HDMI to a pre/pro and optical to a DAC,
using the DAC for the SB music. I would not mind having the pre/pro
powered-on for the sole purpose of enabling Fire TV to output SB via
optical.

Also, will the Fire TV and SB Player output a bit-perfect signal,
without resampling, etc. (equivalent to the SB3’s digital output)?


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[wt0]

adam2434 wrote:
> Wt0, thanks for this app and thread!
>
> I’ve been searching for alternatives for if/when my SB3 dies, and have
> also been considering a Fire TV.
>
> As I understand it, a TV needs to be connected and powered-on for the
> Fire TV to operate. Is that correct?
>
> If so, would an HDMI connection to a powered-on AV pre/pro or AVR allow
> (fool) the Fire TV to operate, even if the TV is off or not connected to
> the AV Pre/Pro or AVR.
>
> I would be feeding the Fire TV HDMI to a pre/pro and optical to a DAC,
> using the DAC for the SB music. I would not mind having the pre/pro
> powered-on for the sole purpose of enabling Fire TV to output SB via
> optical.
>
> Also, will the Fire TV and SB Player output a bit-perfect signal,
> without resampling, etc. (equivalent to the SB3’s digital output)?

I don't own a Fire TV, but from what I gathered from this thread, you
only need to have the TV turned on initially so you can setup the app.
Once it's running you can turn off the TV and even unplug the HDMI
connection. It's just that if you turn off the TV while music is
playing the music will pause, but you can just press play again.
However, I think that's because SB Player is reacting to the TV turning
off like when headphones are plugged from a phone/tablet. That behavior
can be turned off in SB Player.

There maybe one limitation though. The ability to auto launch the app
when the Fire TV turns on may not work if the TV is not turned on. One
user emailed me about having trouble getting that feature to work on the
Fire TV even though others with the Fire TV have said that it works, so
I'm guessing that maybe it is related to the turn being turn on or off.

It won't be bit perfect unless it's 16bit 44.1K audio and even then
there maybe some internal processing that I have no control over.
Android could not handle 24-bit audio until version 5.0 and the Fire TV
is not running 5.0. Even on Android 5.0 when a USB DAC is connected,
the output is locked to 16/44.1, so it's probably the case with the
optical out on the Fire TV.

Unlike the dedicated hardware of a Squeezebox, the decoded audio from SB
Player has to go through layers of software inside the Android system
before it reaches the output. Those layers of software are not designed
to switch sampling rates or bit depths on the fly, so to handle gap-less
playback, the output sampling rate and bit depths has to be locked to
one setting once playback starts and any audio that does not have the
same sampling rate or bit depth will be converted. If I tried to switch
output settings for each song, there will be a noticeable gap.

The output sampling rate can be specified by the user in SB Player, but
Android can only handle certain sampling rates. For Android versions
less than 5.0 the max sampling rate is 48Khz. Android 5.0 can handle up
to 96Khz. However, SB Player up-samples all output that rate, so it is
not recommended that you set the output to a specific sampling rate
unless all your audio files are of the same rate, since some devices may
not be powerful enough to handle a difficult up-sampling like going from
44.1Khz to 48Khz. Down-sampling is done by the server before the audio
reaches SB Player. (The caveat is that as I mentioned above, the digital
output is likely to be lock at 16/44.1 so choosing a higher output rate
inside of SB Player may be pointless)

In addition, SB Player supports crossfading and it obviously has to be
done digitally. As far as I know, there is no way to digitally mix two
audio samples with different sampling rates and//or bit depths without
converting one of the samples.



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[adam2434]

I still wonder if the Fire TV HDMI would recognize an AVR or pre/pro as
a display device, without the need for the actual display to be powered
on. For example, when I connect my laptop’s HDMI to my pre/pro, the
laptop indicates the pre/pro’s model number as the connected display,
because it is receiving the HDMI signal. If I get a Fire TV, I’ll test
this. Anyone with the Fire TV’s HDMI connected to an AVR or pre/pro
could also test this.

I would be using the Fire TV with a front projector, so would not want
to fire up the projector just to start the Fire TV. However, if I only
need to turn on the pre/pro…no big deal.

My library is 100% 16/44.1 flac files, so I could set the SB Player
output accordingly and hope that the Fire TV’s optical outputs an
unmolested 16/44.1 PCM signal. My DAC displays sample rate, so I would
at least be able to verify the 44.1 kHz sample rate. Hopefully, the
Fire TV doesn’t resample to a set sample rate, like the ATV does at 48
kHz.

As a side note, I would assume that the Fire TV’s optical is capable of
outputting 48 kHz, since that is the standard for audio soundtracks from
video content.

How does the SB Player handle replaygain? A 24 bit or 32 bit volume
control within the Fire TV?


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[d6jg]

I have a Fire TV and an HDMI AV receiver but one is upstairs the other
downstairs. I will see if I can try it in next couple of days.
Not sure about autostart but can confirm that switching TV off does NOT
cause SB Player to shut down. I know this because I have discovered an
issue as a bi product of that.
I did a full rescan today and iPeng (which I use as a controller) would
not resync.
I hadn't turned any of my players off which is normal. Ipeng would only
resync after I powered the Fire TV off - other players were still on. It
was like SB Player was constantly polling the server and blocking ipeng.
Just FYI.



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser RS 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones
*Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 ->
Wharfedale Modus Cubes
Various iThingys with iPeng & Tablets etc
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[wt0]

d6jg wrote:
> I have a Fire TV and an HDMI AV receiver but one is upstairs the other
> downstairs. I will see if I can try it in next couple of days.
> Not sure about autostart but can confirm that switching TV off does NOT
> cause SB Player to shut down. I know this because I have discovered an
> issue as a bi product of that.
> I did a full rescan today and iPeng (which I use as a controller) would
> not resync.
> I hadn't turned any of my players off which is normal. Ipeng would only
> resync after I powered the Fire TV off - other players were still on. It
> was like SB Player was constantly polling the server and blocking ipeng.
> Just FYI.

SB Player sends a status packet to the server about once a second when
it's connected. This lets the server know that the player is still
connected.



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[d6jg]

pippin wrote:
> What do you mean by "resync"?

I mean when iPeng tried to synchronise after clearing the cache. In
iPeng I could see under players the SB Player constantly appearing and
disappearing. Until I switched the SB Player on the Fire TV off iPeng
just would not sync.



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser RS 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones
*Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 ->
Wharfedale Modus Cubes
Various iThingys with iPeng & Tablets etc
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[wt0]

adam2434 wrote:
> How does the SB Player handle replaygain? A 24 bit or 32 bit volume
> control within the Fire TV?

Replaygain is applied digitally to the audio samples within the app
before they are handed over to the Android audio system. If I remember
correctly, the replaygain values sent to the player from the server is
always less than 1.0, so there's no danger of clipping the sample.



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[adam2434]

wt0 wrote:
> Replaygain is applied digitally to the audio samples within the app
> before they are handed over to the Android audio system. If I remember
> correctly, the replaygain values sent to the player from the server is
> always less than 1.0, so there's no danger of clipping the sample.

Ok, thanks.

Has anyone verified that the Fire TV's optical outputs 44.1 kHz from
44.1 kHz source files played with the SB Player app (in other words, no
stock sample rate conversion within the fire TV)?


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[bs01890]

wt0 wrote:
> SB Player is now officially available on the Fire TV Stick.
>
> There are basically two reasons that cause SB Player is automatically
> pause the playback:
>
> 1) SB Player receives a "Noisy Audio" event (I don't remember the exact
> name), which is what happens when you unplug headphones from the device.
> The Fire TV does not have headphones, but going to sleep may do
> something to the audio outputs that will trigger this event.
>
> 2) SB Player loses Audio Focus, which is usually what happens when
> another media app launches into the foreground and requests Audio Focus.
> The Fire TV may just rescind Audio Focus from all apps when it goes to
> sleep. Technically losing audio focus is just a notification to the app,
> it doesn't actually prevent audio from playing, but apps are strongly
> encouraged to handle the event correctly.
>
> If it is just the first case, then you can disable that behavior in
> Settings > General > Pause on headphones unplug.
>
> If it is the second case, there's nothing I can really do about it since
> pausing is the accepted method of dealing with audio focus loss and the
> app will not pass the Amazon review process if it does not behave that
> way.
>
> *Update:* I just noticed in the Fire TV FAQ that the pausing when you
> turn off the TV is probably the first case.[/QUOT
>
>
> I can vouch for your conclusion. If you uncheck the box " pause on
> headphone disconnect" the player will not go into pause mode when you
> turn off the TV and the music continues to play without interruption.


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[d6jg]

I have just got the "Command Stream error" after an update - haven't
used SB Player for some time - it connects to a 7.7.2 server ok but not
a 7.8.1.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled but no joy. Ideas?



*Vortexbox LMS 7.8 music on QNAP TS419p via NFS* -
iThingys/iPeng/Tablets
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser RS 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones
*Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 ->
Wharfedale Modus Cubes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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[d6jg]

d6jg wrote:
> I have just got the "Command Stream error" after an update - haven't
> used SB Player for some time - it connects to a 7.7.2 server ok but not
> a 7.8.1.
> I have uninstalled and reinstalled but no joy. Ideas?

Problem solved but by accident. Connected SB Player to 7.7.2 server.
Using iPeng switched the player to 7.8.1 server.
Hit Play



*Vortexbox LMS 7.8 music on QNAP TS419p via NFS* -
iThingys/iPeng/Tablets
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser RS 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones
*Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 ->
Wharfedale Modus Cubes
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[wt0]

d6jg wrote:
> Problem solved but by accident. Connected SB Player to 7.7.2 server.
> Using iPeng switched the player to 7.8.1 server.
> Hit Play

Interesting. So SB Player will now connect directly to the 7.8.1 server
correctly after you disconnect? I only reason I can think of is that
the internal id's the player is sending the server were clashing with
the id's of another player that the server thinks is still connected to
it. Sending the server switch command forced the server to refresh it's
player list. A server restart would probably have fixed it too.



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[d6jg]

Yes the ipeng initiated switch allowed the player to connect straight
away with no errors. It has appeared as SBPlayer 2 so you could be spot
on about the clash.



*Vortexbox LMS 7.8 music on QNAP TS419p via NFS* -
iThingys/iPeng/Tablets
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser RS 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones
*Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 ->
Wharfedale Modus Cubes
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[trouty00]

Has this been tested on 5.1? i installed and opened it up first time but
after i closed it i cannot open it again.



'Custom Squeezebox Touch Wall Mount's Available'
(http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?95114-Squeezebox-Touch-Wall-Mount-project-and-possibly-for-sale)
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[wt0]

trouty00 wrote:
> Has this been tested on 5.1? i installed and opened it up first time but
> after i closed it i cannot open it again.
Yes it has been tested on 5.1.

Maybe you unchecked "Show this screen at launch". Try launching again
and see if the icon appears in the notification area.



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[poing]

Hi,

Does SB Player support ReplayGain?

(In another thread, I just read the competitor product does not support
it so I'm curious.)


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[wt0]

poing wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Does SB Player support ReplayGain?
>
> (In another thread, I just read the competitor product does not support
> it so I'm curious.)
Yes it supports ReplayGain

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk



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[poing]

Thanks for the quick reply :)


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[BuddyRich]

Hi Wayne,

I know when 5.0 L was first released you did some testing with USB DAC
support and the new android audio framework and there are some new
experimental features in SB Player right now but I can't seem to get
them to work.

Im using a nexus 7 2013 running 5.1.1 and OTG cable hooked up to an
Audiolabs MDAC

- Option to output higher than 44.1kHz audio on devices that support
it.

Tried all permutations of having DAC on then plug in to OTG, to having
it off and plugging it in then turning it on, but no luck. Sound gets
routed to it, but its all resample to 48Hz, even redbook 44.1 stuff.

Im curious what this is:

- Experimental support for floating point PCM output on Android 5.0+
devices.


This I know. Don't have a DAC that supports DSD/DXD. ;-)

- Experimental support for DSD Audio playback by converting to PCM.
Requires LMS 7.9.

Have you tried M Preview at all and if so does it fix (or break...)
anything?

Thanks


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[wt0]

BuddyRich wrote:
> - Option to output higher than 44.1kHz audio on devices that support
> it.
>
> Tried all permutations of having DAC on then plug in to OTG, to having
> it off and plugging it in then turning it on, but no luck. Sound gets
> routed to it, but its all resample to 48Hz, even redbook 44.1 stuff.
DAC output on Android is locked to one sampling rate and bit depth. I
thought it was 16bit 44.1kHz, at least that's what I read somewhere.
The DAC I have has a glitch, even when it's doing 44.1kHz it displays
48kHz, so I can't tell what Android was outputting.

Setting a higher output sampling rate in SB Player just means that the
app is sending audio into the system at that higher rate. The app has
no control over what is actually outputted to the DAC.

BuddyRich wrote:
> - Experimental support for floating point PCM output on Android 5.0+
> devices.
This allows 24bit audio to be sent into the system without compressing
it's dynamic range. The 24bit PCM has to be converted to Floating Point
PCM, but Floating Point PCM has the same dynamic range as 24bit. (The
summary under this setting in Preferences should have explained this)


BuddyRich wrote:
> This I know. Don't have a DAC that supports DSD/DXD. ;-)
>
> - Experimental support for DSD Audio playback by converting to PCM.
> Requires LMS 7.9.
Your DAC doesn't need DSD support to use this. This option enables the
app to convert DSD audio to PCM (24bit/352.8kHz). That PCM audio is then
resampled to the selected Output Sampling Rate.
It's mainly useful for servers that can't resample, since there's a
plugin for the server that will do the same conversion.

BuddyRich wrote:
> Have you tried M Preview at all and if so does it fix (or break...)
> anything?
No I haven't tried it. I didn't want to wipe my device again.



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[callesoroe]

How do I connect to my dyndns address ???

When I put in my xxxxxxxx.dyndns.org:9000 in server address the app can
not connect.... ?

This Works with squeeze player and iPeng ??



Callesoroe
Living room: Transporter, Tact RCS 2.2X digital preamp, Martin Logan
Vista speakers, AMPS(Icepower): Acoustic Reality Ear Enigma
PLUS(PANELS), Acoustic Reality Ear TWO MKII(Bas)
Kitchen: Transporter, Prodipe Pro 5 active bi-amp speakers. Bedroom:
Receiver+UE boombox, Kids: Receiver+Active speakers, WIMP-HIFI flac
streaming.
http://www.last.fm/user/callesoroe
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[wt0]

callesoroe wrote:
> How do I connect to my dyndns address ???
>
> When I put in my xxxxxxxx.dyndns.org:9000 in server address the app can
> not connect.... ?
>
> This Works with squeeze player and iPeng ??
Remove the port from the address. SB Player does not use port 9000 to
connect. Port 9000 is only for controllers not players.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk



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[callesoroe]

wt0 wrote:
> Remove the port from the address. SB Player does not use port 9000 to
> connect. Port 9000 is only for controllers not players.
>
> Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Thanks Works. I like that replay gain Works on this player..... :)



Callesoroe
Living room: Transporter, Tact RCS 2.2X digital preamp, Martin Logan
Vista speakers, AMPS(Icepower): Acoustic Reality Ear Enigma
PLUS(PANELS), Acoustic Reality Ear TWO MKII(Bas)
Kitchen: Transporter, Prodipe Pro 5 active bi-amp speakers. Bedroom:
Receiver+UE boombox, Kids: Receiver+Active speakers, WIMP-HIFI flac
streaming.
http://www.last.fm/user/callesoroe
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[castalla]

Just bought this for fire tv ..... less than impressed, I'm afraid.
Main gripe is that it won't connect to mysb.com .... neither from yje
app interfce nor from the controller

No idea how to proceed ....


grrrrrrr



Touch - Muse M50 EX TPA3123 T-Amp Mini - Acoustics Q10 speakers
Logitech Radio
Logitech UE Smart Radio
Raspberry Pi + Squeezeplug LMS + Squeezelite
Cubieboard + Debian 7 + LMS 7.8.1 + Squeezelite - Soundwave SW100
bluetooth speaker
O2 Joggler + SqpOS + Aune X2 T-amp + Mordaunt Short ms-3.40 speakers
IBOX + Debian 7 + LMS 7.8.1 + Squeezelite - Soundwave SW100 bluetooth
speaker
UPnPBridge - O2 Joggler - 2 paired Sonos Play1 speakers
Pure One Flow
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[wt0]

castalla wrote:
> Just bought this for fire tv ..... less than impressed, I'm afraid.
> Main gripe is that it won't connect to mysb.com .... neither from the
> app interface nor from the controller
>
> No idea how to proceed ....
>
>
> grrrrrrr

Did you use the MySqueezebox.com item from the "Saved Servers" drop down
or did you just type MySqueezebox.com into the address field?

Is the MySqueezebox.com site working right now for your area?
MySqueezebox.com frequently goes down.



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[castalla]

wt0 wrote:
> Did you use the MySqueezebox.com item from the "Saved Servers" drop down
> or did you just type MySqueezebox.com into the address field?
>
> Is the MySqueezebox.com site working right now for your area?
> MySqueezebox.com frequently goes down.

Used the Saved option.

My Touch connects okay to mysb.com



Touch - Muse M50 EX TPA3123 T-Amp Mini - Acoustics Q10 speakers
Logitech Radio
Logitech UE Smart Radio
Raspberry Pi + Squeezeplug LMS + Squeezelite
Cubieboard + Debian 7 + LMS 7.8.1 + Squeezelite - Soundwave SW100
bluetooth speaker
O2 Joggler + SqpOS + Aune X2 T-amp + Mordaunt Short ms-3.40 speakers
IBOX + Debian 7 + LMS 7.8.1 + Squeezelite - Soundwave SW100 bluetooth
speaker
UPnPBridge - O2 Joggler - 2 paired Sonos Play1 speakers
Pure One Flow
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[pippin]

Oh, which iPeng version is this? Could it be that the SB Player's
connection to the server is not stable? Does it have any special
characters in the player name?

There is a bug in LMS that sometimes makes it send wrongly composed data
and makes iPeng re-read all data because it never gets a complete set.



---
learn more about iPeng, the iPhone and iPad remote for the Squeezebox
and
Logitech UE Smart Radio as well as iPeng Party, the free Party-App,
at penguinlovesmusic.com
*New: iPeng 8, the Universal App for iOS 7 and iOS 8*
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[d6jg]

Latest available iPeng Classic on my iPhone 5s. The server is my stable
live server 7.7.2 on QNAP TS419p. I didn't try it on dev servers.
SB Player was installed and running in two places. Amazon Fire TV as "SB
Player" and Galaxy TAB3 as "SB Player TAB". It was the Fire TV one that
seemed to be the problem but of course it could have been the other
misrepresenting itself.
I don't think the issue lies with iPeng and it isn't a showstopper by
any means. I had been tidying up some tags and needed a full clear and
rescan - it's the sort of thing you do between Christmas and New Year
isn't it?



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser RS 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones
*Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 ->
Wharfedale Modus Cubes
Various iThingys with iPeng & Tablets etc
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[adam2434]

Are there better and simpler hardware alternatives (vs. Fire TV) if SB
audio functionality and digital output quality are the only
requirements?


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[wt0]

adam2434 wrote:
> Are there better and simpler hardware alternatives (vs. Fire TV) if SB
> audio functionality and digital output quality are the only
> requirements?
I think one company still sells a dedicated squeezebox player, basically
a SB receiver. I don't remember the name of the company though and it
was a little pricey.



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[d6jg]

In the UK the Fire TV is c£70. If you add the price of a raspberry Pi,
case, power cable, SD card and a cheap USB DAC eg Behringer UAC 202 it's
about the same. I'd say the Fire is a fair bit superior hardware wise
albeit you can't run LMS on it only SB Player.
The pre built Pi's with DAC are over £100



QNAP TS419P 4TB LMS7.7.2
*Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 connected Digitally - > Celestion
Ditton F20s - and connected Analogue for Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 ->
Sennheiser RS 130
*Office* - SB3 -> Sony TA FE320 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes
*Dining Room* -> SB Boom
*Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio)
*Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones
*Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 ->
Wharfedale Modus Cubes
Various iThingys with iPeng & Tablets etc
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[adam2434]

wt0 wrote:
> I think one company still sells a dedicated squeezebox player, basically
> a SB receiver. I don't remember the name of the company though and it
> was a little pricey.

I know about this one, but no digital output.

http://www.vidabox.com/opensqueeze-replacement-squeezebox-alternative-multi-room-zone-music-hardware-audio-players/opensqueeze-solo-music-player.html


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[poing]

Since the latest update, the app doesn't work anymore on my fire TV. It
doesn't connect to LMS anymore.

When I hit 'connect', I get the following:

High-bandwidth mode
Connected to serverfoo
Command stream error
Reconnecting...


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[wt0]

poing wrote:
> Since the latest update, the app doesn't work anymore on my fire TV. It
> doesn't connect to LMS anymore.
>
> When I hit 'connect', I get the following:
>
> High-bandwidth mode
> Connected to serverfoo
> Command stream error
> Reconnecting...

I don't have a FireTV, but I tested the 'FireTV' version on a tablet and
connected successfully to both a LMS server running v7.8 and one running
v7.7.3. Is your FireTV connected with Wifi or Ethernet? Which server
version are you running?



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[poing]

The Fire TV is hooked up via the Ethernet port of a Powerline adapter.
Other devices (e.g., a RPi running squeezelite) connect just fine to my
LMS via the same adapter.

My LMS is 7.7.3. I don't recall changing anything in the config of
either LMS, or the Fire TV, or SB Player. (Well, maybe one thing that
changed is that I didnn't renew my Prime membership so the Fire TV
cannot use Prime anymore. But that shouldn't be of relevance I would
think.)

Other apps on the Fire TV (e.g., Kodi) run just fine and access files
from the same server that's running LMS (a Synology NAS) without any
problems.


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[wt0]

poing wrote:
> Thanks for the quick reply!
>
> The Fire TV is hooked up via the Ethernet port of a Powerline adapter.
> Other devices (e.g., a RPi running squeezelite) connect just fine to my
> LMS via the same adapter.
>
> My LMS is 7.7.3. I don't recall changing anything in the config of
> either LMS, or the Fire TV, or SB Player. (Well, maybe one thing that
> changed is that I didnn't renew my Prime membership so the Fire TV
> cannot use Prime anymore. But that shouldn't be of relevance I would
> think.)
>
> Other apps on the Fire TV (e.g., Kodi) run just fine and access files
> from the same server that's running LMS (a Synology NAS) without any
> problems.
>
> EDIT: And, of course, SB Player used to work on this Fire TV box. Last
> time I used it successfully was maybe two or three weeks ago.

Did you try uninstalling and re-installing SB Player? The changes
between the previous version and the current version is just about what
happens when the connection breaks and the player has to reconnect. It
shouldn't affect the actual connection itself.



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[poing]

wt0 wrote:
> Did you try uninstalling and re-installing SB Player?
I just re-installed and the problem is indeed resolved. I'm grateful for
your quick support. Thanks again!


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