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Topic: Chromecast Audio (Read 63276 times) previous topic - next topic
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Chromecast Audio

Reply #75
One should note that generally, new features such as multi-room audio are available exclusively on Google devices. It seems third-party hardware such as as LG Music Flow is lagging really far behind (not just in terms of features, many people are also complaining about buggy firmware).

But yeah, we're getting there. Give us gapless playback and I might be getting a few of those just for kicks.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #76
I'll have to try out the multiroom functionality when I get home, it's the big feature I'm really looking forward to using.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #77
If I was Sonos, I'd be a little worried right now.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #78
I've been playing around with the multi-room feature for a couple of hours now, and it seems to work really well. The only snag I hit was that I had to reboot my phone before the "Create group" option showed up in the app's dropdown menu for each device. When the group is created you can just stream to it like you would to a specific device. There's also a new option to add delay to the signal going to each Chromecast if the sound isn't completely in sync.

It also seems to be quite robust, if you switch off one Chromecast, the stream obviously continues on the other devices. When the disconnected Chromecast starts up again, it'll rejoin the group stream by itself.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #79
Yep, this makes the 2x$55 offer Google is currently running that much more enticing. Luckily I took advantage  of the 2x$50 offer they put out on Thanksgiving weekend.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #80
After doing a bunch of reading on Google Play I'm getting the impression that it won't play anything that it hasn't already uploaded.

"Local" appears to mean it downloads it again. I was hoping for a truly local play with no intervening upload/compression/download cycle.

Am I missing something?


A couple of ways to do this:

1. Stream from your phone locally.  I have the Android app Shuttle installed and Shuttle will stream any local file on the phone to Chomecast Audio.

2. Stream from a Subsonic/Ampache server. I have a Subsonic server running at home and D-sub on my phone.  Each connection to the Subsonic server makes a new "player" on the server.  Dsub makes a player called DsubCC.  I went into the properties for that player and turned off all transcoding.  Now when I tell Dsub to cast something, it simply streams the FLAC to the Chromecast audio.

I used the Chromecast audio all day today with my subsonic server with zero issues, once I turned transcoding off.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #81
Similarly, my NAS functions as a DLNA server, and I can play back music on my Chromecasts using BubbleUPNP on my phone. It's 100% local, no internet connection needed.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #82
You can also use Plex to do it, but I think Plex is going to transcode.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #83
This works well playing FLAC fiules from my Synology NAS but does not do gapless so is useless to me.
I have two other devices playing from the same Synology source / streamer. One an Onkyo mini system will not play gapless and Onkyo have stated that they do not plan to update the software to allow gapless, their newer kit apparently does. My second (main) player is a Yamaha CDN 500 which does gapless and does most of what I need other than not being able to seek (FF and Rew) within track.

Maybe Google will upgrade their firmware to allow gapless in future?

Ian

Chromecast Audio

Reply #84
This works well playing FLAC fiules from my Synology NAS but does not do gapless so is useless to me.
I have two other devices playing from the same Synology source / streamer. One an Onkyo mini system will not play gapless and Onkyo have stated that they do not plan to update the software to allow gapless, their newer kit apparently does. My second (main) player is a Yamaha CDN 500 which does gapless and does most of what I need other than not being able to seek (FF and Rew) within track.

Maybe Google will upgrade their firmware to allow gapless in future?

Ian


Wouldn't  you need a buffer on the device to do gapless?

Chromecast Audio

Reply #85
Similarly, my NAS functions as a DLNA server, and I can play back music on my Chromecasts using BubbleUPNP on my phone. It's 100% local, no internet connection needed.

I can't confirm that. I don't have a CC Audio, but when I block my CC device from accessing the internet (via my router's settings), I can't get playback to start.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #86
Similarly, my NAS functions as a DLNA server, and I can play back music on my Chromecasts using BubbleUPNP on my phone. It's 100% local, no internet connection needed.

I can't confirm that. I don't have a CC Audio, but when I block my CC device from accessing the internet (via my router's settings), I can't get playback to start.


Which apps are you using? Obviously anything streaming needs direct Internet access for the Chromecast, but I've used my CC Audio for purely local playback before, with no internet connection.

Chromecast Audio

Reply #87
Which apps are you using? Obviously anything streaming needs direct Internet access for the Chromecast, but I've used my CC Audio for purely local playback before, with no internet connection.

You're right, I was wrong. The app I tested with doesn't do purely local streaming.

Re: Chromecast Audio

Reply #88
Just an update, I got one for Christmas. ;D

I've been using it as a MediaRenderer with BubbleUPnP on Android as the ControlPoint and foo_upnp on an old laptop as the MediaServer. The combination works pretty well. I've enabled ReplayGain post-processing on the server side and it actually works - the decoded stream gets broadcast as a WAV and Chromecast handles it with no issues.

However, it is not gapless. If anyone can figure out how to get gapless working it would be a Christmas miracle!

Re: Chromecast Audio

Reply #89
I don't think there's anything we can do, it's a limitation in the Google Cast protocol, as far as I'm aware.

Re: Chromecast Audio

Reply #90
Just a heads up for people in the US, I think some in this thread might be interested. Google has an offer right now for Android Pay until the end of Feb., if you use it 10 times (contactless payment) you get a Chromecast (video), and for the 1st, 2nd and 6th taps you get a free song from Google Play Music. To use Android Pay though you need a new-ish phone with NFC and the app or course, and your bank has to support it, which I think most of the major banks do, except notably Chase. Right now there are not many stores that accept contactless payments though, but some major ones like McDonalds, Rite Aid and Walgreens do. You can check a contactless-ready store list here http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/where-to-use-apple-pay/


 

Re: Chromecast Audio

Reply #92
There are a couple of car adapters that have been announced at CES, which if pretty much the same electronics were put in a home-friendly form factor, could replace the Chromecast Audio and add Asssistant functionality to boot. Amazon already sells a device like that, but you've gotta be into the Alexa ecosystem, and I don't think you can Google Cast to it. Also I'm gonna go on a limb here and predict that Google is not going to give these car Assistant adapters the ability to multi-room, so hopefully instead of having to modify one of these for home use, Google comes up with a proper Home product with an aux output.