raspberry pi 2 as media player

[sam9s]

I have Moode loaded on Pi2 and an external HDD attached to it. So the music gets loaded to Moode. Then through wifi, the Cambridge Connect App reads Moode and its content. Then the selected content on the app is thrown to the AVR for playback.

Is there any other way to do this?

THis is not the way I do it. Well first because all my music is stored on NAS and not on any external HDD. My moode is not reading any music, it only acts as UPnP/Airplay renderer ...... Pi is connected to my DAC and AMP and then speakers. I just push music from my mobile/laptop/tab using UPnP/Airplay that reads music from NAS and push it to Rpi that plays it to my speakers via my DAC and AMP.

This setup has been a God send for me, I have not faced a single issue with this setup. Yes maybe once in a 2-3 months I need to restart Rpi, but apart from that its always on and works like a charm.

One thing also need to be noted is that the latest version of Moode did not work well for me, so I shifted back to my original version I was using and all was back to good ....

 

[terrible]

THis is not the way I do it. Well first because all my music is stored on NAS and not on any external HDD. My moode is not reading any music, it only acts as UPnP/Airplay renderer ...... Pi is connected to my DAC and AMP and then speakers. I just push music from my mobile/laptop/tab using UPnP/Airplay that reads music from NAS and push it to Rpi that plays it to my speakers via my DAC and AMP.

This setup has been a God send for me, I have not faced a single issue with this setup. Yes maybe once in a 2-3 months I need to restart Rpi, but apart from that its always on and works like a charm.

One thing also need to be noted is that the latest version of Moode did not work well for me, so I shifted back to my original version I was using and all was back to good ....

Though I do not have an external DAC and hence my Pi is not connected through wires to my amp, I am curious how you push music wirelessly to Moode. I imagine, your laptop and/or mobile read the music on NAS wirelessly, then in turn, wirelessly throw the same music to Moode in your Pi. Is that correct?

 

[sam9s]

Though I do not have an external DAC and hence my Pi is not connected through wires to my amp, I am curious how you push music wirelessly to Moode. I imagine, your laptop and/or mobile read the music on NAS wirelessly, then in turn, wirelessly throw the same music to Moode in your Pi. Is that correct?

Even if you do not have DAc you can still connect your pi to amp. But since the 3.5 mm jack is not a good sound output it is always preferred to have a USB DAC connected to the USB port of pi and then connected to AMP which in turn are connected to the speakers. Now coming to how the thing works. For that you need to understand how u p NP protocol works. UPnP has three components to work with, first is UPnP server. second is UPnP renderer and third is the UPnP control point. UPP server acts as a place that stores the music any media server can act as UPNP server. U p NP server reads the music and makes it available for the upnp controll point to pass the data to the renderer. Control point Can be your mobile, tablet with an app to actually read the data from the u p NP server and then play it on to the renderer. Upnp renderer is actually the player that actually plays the song connected to the amp and speakers. In my example my synology server acts as upnp server which stores all the music. My mobile running an app called bubble upnp acts as a controller that would read the music from the server and then push it to the raspberry pi. Raspberry Pi is acting as a upnp renderer. All the three components the server, the controller and renderer should be on the same home LAN network. And all the three can communicate with each other over WiFi. The only physical connection the needs to be done is the Raspberry DAC which in turn will be connected to the amplifier and the speakers. When you run bubble upnp app on your mobile you can choose the upnp server which is sonology my case and then you can also choose the renderer which is moode on Raspberry Pi. Once that is done any song you play from your NAS via your bubble upnp application on your mobile will now run on mood Raspberry Pi which is connected to your speakers

Hope this gyan made few things clear

Regards
Sammy

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

[zendya]

Anyone looking for HiFiBerry Digi+/Dac+/cases - there is a 20% discount only for today (Nov/25) (on select boards/cases).

You need to enter the discount code HiFiBerry_black on checkout.

Details at -

https://www.hifiberry.com/blog/20-on-selected-hifiberry-boards-and-all-matching-cases

 

[zendya]

Btw, I ordered Digi+ transformer version just a week back - did not think that Swiss based company will have a Black Friday sale :sad:

 

[saikatbiswas82]

Just upgraded to lpsu for rpi. Things are going good.

Sent from a handheld device. Some typos may creep in

 

[zendya]

One thing also need to be noted is that the latest version of Moode did not work well for me, so I shifted back to my original version I was using and all was back to good ....

Hi Sam - Can you please tell me which Moode version are you using? I installed Moode 3.1 on Rpi but noticing a few issues such as some MP3s not playing; sometimes it shows as playing in 'playback' tab but I don't hear anything and that happens intermittently. Wondering if it is related to latest version of Moode and wanted to try with the version that have found to be stable. Thanks.

 

[hydra]

Zendya, I installed Moode 3.1 last weekend, and all is fine. I'm playing FLAC, though.

Do you have a Hifiberry Digi+ or any other HAT unit on the Pi? I think v3.1 is far less forgiving about a selection of the wrong output hardware. I have a Hifiberry Digi+, but before, on v2.7, it used to work even if I selected "Digi+" (which is actually an IQAudio unit with a different chip). But this time (v3.1) it did not work. I selected "Hifiberry Digi+" to make it work after I discovered the mistake.

I also had issues with the RPi not initiating playback right after I installed v3.1. I had to restart the Pi before it started working. To clarify further, I have the Advanced Kernel selected, and I had to restart the Pi once after I selected it to get it set, restart MPD, and then restart the Pi once more to get everything working. After that everything worked perfectly.

 

[sam9s]

Hi Sam - Can you please tell me which Moode version are you using? I installed Moode 3.1 on Rpi but noticing a few issues such as some MP3s not playing; sometimes it shows as playing in 'playback' tab but I don't hear anything and that happens intermittently. Wondering if it is related to latest version of Moode and wanted to try with the version that have found to be stable. Thanks.

Even I had issues with 3.1, I shifted back to 2.3 (which is what I am using) and all was good again, maybe the next upgrade will work better, but for now I am sticking with 2.3

 

[zendya]

Zendya, I installed Moode 3.1 last weekend, and all is fine. I'm playing FLAC, though.

Do you have a Hifiberry Digi+ or any other HAT unit on the Pi? I think v3.1 is far less forgiving about a selection of the wrong output hardware. I have a Hifiberry Digi+, but before, on v2.7, it used to work even if I selected "Digi+" (which is actually an IQAudio unit with a different chip). But this time (v3.1) it did not work. I selected "Hifiberry Digi+" to make it work after I discovered the mistake.

I also had issues with the RPi not initiating playback right after I installed v3.1. I had to restart the Pi before it started working. To clarify further, I have the Advanced Kernel selected, and I had to restart the Pi once after I selected it to get it set, restart MPD, and then restart the Pi once more to get everything working. After that everything worked perfectly.

Yes, I recently received HiFiBerry Digi+ (transformer version) and have configured it. In Moode -> Audio Configuration, I selected "HiFiBerry Digi (Digi+)" as the i2s device. Incidentally, the /boot/config.txt is showing "dtoverlay=hifiberry-digi" (not digi+) - not sure why. Since I did not hand-edit that, I assume that is ok.

I too had some playback issues right after I installed Moode. Somehow the playback worked ok after 1-2 reboots. It is not that it is not working at all now - but some intermittent un-responsiveness and no playback once in a while. So trying to eliminate a possibility in case this is due to something specific to 3.1 version.

I have not explored what Advanced-Kernel does - so have not selected that yet.

- Pramod

 

[zendya]

Even I had issues with 3.1, I shifted back to 2.3 (which is what I am using) and all was good again, maybe the next upgrade will work better, but for now I am sticking with 2.3

Thanks. Did a quick search - don't see v2.3 available for download. But found v2.7 on sourgeForge. Will obviously miss some fixes that are available in later releases but will give it a shot with 2.7 later tonight/tomorrow and see how that behaves.

 

[seal]

Hi,

Recently bought RPI3 with Hifiberry Digi+ and installed Moode 3.1 . RPI3 works fine without the Digi+ installed , but with Digi+ the moode doesn't boot. The green LED on the Digi+ lights up but I cant see the red light through the optical cable.

I am using a 2 amp USB charger from Samsung . Do I need atleast 3 amp charger. Or is it possible that Digi+ board is faulty. Can anybody from Kolkata help me to identify the problem.

Thanks in advance

Regards

Ajit

 

[terrible]

So finally fed up of Raspberry Pi, I plugged in my external HDD with music into the Netgear router. Reproduction is exactly the same as Rpi. I seemed to have wasted money and time on this. Now with Roku Ultra coming in, I'll plug in my numerous HDDs into it for movies.

 

[sam9s]

So finally fed up of Raspberry Pi, I plugged in my external HDD with music into the Netgear router. Reproduction is exactly the same as Rpi. I seemed to have wasted money and time on this. Now with Roku Ultra coming in, I'll plug in my numerous HDDs into it for movies.

YOu must have had wrong expectations with Pi, I am sure else, Rpi for what is it is an amazing piece of hardware. You just need to know what to expect and also how to set it up, sometimes it Rpi can be a bit finicky specially Rpi 3, when it comes to running an image.

About Roku Ultra, read my post that I have replied to you on the other thread about the same.

 

[drkrack]

So finally fed up of Raspberry Pi, I plugged in my external HDD with music into the Netgear router. Reproduction is exactly the same as Rpi. I seemed to have wasted money and time on this. Now with Roku Ultra coming in, I'll plug in my numerous HDDs into it for movies.

Even I felt Rpi seriously lacking while playing 1080p content from NAS. But even the amlogic 902 Android TV had similar shortcomings. Currently I've got hifi berry standard DAC attached to it with Runeaudio and it plays audio content superbly well. Even audio from NAS is played pretty well effortlessly. Its a great device for building a low cost music server and player (after adding hifi berry DAC) but for movies it leaves lot to be desired. Nevertheless its a great bit of hardware for DIY guys.

Looking forward to Roku ultra as well, let's see

 

[tuff]

So finally fed up of Raspberry Pi, I plugged in my external HDD with music into the Netgear router. Reproduction is exactly the same as Rpi. I seemed to have wasted money and time on this. Now with Roku Ultra coming in, I'll plug in my numerous HDDs into it for movies.

Which router do you have if you dont mind.

 

[sam9s]

Even I felt Rpi seriously lacking while playing 1080p content from NAS. But even the amlogic 902 Android TV had similar shortcomings. Currently I've got hifi berry standard DAC attached to it with Runeaudio and it plays audio content superbly well. Even audio from NAS is played pretty well effortlessly. Its a great device for building a low cost music server and player (after adding hifi berry DAC) but for movies it leaves lot to be desired. Nevertheless its a great bit of hardware for DIY guys.

Looking forward to Roku ultra as well, let's see

Rpi 2 and 3 both plays 1080p mkv content flawlessly. With a bitrate of 7 to 10 mbps easily tried and tested. There are loads of utube videos showcasing the same. If you are not able to play even that then ur network is choked for some reason, or there is some other issue to look for. I run a plex home theater on rpi3 as a portable carry home theater in my bag to play content from my plex server when traveling and it performs flawlessly without even one hiccup. So if anyone is not able to get video play back then reason might be something else not Rpi 2 or 3 in itself.

Sent from my Moto G (4) Plus using Tapatalk

 

[terrible]

YOu must have had wrong expectations with Pi, I am sure else, Rpi for what is it is an amazing piece of hardware. You just need to know what to expect and also how to set it up, sometimes it Rpi can be a bit finicky specially Rpi 3, when it comes to running an image.

About Roku Ultra, read my post that I have replied to you on the other thread about the same.

Actually I have a very simple uncomplicated expectation from Rpi, to wirelessly throw music to my amp. I changed image, OS... the works but it operates whimsically. Sometimes I can't catch it on the CA app sometimes I do. This seems sorted when I connected the HDD to the router directly. In fact, I find that the sound gets better when I use JRiver on MacOS to throw songs wirelessly to the amp.

I read your post on Roku, and responded to it too.

Even I felt Rpi seriously lacking while playing 1080p content from NAS. But even the amlogic 902 Android TV had similar shortcomings. Currently I've got hifi berry standard DAC attached to it with Runeaudio and it plays audio content superbly well. Even audio from NAS is played pretty well effortlessly. Its a great device for building a low cost music server and player (after adding hifi berry DAC) but for movies it leaves lot to be desired. Nevertheless its a great bit of hardware for DIY guys.

Looking forward to Roku ultra as well, let's see

I have had no issues playing movies through RPI via HDMI. But I use Bootcamp on my Mac as HTPC to play movies. The combine of madVR and LAV Filters through MPC-HC I find produces much better pq.

Which router do you have if you dont mind.

Netgear R8000 (AC 3200 I think!)

 

[drkrack]

Rpi 2 and 3 both plays 1080p mkv content flawlessly. With a bitrate of 7 to 10 mbps easily tried and tested. There are loads of utube videos showcasing the same. If you are not able to play even that then ur network is choked for some reason, or there is some other issue to look for. I run a plex home theater on rpi3 as a portable carry home theater in my bag to play content from my plex server when traveling and it performs flawlessly without even one hiccup. So if anyone is not able to get video play back then reason might be something else not Rpi 2 or 3 in itself.

Sent from my Moto G (4) Plus using Tapatalk

I did not make myself clear I think, I am able to play 1080p with my earlier rpi2 and now Rpi 3. But it lags a lot, especially the loading times are pretty bad. If its more than 15gb dts movie the delay is bothersome. Occasionally it freezes and needs to be restarted. I've tried most of the options of Rpi2 images. Overall the experience is just satisfactory not great.

I currently play with my network bluray player or Xbox 360 with plex which are quite responsive and the overall quality is much better with Xbox 360 over anything else.

BTW, I'm very happy with Rpi 3 +hifi berry DAC as music server and player currently, which it does awesome job. Apple airplay works flawlessly too.

 

[regeHA]

The Pi is a wonderful device, and knocks the socks off of any hard drive plugged into an AVR or router being a full-blown Linux operating system. Folks just need to know what they're getting into and be prepared for some coding even if it means following guides on Google or YouTube.

I'm running 3 servers, a proper Synology setup, OMV, and a couple of Raspberry Pi's. I don't feel the Pi lacks in any way other than gigabit ethernet, but hey even the Roku is limited to fast ethernet if it comes to that and most routers (even the smart ones) still run on USB 2.0.