[mythtv-users] streaming music to MythFE

[Nicolas Krzywinski]

> Message: 22
> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 14:18:09 -0400
> From: "Brian J. Murrell" <brian at interlinx.bc.ca>
> To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] streaming music to MythFE
> Message-ID: <1406053089.21242.23.camel at pc.interlinx.bc.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>> as MythFE does not provide upnp renderer functionality, I simply  
>> installed rygel with plugin rygel-playbin on my Mythbuntu box.
>
> I suspect XBMC is a UPnP renderer also, so this starts to become another
> "why XBMC vs. MythFE" use-case.
Generally yes, but for me personally this has no effect towards XBMC  
as I am really satisfied with MythFE.

> I did try music with MythFE's Airplay support but that didn't seem to
> work either.  I could get video over Airplay but not just audio.
Due to problems with the Airplay feature, I disabled it long time ago.  
Good to know that it did not helped here.

>> Then you can play on this upnp renderer via any upnp controller,  
>> using an upnp server as media source.
> Or local media also.
Technically super-correct is, that the media source for an upnp  
renderer always has to be an upnp server - but most upnp mobile apps  
provide local media via an integrated upnp server, so yes: local media  
also :-)

>>  For the latter you can use Myth (FE or BE? not sure, both on same  
>> machine...), as it acts as upnp server.
>
> But why would I want to rather than just accessing that BE directly from
> the FE?
This I mentioned just for completeness. On my lan I have a different  
upnp server from which I consume media. But the possibility exists to  
use the myth upnp server to play music as well. The advantage  
comparing the FE music functionality is the usability - this is at  
least my personal opinion that using a big music library with MythFE  
is really really fiddly. There is an additional theming related glitch  
which displays the selection boxes over the first one or two  
characters in mythmusic... so all in all I use only predefined  
playlists I composed via MythWeb there.
Android upnp apps are really comfortable here, especially for the use  
case: I wanna hear THIS song NOW! :D

>> Currently I am still unsure whether to proceed UPnP Monkey on  
>> android as upnp controller as it is not perfect ... but it works.
> Yeah.  Ideally I want to use whatever Android music app I would normally
> use to listen to otherwise (i.e. with headphones or the speaker or
> bluetooth, etc.) but it seems that general integration between audio
> (i.e. music) apps and streaming (with UPnP or otherwise) in Android is
> not quite there and not enough audio apps support "share" to send
> through whatever *casting software you want to use.  There seem to be
> solutions if you can/want to root your device though, to route any audio
> through a *cast.
YES! This is my favorite missing feature regarding UPnP!

> Maybe a Bluetooth dongle and sink is the better way to go.
>
>> Conflicting behaviour of using the audio output on my myth box is  
>> interesting:
>> 1) start music via upnp -> mythbox starts to play
>> 2) start tv via MythFE -> mythbox stops music and plays the television audio
>> 3) stop tv via MythFE -> mythbo stops television and proceeds  
>> playing the music
>
> What's "mythbox" in this context.  It seems to be different from what
> you are referring to as your "MythFE".
I referred mythbox as the machine on which I have running both: MythFE  
and MythBE, including the recently installed Rygel UPnP renderer.

The installation of rygel btw. was really quick and easy! There was a  
little research necessary for using the rygel-playbin plugin properly,  
but one can find complete configs for this as well.
I really can recommend to try this out! :)

Cheers,
Nicolas