New member want to say hi and ask some advice

[HackitZ]

Hi all,

 

I'm new to the forum and am looking for some advice and guidance. Let me first explain what i have.

I have a headless server running omv, all my music is in a folder on this computer and the whole family has access to it and can play the music on there computers. I also have subsonic on my server and this allows us to play our music away from home and on our android phones. My music library is about 15 years old and is quit large. many years of adding music.

 

What I'm looking to do is, have my music play through a receiver. I also want to be able to control the music from an app on a phone or tablet while i'm outside.

 

I'm not a fan of apple or itunes, so i'm looking for an android app to control my music.

 

If i'm missing info or it's unclear what i'm trying to do feel free to ask me to explain better.

 

Thanks

[blownsi]

Hi all,

 

I'm new to the forum and am looking for some advice and guidance. Let me first explain what i have.

I have a headless server running omv, all my music is in a folder on this computer and the whole family has access to it and can play the music on there computers. I also have subsonic on my server and this allows us to play our music away from home and on our android phones. My music library is about 15 years old and is quit large. many years of adding music.

 

What I'm looking to do is, have my music play through a receiver. I also want to be able to control the music from an app on a phone or tablet while i'm outside.

 

I'm not a fan of apple or itunes, so i'm looking for an android app to control my music.

 

If i'm missing info or it's unclear what i'm trying to do feel free to ask me to explain better.

 

Thanks

 

I am not familiar with OMV but why can't you use a remote desktop program from your android? The only other thing I can recommend is that J River and the Jremote app are wonderful but they are not free.

[iago]

What I'm looking to do is, have my music play through a receiver. I also want to be able to control the music from an app on a phone or tablet while i'm outside.

 

Do you want to play directly from your OpenMediaVault server, or are you planning to place a player between NAS and receiver? For OMV you could get a music player demon (mpd) plugin. A nice Android app exists also.

 

Outside means outside of your home network's reach, over a WAN?

[davide256]

1. For security reasons you should not leave your home network open to access from the Internet unless you

are firewall savvy and managing for intrusion

2. Assuming you have wifi and just want music controlled on your home network and played to outside speakers,

your Subsonic server solution says its DLNA compatible.

 

You should be able to use a standard app like Bubble UPNP to remote control playing music. If you are trying to remote control outputs,

(room 1, room2, etc) you can only do this with an off the shelf program if you have selectable streamers in each room. Otherwise if you have one multi room DVR

with selectable output by room you would have to use the proprietary remote for the DVR.

[HackitZ]

I am not familiar with OMV but why can't you use a remote desktop program from your android? The only other thing I can recommend is that J River and the Jremote app are wonderful but they are not free.

 

I will look into J River, thanks

 

Do you want to play directly from your OpenMediaVault server, or are you planning to place a player between NAS and receiver? For OMV you could get a music player demon (mpd) plugin. A nice Android app exists also.

 

Outside means outside of your home network's reach, over a WAN?

 

I have the music player demon plugin installed.

I would like to play from my server, but if building a music server would benefit me i would build one.

Looking to play in my home network only, playing over wan is not what i really need or want.

 

1. For security reasons you should not leave your home network open to access from the Internet unless you

are firewall savvy and managing for intrusion

2. Assuming you have wifi and just want music controlled on your home network and played to outside speakers,

your Subsonic server solution says its DLNA compatible.

 

You should be able to use a standard app like Bubble UPNP to remote control playing music. If you are trying to remote control outputs,

(room 1, room2, etc) you can only do this with an off the shelf program if you have selectable streamers in each room. Otherwise if you have one multi room DVR

with selectable output by room you would have to use the proprietary remote for the DVR.

 

I'm only looking to stream my music over my home network.

 

Let my first say thanks for the replies.

 

So as i read through the replies i see it's my lack of understanding that is causing my confusion.

Let me explain, I don't get how i need to have it all set up. Music is on a server, music needs to pass through a receiver, phone or tablet (both) need to control the music.

So how does my or any receiver connect to the computer?

As for controlling the music, i guess I'm more looking at what most people are using and provide the same functionality as itunes would.

thanks

[iago]

Let me explain, I don't get how i need to have it all set up. Music is on a server, music needs to pass through a receiver, phone or tablet (both) need to control the music.

So how does my or any receiver connect to the computer?

As for controlling the music, i guess I'm more looking at what most people are using and provide the same functionality as itunes would.

 

Ah, the missing link. You would use a DAC between computer and the rest of your audio system. A DAC can be either stand-alone, connected via analogue interconnects to an analogue input on the receiver, or built into the receiver, which would then have digital inputs (S/PDIF, USB, Ethernet). Connection on the computer side would be via USB or Ethernet. [1][2]

 

The easiest option for you would to be to connect a DAC (or receiver with digital inputs) to the OMV server and play music through the MPD plug-in. You would control playback from your Android phone or tablet. [3]

 

This would not give you an iTunes-like behaviour. For this you need a computer (same setup that your family seems to use at the moment). On this you would run for example JRiver as remarked by blownsi, reading music from your OMV server and playing into a DAC. You could control playback either on the computer or remote via app on your phone or tablet. [4]

 

Since you already have part of the infrastructure in place, I would start with the OMV -> MPD -> DAC setup, you can easily change it if you don't like user experience. JRiver's user interface is more sophisticated than what you can get via MPD.

 

[1] More options exist, it would digress from the topic to list them.

[2] If you use Ethernet, you would probably use a streaming protocol, for example DLNA or something that Subsonic or MPD (in streaming mode) could output.

[3] Not feasible if the OMV server is too far away from the receiver.

[4] Something like this is what the majority of people that I know are using: music on NAS or DAS (direct attached storage), music server for playback.

[HackitZ]

Ah, the missing link. You would use a DAC between computer and the rest of your audio system. A DAC can be either stand-alone, connected via analogue interconnects to an analogue input on the receiver, or built into the receiver, which would then have digital inputs (S/PDIF, USB, Ethernet). Connection on the computer side would be via USB or Ethernet. [1][2]

 

The easiest option for you would to be to connect a DAC (or receiver with digital inputs) to the OMV server and play music through the MPD plug-in. You would control playback from your Android phone or tablet. [3]

 

This would not give you an iTunes-like behaviour. For this you need a computer (same setup that your family seems to use at the moment). On this you would run for example JRiver as remarked by blownsi, reading music from your OMV server and playing into a DAC. You could control playback either on the computer or remote via app on your phone or tablet. [4]

 

Since you already have part of the infrastructure in place, I would start with the OMV -> MPD -> DAC setup, you can easily change it if you don't like user experience. JRiver's user interface is more sophisticated than what you can get via MPD.

 

[1] More options exist, it would digress from the topic to list them.

[2] If you use Ethernet, you would probably use a streaming protocol, for example DLNA or something that Subsonic or MPD (in streaming mode) could output.

[3] Not feasible if the OMV server is too far away from the receiver.

[4] Something like this is what the majority of people that I know are using: music on NAS or DAS (direct attached storage), music server for playback.

 

Thanks for the informative reply, i'm now starting to visualize what is involved.

As i have moved my music library around over the years, i'm now thinking i'm going to look into a stand alone music server (computer/nas).

 

as for now I'm going to order a DAC and see how it sounds.

[anwaypasible]

maybe a stupid question, but can you browse the music files on the phone app or is it play|pause , skip , stop , and maybe volume only?

 

i don't have any experience with it, and i don't own a smartphone either.

i'm simply wondering what aspect people are getting when they use their phone as a remote.

[HackitZ]

maybe a stupid question, but can you browse the music files on the phone app or is it play|pause , skip , stop , and maybe volume only?

 

i don't have any experience with it, and i don't own a smartphone either.

i'm simply wondering what aspect people are getting when they use their phone as a remote.

 

 

You can browse music with different apps, local or shared. some show covers and lyrics, bio's and so on. each app has it's own abilities, too many to list.

[tmtjalai]

Here is an interesting question, I am also looking for a solution like you, I can use the application on any or apple adroid, hoping that the share of these you will help me.

[Audio_ELF]

What I'm looking to do is, have my music play through a receiver. I also want to be able to control the music from an app on a phone or tablet while i'm outside.

Is this a receiver you already have? or something you are looking to buy? If you are looking to buy do you have a budget in mind?

 

Do you have any audio equipment already?

[HackitZ]

Hi everyone, i have been busy with life and kids and have not had a chance to ask another question. but here i am asking another question.

Ok I have a fairly new HTPC with an i3 chip. if i were to convert that to a music server what hardware would you recomend to add? pci dac? sound card?

also what would you run windows? linux?

Thanks