MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

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rvonder
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MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by rvonder »

Hi -
Having been a very long-time MMW (Gold) user and advocate, I was very excited to finally see MMA for my Android phone and tablets. However (and please correct me if I'm wrong), MMA appears to be primarily a very flexible tool to sync content from the PC to Android via MMW - in other words, to download entire tracks to the Android's local storage so they can later be played without an Internet connection. Is that a reasonable description? Although it also offers DLNA streaming connectivity, that functionality is really limited by DLNA itself and can't/doesn't offer much of MM's huge potential added value.

If so, I guess I'm a bit disappointed: What I have really been seeking for years now is a solid (read: flexible, fast, powerful) way to access my entire PC-based music collection from Android, and to instantly stream and listen to whatever I select. Ideally, I'd also like the option of rendering that stream on either the local Android client and/or a different remote rendering device. Personally, I have zero interest in syncing entire tracks to my phone -- that's what my 120 GB iPod is for.

I've tried every solution I can find over the last few years, but most Android products seem at their core to be just generic DLNA clients. Some are better; some worse - but frankly, the more I use DLNA the more painfully aware I become of its bugs and limitations. I've tried a number of different DLNA servers, running on both on my PC my NAS; accessed by a number of DLNA clients including a Sony SMP-N200 Media Player, my new Panasonic Viera TC-P65VT50 plasma TV, and all the available DLNA clients for Android. I've also tried Web/server-based solutions like Plex, Subsonic, etc. So far, not a single combination has really worked satisfactorily. None of them seem able to handle extremely large music libraries (MMW says my collection currently includes 104,400 tracks spanning 568 MB), or provide anything even close to the kind of flexibility I've always enjoyed with MM Windows needed to easily find and access things (for example, it's totally useless trying to scroll through thousands of artists or albums with interfaces that scroll only one line at a time!) Also, since DLNA is designed for local LANs, real hacks are needed by products that attempt to offer outside internet access to an internal DLNA server.

To me, the perfect MM Android product would let me select a MMW sync server (just as it does now). But instead of syncing content, I'd like to sync just a local copy of my complete MM library into a local Android SQLite database. The user interface to that local library could be similar to what you've already done in MMA, with a goal of delivering as much of the search & access flexibility of MMW as possible but redesigned to leverage an Android Holo-style touch interface. Because the entire library (not content) would be in a local database, MMA should be blindingly fast at finding what I want, including local app support for things like different views (standard, Classical, etc.), first-letter positioning and thumb-scrolling within long lists, dynamic creation of auto-playlists based on criteria, etc. Once I select content, I could choose to stream it to my device (preferably with some standard protocol that does NOT rely on DLNA); route that stream to a different rendering device via uPnP/DLNA, which seems to work ok for that limited purpose; or actually download the selected content to the local device as MMA does now.

It just seems like you've already done so much of the 'heavy lifting' in creating an MMA app - stuff like finding/connecting/syncing with a MMW server, a decent local player interface, etc. And you also have the real 'crown jewels' to work with, which include the SQL-based MM database catalog on Windows plus the design and functionality of the MM client that you've refined over so many years. I'd just love to see you go just a little further by leveraging all of these to offer the ultimate streaming music client (maybe you could name it "MM Nirvana" instead of just MMA? :D ). After trying everything else, I've never found anything that would even come close to this. And as a software marketer myself, I think this kind of Android product could serve as a 'trojan horse' to drive many more sales of MMW Gold, which should be required as a server (MMA itself could even be free, because the real value and revenue potential comes from the MMW server).

My sincere apologies if I'm missing something and any of this is already possible or at least planned. And please don't interpret this as criticism of what you've already done with MMA... I'd only like to see it leverage all of your MM technology to deliver by far the best mobile client in the market, just as MM has always been on Windows!

Thanks, Rob
rovingcowboy
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by rovingcowboy »

Remember mma is still in beta testing and i believe most of the streaming is planed for but they are working on first bugs in mma yet, try streaming when you do that with mma you get some results so go in to options on mma and scroll down to debug reports. and press it to send in report of your issue they will have data to work with that way and not have to try and guess what is needing done to get it working. :)
roving cowboy / keith hall. My skins http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=16724 for some help check on Monkey's helpful messages at http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 4008#44008 MY SYSTEMS.1.Jukebox WinXp pro sp 3 version 3.5 gigabyte mb. 281 GHz amd athlon x2 240 built by me.) 2.WinXP pro sp3, vers 2.5.5 and vers 3.5 backup storage, shuttle 32a mb,734 MHz amd athlon put together by me.) 3.Dell demension, winxp pro sp3, mm3.5 spare jukebox.) 4.WinXp pro sp3, vers 3.5, dad's computer bought from computer store. )5. Samsung Galaxy A51 5G Android ) 6. amd a8-5600 apu 3.60ghz mm version 4 windows 7 pro bought from computer store.
rvonder
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by rvonder »

rovingcowboy wrote:Remember mma is still in beta testing and i believe most of the streaming is planed for but they are working on first bugs in mma yet, try streaming when you do that with mma you get some results so go in to options on mma and scroll down to debug reports. and press it to send in report of your issue they will have data to work with that way and not have to try and guess what is needing done to get it working. :)
@rovingcowboy, I know it's still in beta, but that's my whole point: Unless I'm missing something, MMA has no native streaming capability other than using generic DLNA like many other Android apps.
rovingcowboy
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by rovingcowboy »

Nope as far as i know you are not missing anything. 8)
roving cowboy / keith hall. My skins http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=16724 for some help check on Monkey's helpful messages at http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 4008#44008 MY SYSTEMS.1.Jukebox WinXp pro sp 3 version 3.5 gigabyte mb. 281 GHz amd athlon x2 240 built by me.) 2.WinXP pro sp3, vers 2.5.5 and vers 3.5 backup storage, shuttle 32a mb,734 MHz amd athlon put together by me.) 3.Dell demension, winxp pro sp3, mm3.5 spare jukebox.) 4.WinXp pro sp3, vers 3.5, dad's computer bought from computer store. )5. Samsung Galaxy A51 5G Android ) 6. amd a8-5600 apu 3.60ghz mm version 4 windows 7 pro bought from computer store.
jiri
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by jiri »

rvonder,

thanks for interesting thoughts. I must admit, that it's very close to my own opinion, it's the direction I'd also like MMA to evolve. I guess that it's just few more months away, but something like this will eventually be implemented. We just needed to start somewhere - and in my opinion is the current MMA more that a great start! ;-)

Jiri
guest

Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by guest »

I agree with the thoughts on streaming. The best android app that I've seen for streaming your own music is Audiogalaxy. It lets you stream your entire collection and works very well. Also has a Pandora like feature that works with your own music collection. Waaaay better than google music. Would love it if the MMA had some of the Audiogalaxy streaming ability. Combine that with the ability to sync with MMW and the functionality of MMW, and MMA would be awesome.
rvonder
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by rvonder »

Since I started this thread, I hope you'll forgive my necroposting...

Lots has happened over the two years since my original post. Mobile broadband has become much faster and more reliable, and real-time streaming of media to Android and iPhone devices is now even more popular vs. physically duplicating (syncing) media files to the limited storage of the mobile device.

But AFAIK, we're still in the same place re. the inability to use MM as an internet streaming media server (I'm talking about 'real' streaming via standard HTTP/HTTPS, not using uPnP/DLNA). I've spent a lot of time trying both of the decent audio-oriented third-party solutions I've found in an effort to fill the gap (Subsonic and Ampache; there are others like Plex but they seem more targeted at video), and there are frustrating limitations and a lot of extra work with either one.

Like most of you, I use MM exclusively to organize and tag my music library. But I have yet to find anything even close to the flexibility of the MM client interface to remotely access and stream my music collection. If MM offered true Web access, you'd have a solution to an increasingly common user need that no other product can address. Ideally, it would include multi-user login security, a responsive-design browser interface, plus standalone Android and iOS clients that expose most of the flexibility of MM's native interface, such as searching/sorting/displaying of secondary tags such as Composer, Conductor, Comments, multiple art images, etc. Extra credit if it could also incorporate the Subsonic API like Ampache does, which expands access to include direct use of any of the many Subsonic client apps.

Being able to use a single great tool like MM to maintain my library and to then have that library instantly accessible for streaming over the Web would literally be a dream come true. Judging by the volume of comments you'll find by Googling something like 'MediaMonkey as an internet streaming media server' (and the lack of any really decent solutions!), I think there would be a big interest in this as an addition to the current remote sync clients like MMA.

Jiri, way back in January 2013 you commented that this is also the direction you'd like to see MM evolve and that it would "eventually be implemented". Has any further thought or actual development occurred towards this goal? It just seems that you already have so much of the required architecture already in place with MM and MMA -- that the only big missing piece is a Web server component to deliver that functionality over the Web.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a huge MM fan, and just want to be able to enjoy the results of all my hard work wherever I am, outside the confines of my home LAN.
rovingcowboy
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by rovingcowboy »

I'm guessing that win 8 and 8.1 slowed them up and now win 10 is slowing down upgrades or new features to mm.
roving cowboy / keith hall. My skins http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=16724 for some help check on Monkey's helpful messages at http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 4008#44008 MY SYSTEMS.1.Jukebox WinXp pro sp 3 version 3.5 gigabyte mb. 281 GHz amd athlon x2 240 built by me.) 2.WinXP pro sp3, vers 2.5.5 and vers 3.5 backup storage, shuttle 32a mb,734 MHz amd athlon put together by me.) 3.Dell demension, winxp pro sp3, mm3.5 spare jukebox.) 4.WinXp pro sp3, vers 3.5, dad's computer bought from computer store. )5. Samsung Galaxy A51 5G Android ) 6. amd a8-5600 apu 3.60ghz mm version 4 windows 7 pro bought from computer store.
dtsig
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by dtsig »

That would be my guess too. Imagine having to convert an app like MMW from a good solid os base to win8 with all of its changes .. and then win10 .. oh my in the matter of a couple of years. Thank god all my development is in a closed environment.
It would be great to have a db other than sqlite then it would be a fairly simple matter to develop a nice php/web based front end to stream the music/video.

Of course real streaming is a subject for MMW threads
Where's the db and ini stored
Reporting Bugs
Where tags are stored

Not affiliated with MediaMonkey ... just a RABID user/lover
DTSig
jiri
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by jiri »

rvonder,

we work hard on a brand new MM5, which will be really great! To be honest, this particular feature isn't there yet, but improved streaming features of MM is one of our priorities, so it definitely will come soon, I just can't say exactly when.

Jiri
MPG
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by MPG »

Please add my name to the list of end users that are hoping this feature get's added.
TIA
MPG
Triumph - Hold On: Music holds the secret, to know it can make you whole.
mmlover

Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by mmlover »

Yes! If I can remove Madsonic (which I currently use as a WebGUI/streamer) and only stick with MM I'd be thrilled! <3MM4life.
ishmael
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by ishmael »

Hello MM Team,

I am an extremely happy MM user and it's my #1 choice for tagging and playing music at home (using MM Remote for Android).
This is a perfect setup for me while I'm home. When I'm not at home I lean on MadSonic (a Subsonic branch) to stream music to e.g. my phone and computer.

I am very curious to know if anything has happened in regards to such features in MM5 development since March?

Thanks!

Kind regards,
Ishmael
jiri
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by jiri »

Hi,

we have plans for this to be implemented in MM5, so hopefully available quite soon...

Jiri
tygerb71
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Re: MMA as the ultimate streaming client?

Post by tygerb71 »

Any update on MM5? Been talk of it and all the features that are supposed to be supported (subsonic streaming in particular) for over a year.
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