MMW5 - Individual speakers from a Google Cast Pair should not be shown as cast targets

[PeterHatoz]

Occurs in:
MediaMonkey 5.0.3.2627
MediaMonkey 5.0.4.2657

When the cast icon is clicked on, *all* of my Google Chromecast speakers are listed, including individual speakers from a grouped pair ... these should be hidden from the list of cast targets.

e.g. in this screenshot, "Kitchen L" and "Kitchen R" are the individual speakers of the group "Kitchen Pair"



Edited post to clarify that I'm only talking about a Group which consists of paired speakers.

[Peke]

Hi,
I tested on my two available speakers that are paired and I have for testing (I prefer wire, and from time to time I test Wireless) found interesting thing that even all is listed I also have pair group listed and strangle it state stereo where individual do not state anything. So once I connected to group then it played on both. Do you see the group listed?

RE picture: Do not use BBCode just paste link and add spaces BBCodes are filtered no matter if you add space or not eg. h t t p www. mypic.com/1.jpg

[Lowlander]

Are pairs hidden from other cast capable software/apps?

Is pairs different from groups?

[Lowlander]

I expect them all to be listed. It allows me to either stream to a group or to an individual device.

[PeterHatoz]

Hi,
I tested on my two available speakers that are paired and I have for testing (I prefer wire, and from time to time I test Wireless) found interesting thing that even all is listed I also have pair group listed and strangle it state stereo where individual do not state anything. So once I connected to group then it played on both. Do you see the group listed?

RE picture: Do not use BBCode just paste link and add spaces BBCodes are filtered no matter if you add space or not eg.

As you can see in the image, the speaker pair is also listed.

And thanks for the BBCode tip, but I found that the only way my post would submit was to make the URL completely unrecognisable as a path (I could not even post this reply if it contained your example) ... perhaps that could be added to the Forum rules / Using the forum / Attaching screenshots topic?

[PeterHatoz]

Are pairs hidden from other cast capable software/apps?

Is pairs different from groups?

It's possible to create a group of many speakers and play to all of them at once (e.g. in different rooms).

It's also possible to create a stereo pair, in which one plays the left channel and the other plays the right channel. The pair would presumably be close together for the best stereo effect.

So, yes, I believe that they are different, and that only the name of the pair should be displayed. If it's a group, I guess you would want the individual members to also be displayed.

Other casting apps that I use only display the pair, not the members of the pair (I don't currently have a group defined, but will test that as well).

[PeterHatoz]

Other casting apps that I use only display the pair, not the members of the pair (I don't currently have a group defined, but will test that as well).

OK, I've done some testing.

On Android, Spotify and RocketPlayer and MMA (surprise!) only display the stereo pair name. LocalCast displays the pair name plus the individual speakers (I believe this is also a bug and will report it).

I created a multi-room group containing all of my speakers (the two in the kitchen, and the one in the bedroom). Note that Google Home did not let me choose the individual speakers in the kitchen when creating the group, only the names of the stereo pair and the bedroom speaker were available.

All the apps listed above as well as MMW5 were able to play to the group, and also listed the individual group members as cast targets.

[Peke]

Hmmm, please exclude Android apps and please focus on Windows only app that support casting.

Cast to on Android is controlled by Android OS not by MMA. On Windows we handle this mostly internally in MM5. Briefly Looking thru sources MM5 do not check devices info in the groups.

Personally I like teh choice that I can send to Group and also send to Individual speakers eg. having House party group and also send to current room only without breaking up The group.

[Peke]

Anyway I added https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=19278 for discussion of implementation.

[PeterHatoz]

Hmmm, please exclude Android apps and please focus on Windows only app that support casting.

Cast to on Android is controlled by Android OS not by MMA. On Windows we handle this mostly internally in MM5. Briefly Looking thru sources MM5 do not check devices info in the groups.

Personally I like teh choice that I can send to Group and also send to Individual speakers eg. having House party group and also send to current room only without breaking up The group.

OK, the difference between the two platforms is noted.

And I'm not saying to suppress the listing of all groups ... only stereo pair groups. You would still have your House Party group as well as your individual rooms. The Google Home process for creating a stereo pair is different to the process for creating a "normal" speaker group .

So ... Windows apps that support casting are a bit thin on the ground, however I found these:

VLC
Spotify
Chrome
Desktop Audio Streamer.

All of the above list only the name of the stereo pair in the list of targets (not the members of the pair).

Discussion is moot anyway, because I tried casting from MMW5 to the individual speakers of the pair (e.g. to Kitchen L) and it failed to connect. It would only connect to the stereo pair.

[Peke]

Hi,

So ... Windows apps that support casting are a bit thin on the ground, however I found these:

I agree and that is the main problem, small set of apps to handle Casting.

VLC
Spotify
Chrome
Desktop Audio Streamer.
All of the above list only the name of the stereo pair in the list of targets (not the members of the pair).

Discussion is moot anyway, because I tried casting from MMW5 to the individual speakers of the pair (e.g. to Kitchen L) and it failed to connect. It would only connect to the stereo pair.

Thank you for that info I raised priority of a bug to be fixed in 5.0.4. You are right Paired speakers (Stereo) fail when you try to connect to individual one, but like you said groups are different and you can ping/play to individual player at least in my tests.

[PeterHatoz]

Great. Thanks for the quick response and for all the work that you and the team have done on this great product over the years. I've been a happy user since the beginning.

[Peke]

Hi,
Unfortunately I need to return speakers to owner (they were on repair with my friend and I loaned them for testing and setup for a friends client), so I don't have two same type speakers to be able to test them in a pair according to https://support.google.com/chromecast/a ... oid#zippy=

In order to make this faster can you please do this tests and create debug logs for us using latest MM5 Beta:
1) Pair the speakers
2) Start DbgView
3) Start MM5 and click the Cast icon on the player to list all speakers
4) Close MM
5) In DbgView use file -> save log as "Speakers paired.log"
6) Close DbgView

For second log:
1) Unpair the speakers
2) Start DbgView
3) Start MM5 and click the Cast icon on the player to list all speakers
4) Close MM
5) In DbgView use file -> save log as "Speakers unpaired.log"
6) Close DbgView

After you have both logs please open support ticket and attach the compressed (ZIP/RAR/7z) logs. Thanks.

[PeterHatoz]

After you have both logs please open support ticket and attach the compressed (ZIP/RAR/7z) logs. Thanks.

OK, Ticket #4588 opened.

As I mentioned in the ticket description, in MMW when preparing the "Speakers paired.log", the "Kitchen Pair" cast target did not appear the first two times that I tried. This is a common occurrence ... I normally have to try two or three times before the Pair appears. Or sometimes, one of the individual speakers is not listed, or other times the only thing in the list is "Internal Player". Maybe the scan timeout needs to be longer? This behaviour is not unique to MMW, but it is definitely much worse in MMW than in other apps.

Also, unpairing the speakers is not a simple thing. I was able to break the pair apart OK, but I had to factory reset "Kitchen L" before Google Home would recognise it again. Once I'd gone through the setup procedure for that speaker to add it to my Home again, I then had to rename it from "Kitchen Speaker" to "Kitchen L". Hopefully, this doesn't complicate the debugging for you.

[Peke]

Hi,
It is much better than we could do ATM, no one have stable setup of two same speakers supporting pairing