Max2Play Webinterface for Mediaclients (Audioplayer, Squeezeserver, Airplay, XBMC)

[CommanderROR]

@Max2Play

I just moved my Server over to your image from Squeezeplug 7. I like the webinterface (although I did a have a few hassles installing the latest 7.9 nightly...it chose an older one for some reason and I had to manually switch to the latest Nightly).
Also, is there a way to update to latest Squeezelite (Ralphys version if possible) from the Web-GUI? That would be neat. Just like in PiCorePlayer. Some control over Squeezelite settings would be helpful as well, like asla buffer, resampling and so on.
I think the "extended options" section could be filled with quite a few additions...

I could not find a way to resized the filesystem to the full size of my SD card. Is this done automatically or do I have to do this manually via SSH?

Thanks.

[bakker_be]

Hi,
in the German thread I read that the Odroid with Max2Play doesn't output 5.1 without external soundcard. What do you mean exactly by that:

• It doesn't do analog 5.1 over HDMI
• It doesn't do DTS/ Dolby Digital passthrough over HDMI
• no 5.1 at all over HDMI
• something else entirely

[flysurfer]

Hi bakker_be,

the ODROID cannot 5.1 at all over HDMI. If you want 5.1 you always have to connect a external soundcard via USB. This is not a limitiation from Max2Play.

@CommanderROR:
To expand the filesystem you have to use SSH. There is no function for this yet.

To configure Squeezelite and other things in detail (buffer, etc.) you also have to use ssh right now. If anyone likes to support me in adding this to the webinterface -> I don't know which settings would be usefull as I am happy to use it "as it comes" without much additional settings.

[CommanderROR]

@flysurfer

maybe you can contact the guy that created PiCorePlayer. He has somebody why helped him with the webinterface.
Configuring Squeezelite and expanding rootfs are essential IMHO.

Another idea: webinterface could give us a choice to do scheduled updates. I'd like to see an auto-update every week. It should update to latest webinterface, latest LMS nightly, latest Ralphy release of Squeezelite, and then reboot to make sure everything is up to date, including the LMS plugins.

Also, there are still bugs in your webinterface, especially when stopping and starting LMS it always gives me errors even though it actually works...

Still, it's a good start. Squeezeplug is great, but a webinterface is so much nicer to use...

[CommanderROR]

@flysurfer

I updated to your 1.01 release yesterday and like the new features. Sadly it seems the webinterface is still buggy, at least on Chrome browser, it installed LMS 7.7.0 when I chose "latest 7.9.0 nightly". Entering the link manually works fine. I'm not sure what went wrong, but I repeated the process twice, and got the same result both times.

[flysurfer]

@CommanderROR
thanks for your feedback!
I just tested the squeezeserver install in chrome and everything works as expected - I cannot reproduce the problem. It is necessary that you have javascript in your browser enabled for this installation. The link from the package that you choose from the select-box will be copied to the input box right obove the "start installation"-button with javascript. Can you confirm that the link is correct after you choose the package?

[CommanderROR]

@flysurfer

The link looks correct. I don't know what went wrong. I don't really want to do another installation right now, I'll try it again in a week or so and let you know if I'm still getting errors.

[CommanderROR]

@flysurfer

I had some issues with Google Play Music tracks having short distortion at the beginning of the track so I looked into your squeezelite parameters and have some suggestions...

First of all, I'd always suggest using the "hw" parameter instead of "plug" or similar. It brings down the CPU useage significantly.

For the internal sound card, I'd suggest using the default parameters:

"Squeezelite -o hw:CARD=ALSA -a 80:4 -n YourNameHere -m xx:yy:zz:11:22:33" (make the MAC address of the player the same as the MAC of the network interface)

If you use Squeezelite with advanced parameters like upsamling, this will eat a lot of CPU power if you leave it running on "plug" instead of "hw".
The Odroid has enugh CPU power, but there is no reason to waste it..

Another suggestion: if the system us used only for Squeezelite/LMS, then removing Pulsaudio is probably a good idea since it can interfere with ALSA and cause sound problems. Maybe you can make this an option on the webinterface?

Thanks.

[flysurfer]

New Version 1.06 with new Features

Hello,

a new version with an easy to install jivelite-Plugin (available on settings-page) and some adjustable things like start-parameters to squeezelite is available as image and as an update in the webinterface.

@CommanderROR: The mixer device is used to get shairplay and squeezelite to work together. Without it, I always had problems because they both try to capture the device. Pulseaudio is needed for XBMC and desktop usage. As this is more a One-For-All Image for people that are not very familiar with linux, it's difficult to remove important parts (somone might click uninstall pulseaudio without actually knowing what it means). The mixer-device uses alsa and I never had problems with music on Max2Play. "Google Play Music tracks having short distortion" can I reproduce this?

[CommanderROR]

@flysurfer

I played around with the settings for a bit and realized, that I had some things mixed up during testing:

The Odroid built-in audio needs some adjustments to the alsa buffer, otherwise there are noticeable "pops" during playback, both in webradio and Google Music. This is easily fixed with the "-a 80:4" setting. I still get some slight noise, but it is much better. I'll experiment with higher settings. I'm a bit spoiled,because I use Raspberry Pi with Hifiberry DAC/Digi for my player devices, and the sound is really great without any noise or distortion.
The dmix option actually causes a slightly higher CPU load, which is why I don't like to use it, however, if I use the "hw" parameter, then the -a settings are ignored, and the "pops" during playback are back.

So, while I prefer "hw" because of the lower CPU load (but it's still very low, even with dmix), it doesn't work as well on the Odroid, so I take back my recommendation...

I understand about Pulseaudio and XBMC...I just know that it can cause problems. Let's just hope that it's OK on the Odroid. I removed it manually, which is not really a big deal.

I'll try to use a USB soundcard with the Odroid next and will see how well that works. The internal audio is much better than on the Pi, but I'm not completely satisified with it yet.

Anyway, thanks for your hard work and frequent updates!

[mkkyah]

Adding locale and timezone

Thanks for the image. After I saw you have upgraded to ubuntu 14.04, I gave it a try and it solved almost all my problems to have LMS and Xbmc on same device with easy configuration, easy updates and good performance.

I have one problem and one concern for future use:

- I can't add my locale and timezone. I tried to ssh and run odroid or squeezeplug setups; tried to add locale by running locale-gen etc. But there are still same default locales on max2play list. How can I add a new locale and set correct timezone?

- I'm not using Squeezelite, Shairplay at the moment, but I have a concern for future setups. I understand Squeezelite and XBMC can't run on same time and you have to quit one of them. I can quit Xbmc from Yatse or other remote and have squeezelite ready, that's ok. But how will I restart Xbmc with remote or Yatse again? Is there a way to automate this? Maybe xbmc should restart automatically if Squeezelite is not playing.

[flysurfer]

locale and timezone in new Max2Play-Image

Hi,
there was a small bug while changing the language in the new Image (language didn't change at all after setting in webinterface). I solved this in the last update 1.07.
If you want to have more languages please let me know - I will add them to the Max2Play-Image.

If you want to add a new Language on your own then you have to
1. set up language with locale gen - example for russian language: "locale-gen ru_RU.UTF-8"
2. edit /etc/default/locale and set new language parameters
3. edit /etc/default/keyboard to set keyboard layout
4. edit /etc/timezone for an other timezone and start "dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata" to reload timezone

Start/Stop XBMC: you can always use the webinterface of Max2Play to start/stop any of the services. Squeezelite and Shairport are automatically started (if autostart is enabled), once XBMC is stopped. So all you have to do is open the webinterface on your smartphone / computer and start XBMC if you want to watch videos.

[mkkyah]

--

there was a small bug while changing the language in the new Image (language didn't change at all after setting in webinterface). I solved this in the last update 1.07.
If you want to have more languages please let me know - I will add them to the Max2Play-Image.

I will appreciate if you can add "Istanbul/tr_TR.utf8" option to the list, but thanks for the detailed info, too.


--

Start/Stop XBMC: you can always use the webinterface of Max2Play to start/stop any of the services. Squeezelite and Shairport are automatically started (if autostart is enabled), once XBMC is stopped. So all you have to do is open the webinterface on your smartphone / computer and start XBMC if you want to watch videos.

Yes, that's ok for me, but not that user friendly and easy for everybody, especially when sitting in front of TV. Take it as a petition, please.

--Which xbmc packages should we use to upgrade? Modified ones from odroid forum or xbmc deb files directly?
-- Is apt-get update/upgrade ok with the image, or should we only wait for max2play upgrades?

Thanks again
--

[mkkyah]

AAC streams not transcoded?

I have a Duet in the system, it's not natively playing AAC streams, so they were converted on server side and I had no issues.(that was on Qnap)

Now with max2play other players (picoreplayer) are playing AAC natively, but Duet is not playing anything AAC. I have checked fileformat settings, everything seems normal to me, like before on Qnap. Should I install something more with ssh? (I did apt-get install lame, something more?)

[flysurfer]

--Which xbmc packages should we use to upgrade? Modified ones from odroid forum or xbmc deb files directly?
-- Is apt-get update/upgrade ok with the image, or should we only wait for max2play upgrades?

Please take the XBMC-packages from the ODROID-Forum as they should work as expected.
It should be safe to update/upgrade.

I don't know what is necessary for playing AAC on your Squeezebox-Duet. If there is some package missing or the LMS needs to be configured in some way - maybe anyone else in this forum knows?