On 04/02/2016 09:36, Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
RJH wrote:
On 25/01/2016 13:16, Bob Latham wrote:

There are 3 Sonos portable devices in our house and these use their
own app running on iPads and Samsung phones. Sonos is not UPnP it just
needs an SMB share from the NAS.

There is also a RaspberryPi player and a Linn Akurate DS (2015
variant). These all use UPnP and Minimserver and Linn's Kinsky and
Kazzo iPad control apps.


Ah - way out of my league. I just use the Cambridge NP30, and generally
use an iPhone to control it. Although the remote is fine as the
display's half decent.

I tried Minimserver - works great. The only problem (apart from lacking
DS Audio's features) is the gapless playback - still doesn't work.

That's interesting. We have a different view of what Minimserver does. My
RaspberryPi player and my Linn both use Minimserver as their source and
neither have ever had any difficulty with gapless playback.

I've had a very quick look at the manual for your NP30 and it does advise
the use of a UPnP server which is what Minimserver is and that will not
cause issues with gapless playback.

However, my map of the world is that minimserver is not control software,
surely that would still be the responsibility of the machine manufacturer
or other amateur writers.


Minmserver, Synology's audio server (Plex, Kodi Server etc) IIUC simply
communicate the content of the NAS to compatible devices. And these
devices need software to read that communication.

Your media server software obviously reads this communication properly,
and ensures gapless playback of gapless material.

For the NP30, Cambridge's software works fine in this regard - whether
controlling direct from the player, or using Cambridge's app. Other
software (such as the Synology app) doesn't work.

An alternative (such as that used by Jim Lesurf) is to access the files
directly, and use the NAS as you would an internal drive on a computer.
I've just given this a quick try, using VLC on Mac OS. And it almost (!)
works - a split second gap between tracks. Better than the Synology - a
good 2s between gapless tracks. it's not a playback route I use, but
I'll look into it . . .

What I don't understand is why Synology are so seemingly rubbish at
implementing what feels to be a trivial feature - gapless playback.

I have a feeling it's implemented in subtly different ways on different
hardware, so generic software (like the Synology app) can't flag gapless
playback, whereas the bespoke Cambridge software can.

So it looks like I'm stuck with Cambridge's rubbish software to play
back gapless material. They seemingly place a flag in gapless recordings
which the DS Audio and Minmserver don't?

This is very odd. If your player cannot play gapless from minimserver then
to my mind your player has faulty software not minimserver.


No, I think the problem is with the controlling software. The Synology
controlling software doesn't work. The Cambridge software (onboard the
NP30 or via their iPhone app) does.

In addition, what my I ask is a gapless recording? Never heard of one of
those before. Gapless is a playback issue for the player nothing to do
with either the UPnP server or the flac files provided they've been ripped
correctly.


Gapless recording is where, by design, there is no gap between tracks.
For example, live music.

The player can only respond to the information it's fed by the
controlling software, so I don't think Cambridge can be held to account
for non-performing 3rd party software.

Have you had a word with Cambridge about this?


The Synology forums have some mention of the problem.


--
Cheers, Rob