New Feature: DLNA Player [not on roadmap]

Chromecast also gives us now playing on large display while audio plays through Roon endpoint.

Because there are many iterations of DLNA. In ChromeCast or the SlimProto (Squeezebox/Squeezelite) there is only one version.
Which version of DLNA should Roon support? How should Roon deal with all the devices that ‘should’ work, but won’t?

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Because…

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There is a “Specific” DLNA protocol for audio, as DLNA is used for many types of applications. Knowing which one to use is simple, use the one for audio…just like everyone else does.

Fact is, Roon should be aiming to stream to everything, not just DSD and audiophile capable devices. Want to stay a small niche product then think small and do small things for small audiences.

I’m not sure it is a fact, it’s an opinion surely?

The reasons Roon does not support upnp are discussed here.

And what’s wrong with being small and catering to a niche market? Why does every product have to conquer the world and cater to everything and everyone? Personally I would rather Roon did fewer things very well than more things not so well.

See @philr’s comment above. I write as to why DLNA is garbage in that post he linked, and why we won’t support it.

You see inconsistency because you understand our goals incorrectly. Once again, read my post linked to by @philr. It’s not all about sound quality. We don’t have any problems with DLNA SQ.

You are incorrectly characterizing what protocols Roon supports, and using the word “fact” in this way is like using ‘literally’ to mean ‘figuratively’. Bah.

We stream to Airplay, Chromecast, and Sonos too. They are not normally considered “DSD and audiophile capable”. They all provide good user experience, something DLNA does not do.

Our business is growing nicely, and the market is huge for a company run right. We have no desire to be the product for everyone.

Google didn’t give us anything. Chromecast is just flexible enough to do what we needed to do. See my comment below on its protocol.

They discontinued the Chromecast Audio because it makes no sense for them. The audio+video device and the protocol make much more sense. Additionally, the number of 3rd party audio-only products adding support for the Chromecast protocol is growing faster than DLNA support is.

One more thing, we also do cool things with the Chromecast devices that support video. We get tons of feedback on how good this support is. Also note that even though we made no new changes to this, many of the 1.6 reviews out all are using this feature.

This comment, plus the responses by @Edward12 point to a misunderstanding of how Chromecast works. There is no Chromecast audio protocol. There is no Chromecast video protocol. The Chromecast protocol is more like a programmable web browser, where Roon (and other apps) can tell it to load up custom code to do some logic in the browser. A media protocol on both ends is dictated by Roon (and other apps).

If the Chromecast Audio device’s firmware never changed ever again, we’d have no issues with that. The only thing to worry about is the lack of future security fixes it might not get if it never receives an update.

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Every piece of software I have (Android and Windows) that is a DLNA server has no problem whatsoever streaming files to my DLNA renderer. Those authors get it right. I don’t think it’s that complex.

Sure. I didn’t mean to imply that Google provided that protocol to you specifically or exclusively. And by “protocol” I meant the protocol families supported by the Cast API.

Sure, within the bounds set by the Cast API, right? That implementation of the client-side API is the firmware I was referring to.

The Cast API you note is their media “receiver”, which is not needed. It’s just one of many receivers. You don’t need to use it at all. We don’t use that API. The bounds of what you can do on the network are limited only by what you can do with HTTP.

Sure, read it. At the end of the day its your choice. However is X% of society has a home infrastructure ‘music system, etc’ built on DLNA you are turning your back on the as customers…but of course you know that. To me thats a heavy-handed “Apple” approach ie, ‘You use my product my way, or not at all’. Should you care so much that grandma, grandpa or Joe-Kid-normal are happy with ‘garbage’ but like your player? Kind of like GM only selling Corvettes in places that have the appropriate streets to drive them.

Yep, its not all about SQ…as noted in the referenced post UPnP ‘lacks a brain’ etc., so you have fundamental qualms about UPnP. Its a personal thing I guess, UPnP can’t match RAAT and is not ‘true HiFi’ therefore I turn my nose up to it… I really don’t understand your goals then, but then I guess I don’t have too.

This shows, which starts to make the objective become clearer.

Thanks for clearing things up, especially about how Chomecast works. :grinning:

Oh, neat. I hadn’t realized that. Thanks for explaining!

It truly is just a Chrome-like thing in the device. It’s limited compared to real Chrome + PC or Chrome + iOS/Android – but it’s not something custom for audio/video/display.

Not all DNLA upnp devices handle gapless or formats in the same way. Its an open book as its not a fixed standard, Take Naims new streamers and all in ones as an example. They cant handle gapless playback vis UPnP from any other control point other than Naims own proprietary app so you cant use a better UPnP controller that supports Qobuz to send via UPnP and get gapless.

@CrystalGipsy, Thanks for bringing that up. It’s is a great example of why DLNA is horrible for Roon!

Sometimes you gotta look past the short term issues, and do something better to improve the world.

When we launched, we supported Airplay and Meridian (we had history). No RAAT, no Chromecast, no Sonos, and none of the one-offs (Devialet AIR, KEF LS50, Linn). You could call it suicide to launch that way, but we are quite far from dead.

Adding DLNA support is short-sighted to us, quite the opposite of what @Edward12 feels!

Thanks for the honorable mention…:grinning:

Are you the bus driver? Hair so long over his eyes he can’t really see anything?

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So does Roon’s RAAT perform the same even if its installed on iOS, Android, Linux, Windoz etc?

Sound I get similar sound independent of OS?

Speaking of End-Point only.

RAAT is the same.
Sound quality depends on many things.

UPnP/DLNA matches RAAT just fine when it comes to “HiFi” (SQ). UPnP/DLNA has no problems when it comes to SQ. Nor does RAAT.

Roon Ready / Roon Tested / RAAT was invented to solve a broad range of issues. None were “personal”. They were all about the audio and music lover industry having a crap infrastructure (UPnP/DLNA/others) that led to incrementation improvements at best. Innovation in the non-SQ experience space was left to the Apples and Googles of the world, which didn’t care about SQ.

We strived to fix that by solving:

  • devices that don’t get codec updates create incompatibilities¹
  • devices that don’t support or refuse to pay certain patent fees create incompatibilities¹
  • protocols so flexible in their implementation create an ecosystem of different feature sets. This leads experience producers (I’m talking about the usability experience, not the SQ) to build for the lowest common denominator
  • protocols that are so distributed that they have no support for “a brain” in the system
  • hardware manufacturers that don’t have good software experience can advertise “support”, but deliver a subpar experience
  • hardware manufacturers sometimes lie about what they do to the audio inside their devices
  • lack of support for high-res and DSD formats
  • feature mismatches between using physical buttons or knobs vs streaming
  • high quality cross-device audio synchronization

¹ - by incompatibilities, I’m talking about the fact that if your Apple TV can’t play your FLAC files, or your McIntosh can’t play your Ogg files, you end up having a library that can’t be used on every endpoint. These devices have a life much longer than the lifespan of the file format or streaming service of today.

Roon Ready / Roon Tested partner programs combined with RAAT solve these issues. Is support perfect? No. Is it better than what was out there before? Absolutely.

When we launched, we had 1 partner: Auralic. It was a crazy-ambitious project. We were ridiculed for inventing something new and not just supporting UPnP/DLNA. Now there are over 100 partners who have shipped products or are in the process of building/certifying/shipping. More are starting every month. It’s become the gold standard if you want something that “just works”.

Some manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon, even though their devices are already supported by Roon via custom one-off support (for example, Devialet Expert via AIR).

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