The Suspense Is Killing Me

Just my opinion and I have no idea what the Roon team is planning for their mobile solution.

It seems like each user’s core would need to be involved to give access to local content and to update play counts and the like in each user’s local database. For this the remote device would operate just like a remote on the user’s local network. Local content would stream from the core to the remote taking outgoing bandwidth limitations into account but Tidal and Qobuz streaming could / should come direct from their servers. No need to stream from Tidal / Qobuz to the core and then back out to the remote. This would mean Tidal / Qobuz streaming would not get the full Roon treatment but this seems reasonable. Roon treatment of local streaming could also be limited to save on bandwidth requirements. Don’t see any need to upsample a CD quality track to DSD512 to send to a remote device.

Not sure how accessing Tidal / Qobuz content directly from the remote device would work related to their licensing restrictions. Would like to think they would make an exception but then again it’s not too difficult to imagine many ways that they could be taken advantage of.

I understand that anyone with a large local library has needs that those who rely heavily on streaming just don’t have. 1,011 of my 1,095 albums are from Tidal. I can use the Tidal app away from home and listen to almost all of my music.

Tim

Continuous local upstream would be an interesting application of a Roon Core embedded mqa encoder … now that would be some fun (also to read the reactions this would trigger).

But then for local content a one time sync between core attached storage and the mobile device seems like a more sensible way. Play counts (and new content) could get synced back as soon as the mobile device is back in the reach of the home network. Maybe a WiFi-only or at least on-demand sync-when-away option could get added – but really, individual mobile streaming from thousands of local cores may turn out to be support hell.

But what about security?

I rather only stream from tidal when not at home than expose my home network.

Roon will announce the Best of Artist Foreheads for 2019.

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Just fix the latest version first before anything else.

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Haven’t seen that Roon is presently focused on security.

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The devs have said for a while that they would prefer to rollout new features as projects reach maturity through smaller, more frequent updates rather than a compendious huge one. Somehow, however, circumstances seem to conspire so that we end up with a major release at one of the most inconvenient times of the year. I believe Roon wants this to change, rather than continue.

What do you base this on? I haven’t seen posts about there back end systems?

There are occasional posts about the back-end infrastructure from the Roon team, generally in response to an issue; for example:

It only transcodes if necessary. If you have the bandwidth on both sides to stream 50 Mbps 4k Blu-Ray, it’ll make it happen.

It obviously is a concern.

You should quarantine your “entertainment” stuff, anyway. Easier said than done, of course, especially if you’re integrating over C4 or something, but I’d be less concerned about exposing a port or two on a frequently-updated system like ROCK / Nucleus than I’d be installing one of the thousands of Internet of Shit appliances. Then again, how many people around you are running updated perimeter devices, let alone are diligent with simple maintenance like OS updates, or make that a buying point when they purchase things like (non-google-built android, cough, cough) cell phones ? How many users of @allo.com products have you seen pestering them for updates to the antiquated linux that’s running on the USBridge instead of just leaving it at their “meh, not our fault, sry, bye”, answer ?

You can configure Plex to limit bandwidth of external access regardless of the connection. I do this to make it easier to get it anywhere. Any device with Plex can also be configured to pull an even lower bandwidth if necessary. For me this feature would be essential for mobile Roon.

Yeap.

I understood the hypothetical as “would Roon be able to pull HiRes from a user’s Core” (as opposed to the cloud), the answer to which is “if Plex is any indicator, absolutely, yes”.

Obviously, there needs to be a bit of end-user education if there’s on the fly recompression in some cases, for example, that no matter what your ears, headphones or car system, it’s rather improbable that you’d hear the difference between LAME -V0 and 24/192 in public transport or while driving.

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I would love CD quality for mobile, that’s plenty for most.

Absolutely, but there’s exactly nothing RoonLabs can do about it if the bandwidth isn’t there.

It also isn’t “difficult” (Plex does it) in many developed areas, it’s just that people need to understand they’re likely not going to be able to stream Step by Step, in CD quality, in the middle of the Sahel. They also need to understand that there’s a reason to “but Spotify worked”.

Then there’s probably about a gazillion other issues, including what you’re allowed to copy over, both from the perspective of, say, Apple, and rights-wise in general, if you do DSP where do you do it, where you store the metadata if you want the experience to be good, having to deal with a gazillion different ISPs and their crappy hardware + peering, and you have to do all for a crowd that’s not necessarily tech-savvy, so, well - wish the RoonLabs guys good luck, and hope it works out :wink: .

There is a very good reason why Spotify, Tidal, Qubuz and Apple have offline playback.

It is simply naive to believe that you can stream directly from your Roon Core while in a car or especially on a plane without using offline playback.

It is actually not very interesting what you can do on a good connection, remember it also has to work in areas with bad coverage.

I agree and this is why for me having a mobile capability in Roon is not a high priority. Just use TIDAL/Qobuz when on the move, since they have already solved these issues and don’t require me to open up my home network at all.

Of course if the Roon mobile solution was to put the entirety of the Core functionality in the cloud that’s a different matter, but I don’t really see how it works with local content.

I’m not sure it will come (Mobile), because Roon won’t be able to guarantee the best experience in all cases - which will be largely dependent on factors out of their control. I don’t want to upload my library somewhere or open my home network either.

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I agree why do I need to access MY albums when Tidal has 99+% of them.

For out of house use an iPad, Audioquest Dragonfly Red And a pair of decent headphones, in my case Bose QC 25 and you have a pretty ok system

I suppose it depends how much time this has to be your only system.

Data costs in South Africa are horrendous anyway so streaming hi res from home would be extortionate so 44.1 or heaven forbid MP3

At my age , after years of Led Zeppelin at mach 9 can I really tell the difference

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This is the point. My comment about data going through Roon’s servers was ironic. Probably the only way it’ll work for me is offline. Signal is not the same everywhere.

The post linked by Geoff was the main thing I was referring to. It’s a good long description by Brian about their work to speed up the features that rely on connections with the Roon server farm. My point was/is that if mobile adds ANY stress to that network then they probably have work to do before it can be released.

To me Roon mobile would be about accessing (1) Tidal/Qobuz, and (2) downloaded local content to the mobile device, through a Roon-lite interface that pushes play statistics back to the home installation and accesses some of the metadata and organizational efforts within the home installation - whether that is playlists, favorites, etc., remains to be seen. Perhaps it will also support tagging and favoriting and such while using mobile.

It would be a Roon-lite experience and I agree I don’t think it is necessary to stream from the home installation, but Roon could take charge of storing some level of the home collection on the mobile device.

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