Hello everyone,
I need some help with an issue I have while using Android on my Xperia U (Rooted, CM 9.1). I have a very big music collection on two different Windows 7 computers, consisted of mp3, mpc, flac, ape, alac files - in many cases with a CUE sheet (flac/ape + cue). Structure is always Artist/Album/(CDXX)/Files. I have a high-res folder.jpg within every separate folder. Using Foobar2000 to play everything while on the PC.
I am looking for a way to play my music on Android. At the moment, I am using ES File Explorer to connect to the LAN share, and then play the music with the integrated ES player. But - no album art, no cue sheet support etc. I also use BubbleUPnP to stream video/audio from Universal Media Server installed on both computers. But I would like to use plain network sharing if possible, not DLNA.
I see that PowerAMP for example has all the file support I need, but I am not sure if it can read network shares. Is this possible? I also installed andLess as a player with lossless and cue support, but only for local files.
I am opened to any solution that will allow me to play my music with the format support same or similar to what Foobar2000 offers on Windows.
Please provide your insights/solutions to this problem.
Thank you and all best.
Related
Hi
I wonder if anyone can tell me... how to play mp3 files and movie files say avi , mpg etc with the new windows media 8.5? I don't seem to be able to use the xda to play a simple mp3 file after I use activesync to transfer the file into the xda. It may a be simple software problem or do I need special codecs for these files to be played?
Sorry if it is a silly question.
Cheers
Hi, if you have the pocket pc 2002, and windows media player 8.5, you should be able to play mp3 files without any issue.
Try downloading a small mp3 file from the net to check. sometimes, if you dont have an SD card, and only a limited memory, and you try and copy a large mp3 to your xda, it cuts off half way when you run out of storage memory. This leaves your file corrupted, and hence you cant play it.
Close all your running apps. Adjust your memory settings, to increase storage area. Choose an mp3 file that is much smaller than available space (eg. ringtone from some website) and copy that to your xda.
Thanks
Hi
Thanks very much for your reply. Thot nobody is interested to answer a silly question like that. Indeed I think the mp3 file I tried to play is corrupted. Got windows media player to play other smaller mp3 files after your advice. However, can windows media player play mpg files at all? Always seem to get message that the movie file cannot be played.
Thanks again.
Smaslift
Hi
cant remember if media player 8.5 can play mpgs. However if you install pocket divx player, you should be able to play most file formats. Ofcourse it wont play all mpgs, or all avis, it depends on the codecs used, however common ones, especially divx are playable.
http://www.projectmayo.com/projects/detail.php?projectId=9
Just to let you know, Media player 8.5 can't play mpeg.
PocketTV is another alternative.
movie file size
HI
Thanks for info. Installed both pocket tv and divx and both are great. Only thing is size of movie files are too big. I have tried using VirtualDub to play around with movie compression but still hasn't found the optimal size to reduce a movie to be sensible for use in pdas. What is the screen size and how else besides the screen size can one use to reduce movie file size?
Cheers
Some good guides here:
http://www.pocketmatrix.com/guides/
Hi
In virtual dub, you need to ensure that you are specifying a codec for video compression AND audio compression.By default virtualdub does not compress the audio, hence the file tends to be quite large.
You may want to install some more audio codecs to give you a better compression. Try installing the WMA codecs, or get Windows Media player 9 on your system.
WMA codes
Hi
Thanks for replies. I have Windows Media 9 on my system; how to use it to get the audio compression with Virtual Dub?
Cheers
Vic
in the audio menu on virtuadub, you need to select Full Processing Mode. Then the compression option will become selectable. You can then pick an audio codec. Be aware not all audio codecs will be available on your xda. Use Windows Media Audio codecs, have a look at:
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-wma.htm
One of the biggest selling points of the Archos G9 for me, was the ability to play all kinds of filetypes through the video and music players. I was somewhat disappointed though, when I found out that I had to manually browse through my external storage to play the files I wanted to play. My external hdd is set to autobackup my laptop so that means finding files is folder hell. I was wondering if there is any way to get my files to show up so that I could scroll through them just as if they had been on the internal storage. This would make things so much more convenient. Any suggestions?
Install player pro for music and voor video and also dvd files daroon player
stapbeest said:
Install player pro for music and voor video and also dvd files daroon player
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I kinda want the default player because of its priceless mkv support. I've noticed in the file browser you can highlight an internal media folder (dcim, Music, Video) and select options in Media Share. These are the only folders that you can set share types, which I assume includes the folder into the media library. Maybe there is some way that we could give other folders special permissions to allow them to be shared like these.
I have exactly the same problem. Had in mind to use the G9 as multimedia devices streaming music and video from my NAS to my TV. I had expected that the G9 had native support for Network drives, but it doesn't. At least I could not find it. The best alternative I found is BubbleUPnP. This app detects my Synology NAS and I can start any video from it. For Video you can select which player to use. Music is played with the build in player, which I don't like. I prefer PowerAmp. An app that brings a kind of XBMC to a tablet is what I need.
I've purchased a couple Android "TV Boxes" and was shocked to learn that none of the supplied software will play media from SMB/Samba/Windows shared network locations.
My boxes are running Android 4.0x, A9 single core at 1Ghz, Mali400 GPU's, 512MB + 8GB or 1GB + 4GB of memory.
Purchased them from DX.COM... sku 145311 and 157734 (I can't post URLs here)
Just a few of the apps I've downloaded and tested:
- XBMC: Used on my PC's, but too heavy for the Android boxes I have.
- BSPlayer
- Buzz Player
- MX Player
- Mobo Video Player
- Dice Player
- Movie Browser HD
- mVideo Player
Most of these don't support Windows shares very well, or are not user friendly.
Are there any decent media player applications that will do the following?
- Play media located on Windows or Samba shares
- Provide a simple interface so my kids won't get confused
- Play video, audio and pictures
- Possibly link to Netflix and/or YouTube accounts
- It would be great if it were a "launcher" app
Basically, I want a launcher type interface that operates like this:
- I add icons to the main screen.
- The icon can be associated with one or more local folders and/or windows network shares.
- The icon can have rules set to show or hide files and folders that..
- have a specific filename extension (.avi, .mp3, .jpg, etc...).
- that are hidden.
- files of a specific type.
- When the icon is clicked, show the contents of the associated that...
- Match the rules set up for the icon.
- Show thumbnails for files or folders, if available. (use folder.jpg for folder icons, for music or video, locate a .jpg/.png/etc. with the same filename as the movie or music file.
- Allow browsing folders with the same rules as the parent icon.
Alternately, does Android provide any way to set up a Windows share to look like a locally mounted device? This would make some of the players I've found more workable.
I know I'm being pretty specific, but I know what my wife and kids want when it comes to watching movies and playing music.
Any suggestions or ideas are welcome!
I do program... and if I were an Android developer I would try and whip up something. If anyone has pointers for developting an app with wifi, smb shares, ui and playing media on Android, please let me know!
Archos Video Player
Try Archos Video Player.. It has a good graphical interface..
Have lots of unorganized .flac files on my laptop and so far just play it with vlc or whatever. What player should I install on my windows laptop and android phone to best organize my music and sync between the two and scan for covers etc? Read that google music was nice but it converts my .flac to .mp3 when transferred to my phone ? Also read the installed Samsung Kies is rubbish?
Thanks.
Please read carefully! It took me an hour just to write this post, not counting days of troubleshooting.
The old situation:
I have a collection of video in different compressed formats on my home server, and i want to access them from my phone.
So far, i have been using sftp for this (several file managers support this, esp. ES File Manager), but either the sftp protocol or ES file manager aren't suitable for streaming, there's too much stuttering and freezing. This is not a bandwidth issue!
Partial solution & new problem:
I use a dedicated media server (ampache) on my home server, and a dedicated client (DSub) on my Acer E700 (aka E39), stock android, rooted, firewalled.
I noticed a problem with video that uses AC3 sound encoding - The video plays fine (even hi-res), i just don't hear any sound.
And it happens only when i stream the video through the network (http?) (*) - the file plays just fine when i copy it to the phone, or use sftp via ES file manager, or download the file through my media server.
I tried this with all media players i have:
stock android video player
ES media player
MX player (with or without custom codec neon.1.7.32.rev1.zip) - it says, when playing files through the media server, that HW+ or SW decoding is not supported, however when i play the same video locally there's no such limitation.
I also tried all video streaming settings inside DSub:
Raw
HTTP Live Stream (HLS) (this did not work at all)
Direct transcode (requires video -> mp4 or similar setup on server)
Flash plugin (did not work, i guess i don't have the flash plugin)
and the result is always the same: all video plays fine, but video with ac3 sound has no sound.
unfortunately most hdtv videos use h264/ac3...
here's a list of codec combinations and resolutions that don't play sound:
h264/ac3 1280x720
avi/ac3 704x396
avi/ac3 640x368
here's a list of codec combinations and resolutions that do play sound:
quicktime/mp4 848x448
quicktime/mp4 1280x720
quicktime/mp4 716x404
avi/mp3 640x360
I can only come to the conclusion that android treats different codecs differently when streamed through the network. How can I solve this?
(*) i also copied one of the affected files to the public html section and tried to open it through my phone's browser, and the result is the same: no sound with ac3.
i did notice that one of the "good" files opened right inside the browser, whereas the "bad" file asked to open with a media player.
i'm pretty sure this is about ac3 audio.
i just don't understand why it works flawlessly when i play the files straight from phone memory, but not over the network?