Android Alternatives to Vlc player for UPNP and DLNA streaming of music files

JMak

JMak

Yeah.. I am at it ;)
Adept
Hi
I have been using vlc player on my android phone to cast music to my chromecast audio...
But it has utterly limited library management options when accessing my music over local network.. (music is stored on an ext hdd connected to archer c7 router)

Was wondering if there are alternatives which are more robust, and can share meta data, and are able to manage them.

Thanks
 
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I have tried various solutions to stream movies from my PC to android TV on LAN (samba).
So far only VLC worked perfect.
Rest others removed within few minutes.
 
Futureized said:
I have tried various solutions to stream movies from my PC to android TV on LAN (samba).
So far only VLC worked perfect.
Rest others removed within few minutes.
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Same here, but I found bubble Upnp pretty promising, but it adds only 16 files in Playlist in free version and that was the deal breaker for me, otherwise it was good

Infact for videos, you should give it a go once, if not tried already...
 
JMak said:
Same here, but I found bubble Upnp pretty promising, but it adds only 16 files in Playlist in free version and that was the deal breaker for me, otherwise it was good

Infact for videos, you should give it a go once, if not tried already...
Click to expand...
i think i have tried that..
Community support and UI is another most important reason, to stay away from other apps
 
JMak said:
I have been using vlc player on my android phone to cast music to my chromecast audio...
But it has utterly limited library management options when accessing my music over local network.. (music is stored on an ext hdd connected to archer c7 router)

Was wondering if there are alternatives which are more robust, and can share meta data, and are able to manage them.
Click to expand...
DMS Explorer? Been a long time since I switched away from UPNP/DNLA, but used this regularly back then. Don't quite recall how good the library management was, though.
 
codelad said:
DMS Explorer? Been a long time since I switched away from UPNP/DNLA, but used this regularly back then. Don't quite recall how good the library management was, though.
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Pretty neat and simple, but you can play just one file at a time, no option to que files or play a full folder.. One has to manually select file after the first is done playing
But it is light and simple
 
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JMak said:
Pretty neat and simple, but you can play just one file at a time, no option to que files or play a full folder.. One has to manually select file after the first is done playing
But it is light and simple
Click to expand...
There's also one more app that I recall using for casting to a different device. Forget the name - after a bit of searching, I think it very likely was YAACC (the only thing I remember is that it was available on F-droid).
 
codelad said:
There's also one more app that I recall using for casting to a different device. Forget the name - after a bit of searching, I think it very likely was YAACC (the only thing I remember is that it was available on F-droid).
Click to expand...
This one is indeed great as a Upnp player, but unfortunately it can't cast wirelessly,
Otherwise again a 9retty neat, simple and fast alternative if one has to play on phone...
But my use case is casting to my Google chromecast audio using phone as Intermediary.
 
rclone.org can serve your files over DLNA, check the "features" section on the main page :)

you just need to run it (either docker container or, like im doing, systemd startup) on something like linux.

i dont do serious local streaming, i just have rclone serve a folder on my mini PC and i've stored a few pics/vids/music which i sometimes play on my TV where the share just shows up automagically.
 
vishalrao said:
rclone.org can serve your files over DLNA, check the "features" section on the main page :)

you just need to run it (either docker container or, like im doing, systemd startup) on something like linux.

i dont do serious local streaming, i just have rclone serve a folder on my mini PC and i've stored a few pics/vids/music which i sometimes play on my TV where the share just shows up automagically.
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Sure I ll try again
 
calvin1719 said:
Really not sure of what your setup is currently or how you're using Kodi, but if it's the Android remote app I found it pretty terrible. I use Kodi as a media server and player running on my desktop, and use Yatse (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.leetzone.android.yatsewidgetfree) to control it from my phone.
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Had installed kodi on phone, and the first thing that pissed me off was it's locked to landscape orientation, and i just couldn't stand it...
Suppose I do install kodi on phone then how do I access the USB drive connected to router to play songs?
 
JMak said:
Had installed kodi on phone, and the first thing that pissed me off was it's locked to landscape orientation, and i just couldn't stand it...
Suppose I do install kodi on phone then how do I access the USB drive connected to router to play songs?
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This, I think https://kodi.wiki/view/Adding_music_to_the_library

Once you have the library set up, you can look into Yatse to actually access and cast it.

That said, I don't think I'd know any more about this as the way I use Kodi is vastly different from how you're planning it I think.

Edit: The reason Kodi is hard to use on a phone is that the target for the Android app is set top boxes etc. running Android that connect to a large screen. The Android port is not targeted at phones. https://kodi.wiki/view/Android
 
Well i had set it up after turning the Upnp option in services, but this is not what I am looking for, I am looking for a music player app that can cast as well as connect via Upnp to my ext hdd where all the music is stored (and that hdd is connected toy router and not PC)

Kodi can just manage music but if I have to install it on phone and connect another app (vlc) to cast, that just loses the purpose.

Seems vlc is the best option as its simple, can access my music, and can play and cast... Although with limited options, but does the job really...

Kodi would have been great if i was to use my pc as server...
 
I thought the issue was that VLC did not have robust library management? Addition of Kodi running in the bg to handle the library removes that limitation. And you would need to access only 1 app regularly, Yatse.

Router > Kodi music library that scans the router files > Kodi runs in the background > Yatse connects to Kodi on the local device (i.e. the phone) and makes the library easily browsable > Yatse either plays via the local device (phone loudspeaker) or casts it to another device.

Sorry if I'm still misunderstanding what you're saying.
 
calvin1719 said:
I thought the issue was that VLC did not have robust library management? Addition of Kodi running in the bg to handle the library removes that limitation. And you would need to access only 1 app regularly, Yatse.

Router > Kodi music library that scans the router files > Kodi runs in the background > Yatse connects to Kodi on the local device (i.e. the phone) and makes the library easily browsable > Yatse either plays via the local device (phone loudspeaker) or casts it to another device.

Sorry if I'm still misunderstanding what you're saying.
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Technically that's correct
I scanned my whole library with kodi installed on my phone but I realised kodi doesnt have an option to browse through folders rather all other options were there, that would mean I ll have to add proper id3 tags to hundreds of gb of files just to arranged them as albums etc... Seeing this I didn't even try installing yatsee and deleted kodi despite it taking so much time to scan throigh all my library..


But i ll again give it a try tomorrow.. And update
 
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