Friday, January 16, 2015

Playing my music from my NAS to a Raspberry Pi player ... and beyond

[work in progress]

Due to audio issues with Win7 and 8, I had to move my music playback off the PC and onto a Raspberry Pi.

Here is a brief description of what I have:
Raspberry Pi 
I use a Model B+ (Model B also works perfectly) with MPD.
MPD is configured to output sound to the HDMI output, as well as stream it over HTTP. That way, I can also listen to my music from any of the connected devices (such as tablets, phones etc)


USB sound card
The Pi has 2 music outputs:
a) 3.5mm analog audio jack. This works ok but the sound is not of high quality.

b) HDMI. Digital output. This is a much better option

c) USB. Digital output. This requires an additional USB sound card that plugs into one of the Pi's USB ports. The quality is very good. (Audiophiles with a golden ear will probably disagree.)

I use option C, with one of these USB 2.0 Virtual 7.1 Channel Audio Sound Card Adapters.


NAS 
All my music is stored on a NAS, so it can be accessed from anywhere by anyone of my players (currently, just the one)

Cantana
This is the software that I use on the PC to play music. The software runs on the PC; the sound comes out of the USB sound card (connected to the Pi) and is fed to my amplifier/speakers.


MPDroid
I use this MPD client on my phone, so I can also choose what to hear, without needing to fire up the PC.
Additionally, if MPDroid detects an incoming or outgoing phone call, it pauses the music and resumes it once the call is finished. Very nice!

If you need more info on how this is all set up, leave me a comment.


ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

I can't update Android apps installed on the sd card anymore

Connect your device to your PC (you may need to have the USB drivers that came with your phone installed)I've recently started having a problem with updating my Android apps.

If they were located on the SD card then the update would fail after it was downloaded.

After searching around for quite a bit, the following did the trick:

  • Connect your phone to your PC
  • When the connection is detected by the phone, it may ask you if you wish to switch to USB storage. Say yes.
  • From your PC, go to the phone's drive (that should have just appeared in Explorer) and navigate to /sdcard/.android_secure/
  • Find the file called smdl2tmp1.asec and delete it
  • Disconnect the phone
  • Done!!

[UPDATE 1dec2014]
A number of people have commented that they can no longer find the file smdl2tmp1.asec.
I have been told by others (but have not tested myself, as I don't have the problem) that another option is to connect the phone to a PC and use Windows Explorer to look at the SD card and try to find that file.

I am afraid I don't have any other suggestions :-(




[Blatant plug! See my article about my album on Google Play.]


 ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!