Using DNLA with musicbox

Pi MusicBox
1

I’d like to stream music from an Android Handy to musicbox. I guess, that should be possible via “DNLA”, but as I never used something like this before, I’m stuck before I could begin! :wink:

Is there some documentation of how to do this?

  1. select an Sound in Android
  2. do something
  3. sound will be played in musicbox

Thanks for your help! :wink:
Thomas.

2

It depends on which version of Android you are using. In version 4, you need to have media sharing on from “settings”. Once you do this, the stock media players (such as music player) start displaying a button on them where you can direct the output to DLNA devices that are on the network. You just click the button in the app and chose the device in the list. That’s all.

3

I did not realise android had finally integrated this. Thanks

4

Actually, I can’t find this functionality on Android 5. Surely they didn’t
remove it. Am I bring dense?

5

Ok I went and found an Android phone specifically for this purpose. I checked to see how it is done and sure enough, it is just as I said. This phone has version. 4.1.2

  1. press left button, which open a list
  2. select “settings”.
  3. then select “more settings”
  4. scroll down to “share media”, and under this heading there is only one thing and that is “device near by - share your media via DLNA”. select that
  5. tap “file sharing”. and make other settings adjustments (like what files can and cannot be shared, video, photos, music, name of the device on DLNA network etc.)

Now go to a media player and you will see a box where you can chose “output”. If you have pimusicbox running, this button will display “musicbox”. send music to pi.

edit: you can also play music from other devices on the phone with this on the “music” app. When you have media sharing on as decribed above, in the place where you add songs or playlists on the player an additional button appears “DLNA devices”. You can then select that and play songs from you NAS, for example.

6

Thanks very much for taking the time to share all that. Sadly my phone
running stock android v5.0.2 doesn’t have this ability. Perhaps it’s
something in the older version or some customisation added by your vendor.
Fortunately, I can still get the same functionality by downloading
bubbleupnp so either way it’s pretty easy to get working.

7

hmm. interesting. maybe they decided that DLNA was on its way out. Or maybe Samsung customized the android radically…

8

Samsung? Then yes, they do a lot to it.

9

Thanks for your help!
Is there something to activate within musicbox, or does it work ootb? Because I can find some DNLA-Players (my TV), but not musicbox, if I search from my windows with “media streaming options”.

Thanks.

Edit: nevermind! Found it myself, I guess I was blind! :wink:
enable_upnp = true in the settings.ini does the trick!

10

played around a bit with the DNLA-thingie. I came as far as to connect to MusicBox, but then nothing happens. The Player (regardless its on native windows or on a android device) “freezes” on the playing, it doesn’t show the progress indicator and musicbox stays silent. It will interrupt playing spotify.

somebody got this up and running? use case would be playing youtube-sound, local mp3, … in musicbox

11

Does your DLNA content play properly with other players ? What DLNA server are you using ?

12

Some times problems like this can be caused by router settings