In-Progress Emby Server - Gapless Playback

[paulnheshi 2]

It seems gapless playback feature isn't available on Emby Theatre on Windows (I use when in the office) or FireTV (Cube or 4k stick) i use at home. Gapless playback is essential when listening to most House, Trance, Drum & Bass, its really jarring have several seconds gap between tracks in mixed albums, which is the majority of my audio library. The lack of gapless playback is forcing to me to look for alternatives, i hope somebody is working on bringing this to Windows and FireTV users. 

[Ticesalex 0]

+1

[HappyMax 3]

Hi!

As the last requests for gapless playback are 4 years old, I'll try a new one.

Can you PLEEEASE integrate gapless playback? I own a Marantz SR 7010 and with the original (but very bad) Marantz app it is no problem, so I'm sure it works. But I've tried everthing I foud and there seem to be no way to get it running within Emby.

Best Regards

Max

[Luke 37063]

On 5/28/2022 at 7:56 AM, HappyMax said:

Hi!

As the last requests for gapless playback are 4 years old, I'll try a new one.

Can you PLEEEASE integrate gapless playback? I own a Marantz SR 7010 and with the original (but very bad) Marantz app it is no problem, so I'm sure it works. But I've tried everthing I foud and there seem to be no way to get it running within Emby.

Best Regards

Max

HI, what Emby app are you playing with?

[HappyMax 3]

Android (Clients) and Windows (Server)

[Luke 37063]

On 8/5/2022 at 1:22 AM, HappyMax said:

Android (Clients) and Windows (Server)

Hi, our standard android app already supports it. For our Windows app it's something we can look into for a future update to it. Thanks.

[HappyMax 3]

When I stream music to my Marantz via my Android phone, it doesn't work. Is it because of the server windows program? Did I get this right? How can I solve this?

[braunsch 9]

New to Emby - but I’m not sure how to enable gapless playing. 

My server: Emby Media Server on Synology NAS (I installed the Emby package). 

My controller: Emby App for iOS on an iPad

My renderer/playback device: Marantz SR7011 receiver. 

When I play tracks from the server directly to the Marantz receiver (= select the receiver as “Play On” deivce), there is a 7.5 second gap between tracks. I don’t think this qualifies as “gapless”. 

What is going wrong here? 

[vdatanet 1549]

5 minutes ago, braunsch said:

New to Emby - but I’m not sure how to enable gapless playing. 

My server: Emby Media Server on Synology NAS (I installed the Emby package). 

My controller: Emby App for iOS on an iPad

My renderer/playback device: Marantz SR7011 receiver. 

When I play tracks from the server directly to the Marantz receiver (= select the receiver as “Play On” deivce), there is a 7.5 second gap between tracks. I don’t think this qualifies as “gapless”. 

What is going wrong here? 

I assume you use Play to DLNA. In this scenario gapless is not supported. 

You can try this solution:

 

 

[braunsch 9]

vdatanet - thanks for your quick reply!

Yes - it’s DLNA or UPnP.

I have tried mconnect - but the app is absolutely terrible: Browsing functionality is extremely basic - and it’s a hit-or-miss: 90% of the time it does not find the Marantz receiver as an available “play-to” device - and the ability to listen to music should not be something that happens by chance. I could not find anything anywhere (so far) that would allow me to reliably have my receiver (and other devices) available as a play-to.

One of the key advantages of Emby over other solutions is the user interface of the app - and that is something that mconnect would cut out…

[vdatanet 1549]

While playing music to a dlna device, there is still a huge gap between tracks, almost 5 seconds. It doesn't seem normal to me.

[braunsch 9]

2 hours ago, vdatanet said:

While playing music to a dlna device, there is still a huge gap between tracks, almost 5 seconds. It doesn't seem normal to me.

I know. But apparently, this is not something Emby is even considering to fix: they appear to be happy if it works on the platforms/devices that are the least suitable for serious music enjoyment (iOS, Android).

There is so much to love about this software, but not having gapless playback (something the first iPod ever already had in 2001) kills it.
I don’t want to have a different server software and controller app depending on where I want to listen to my music. 

[Luke 37063]

We'll take a look at it, but most dlna renderers don't support the command needed for gapless playback.

[braunsch 9]

37 minutes ago, Luke said:

We'll take a look at it, but most dlna renderers don't support the command needed for gapless playback.

I’d say, probably, most in fact do. It’s not DLNA rendering software in question here - but devices with built-in DLNA renderers: Most AV receivers from companies like Denon, Marantz, Yamaha, Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony… they all do. 

For example, all current Denon/Marantz devices with network capability can do gapless playback (including their “HEOS” networked speakers) - and they do it from many other servers like MinimServer, Serviio, jRiver, Asset UPnP. All of these play directly, gapless - and including DSD files - to those AV receivers, no other software or hardware needed.

But none of them has the seamless integration with other information sources like Emby does. 

[vdatanet 1549]

57 minutes ago, Luke said:

We'll take a look at it, but most dlna renderers don't support the command needed for gapless playback.

Then put an option, "Enable gapless DLNA Play To" (or similar) underneath "Enable DLNA Play To" , and let the user decide.

Without this option, Emby will hardly integrate into hi-fi systems.

 

Something like:

 

 

With this option, I could do without Roon. Roon is a great piece of software, but I'd like to manage my audio collection with the same tool that I manage my video collection.

Edited November 7, 2022 by vdatanet

[braunsch 9]

21 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

Then put an option, "Enable gapless DLNA Play To" (or similar) underneath "Enable DLNA Play To" , and let the user decide.

Without this option, Emby will hardly integrate into hi-fi systems.

Or this one, from BubbleUPnP Server:

[paulnheshi 2]

I've only been using Emby to watch video and only when i'm at parents house because of the absence of gapless audio playback on the FireTV app and several issues relating to Audio library/playback on the Android app (media controls don't work such as FFWD, progress bar has no slider functionality etc and can't scroll through library because when scrolling down list, it keeps resetting the view to top of list).

To be honest, I've had to standardise on Kodi on Fire Cube at home and on my Android phone which provides flawless gapless playback on both devices and functioning media controls. I'd rather standardise on Emby but i haven't been able to so far. Gapless playback is an absolute must for me, can't have 2-15 second gaps between tracks when most of the music i listen to is mixed.

[Luke 37063]

2 hours ago, paulnheshi said:

I've only been using Emby to watch video and only when i'm at parents house because of the absence of gapless audio playback on the FireTV app and several issues relating to Audio library/playback on the Android app (media controls don't work such as FFWD, progress bar has no slider functionality etc and can't scroll through library because when scrolling down list, it keeps resetting the view to top of list).

To be honest, I've had to standardise on Kodi on Fire Cube at home and on my Android phone which provides flawless gapless playback on both devices and functioning media controls. I'd rather standardise on Emby but i haven't been able to so far. Gapless playback is an absolute must for me, can't have 2-15 second gaps between tracks when most of the music i listen to is mixed.

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

[paulnheshi 2]

On 21/11/2022 at 18:12, Luke said:

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

Thanks for the quick reply, will give it a shot tomorrow

[paulnheshi 2]

In case it helps anybody, i have been experimenting with Embycon plugin for Kodi on Windows. It enables Kodi to act as a client app for Emby. I just tested music playback and it does indeed provide flawless gapless audio playback. I suspect this would also work on Kodi for Xbox, Android, FireTV and others. 

[Luke 37063]

On 11/7/2022 at 11:59 AM, braunsch said:

Or this one, from BubbleUPnP Server:

Yes this will be in Emby Server 4.8 for DLNA. Thanks.

[braunsch 9]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Yes this will be in Emby Server 4.8 for DLNA. Thanks.

Yay! Thank you!

[Luke 37063]

The DLNA update is in the DLNA plugin version 1.1+. I backported it to 4.7 so you no longer need to wait for Emby Server 4.8. Enjoy.

[vdatanet 1549]

16 minutes ago, Luke said:

The DLNA update is in the DLNA plugin version 1.1+. I backported it to 4.7 so you no longer need to wait for Emby Server 4.8. Enjoy.

Still not gapless. Do I need to configure any settings?

[Luke 37063]

3 minutes ago, vdatanet said:

Still not gapless. Do I need to configure any settings?

It's only with dlna rendererers that support SetNextAVTransportURI, so that it can preload what is going to be played next. And whether it actually ends up being gapless or not is more in the hands of the player. When track 1 starts playing we immediately give it the url of track 2 so that it can download it ahead of time. But whether it actually does or not is up to each player.