I have figured out how to get the Playmaker to play nice with Linux - simple fix

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muppetsrock Posted: Sun, Jun 23 2013 5:23 PM

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I'm delightedly listening to a lossless file which I managed to get from a PC running Ubuntu to my Playmaker without any major messing around. This is not a perfect solution, as you'll see below, but it makes it easy to get things working.

The round-about route to victory

Short version: what you need is GUPnP which is a nice, well-supported piece of Free Software which speaks DLNA. It acts as a PC-based remote control for your media server and Playmaker.

For the media server, you need the non-Free Skifta, which is free-as-in-beer but doesn't come with source code. Some people care about this, some don't. I'll live. You just download and run Skifta, and it takes your various directories with music and makes them visible to GUPnP.

Result: two easy-to-install well-behaved apps work together to give you a basic browse-and-play interface on your Linux PC. GUPnP gives you the interface, and Skifta handles the media. You can also install Skifta on your phone and use it as a control from there, but I don't like the UI on that approach. I tried it. It's a pain.

Why you have to go the long way around

The Airplay / Playmaker thing is a deadend on Ubuntu - the iTunes audio interface is dead on Ubuntu. You can install all the software - pavucontrol, pulseaudio-module-raop, paprefs. Net result: nothing, it doesn't work. Your Airplay device, in this case the Playmaker, shows up in the Sound control panel, and when you send audio to it, nothing happens. The audio app usually pauses and waits to start streaming, and then never moves. Best guess why is that RAOP is out of date, and devices expect RAOP2 which doesn't work as yet.

It's not likely to get fixed any time soon - DLNA seems like it's where the development effort is, so here we are.

Quick thought for any Bang & Olufsen staff reading this

Support Linux. Here's why:

1) It's not hard - release the source code, offer a little encouragement, and people will soon-enough have the Playmaker running custom hacked operating systems that make it do what they want it to do. It probably runs Linux already, truth be told, so why not?

2) B&O is hurting financially, and not that many people have £4000 to blow on audio equipment - I certainly don't, I bought used at MoreThanAV. However, the BeoLab 3 is pretty much the perfect nerd audio system - technical, precise, clever, doesn't take up much space, you can lug it to Burning Man in a pelican case etc. The aesthetics and performance would work well for the nerd community, and they control an increasingly large percentage of the market place. For guys pulling down £80k+ a year on average, B&O is a plausible choice.

3) Innovation happens at the edges. Give people the source for the Playmaker, and let them experiment. You never know what kinds of innovation would happen, and all of that is free R&D.

The polished aesthetic is great for people that have no idea of how technology works, and little interest. But Apple's day is yesterday. Android is now arguably better than iOS in a whole range of ways, and that trend is only going to continue.

Time for a change of direction, maybe? Talk to a broader community, help them to support their own toys on your hardware, get something interesting to happen?

Anyway, just a suggestion, but there are a lot of hackers in the world, and they all like music. Worth a try.

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Millemissen replied on Sun, Jun 23 2013 11:43 PM

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That was a long story - but thanks anyway for sharing the trouble one has choosing the stony road of Linux.

Of course you can use the Playmaker, when you run Linux!

What you need is DLNA compatible software, and DLNA software you will find for any OS - no fuss about that.

As for your "advice" for B&O "releasing the sourcecode", I must say: there is nothing that they could release. They have - like all the rest - bought the BridgeCo chips and built them in.

Maybe these things can be hacked or reengineered, but B&O would not for any reason be able to "open up" their Playmaker.

As for your thoughts of Apple being yesterday, I must notice that if you want a system to 'play around with,' 'experiment with', just stick to Linux/Android and DLNA. If you want a system that works out of the box, choose Apple/iOS and AirPlay

It is the Airplay function (and the Line-in function) that makes the Playmaker shine, not the DLNA function!

Greetings Millemissen

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Orava replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 11:24 AM

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Linux

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Puncher replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 3:00 PM

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I have no OS flag to wave but I think they should make a point of staying on top of DNLA, I know some folk like Airplay but you can be certain that the vast majority of flat panel owners have a DNLA compliant device, whether they know it or not!

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muppetsrock replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 3:22 PM

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Functionally, I don't know much about differences between DLNA and Airplay - DLNA's a bit less mature, but "chuck file at device" vs. "chuck bitstream at device" doesn't seem like a religious issue :-)

But DLNA is definitely here to stay - android speaks it, TVs etc, lot of devices. I can't figure out what the licensing terms are, but it seems to be a lot more open than the Apple equivalent technologies, so... it's sticking around.

On the Free Software front, it's not hard - the Playmaker's got an operating system, it boots up, talks IP etc. All that code could (probably) be released, and people could hack in additional features (top bets: graphic equalizers, fixing DLNA-"pause" signalling, etc.) probably by building a web interface to the embedded software on the Playmaker. That's the sort of stuff a lot of techs love to do.

Right now, B&O is very much in the same camp as Apple: beautiful glass devices with non-modifiable internals which work perfectly. And you can *absolutely* sell to that market, and provide an option for people who want something different: "and you can flash the firmware and put on your own software, but entirely at your own risk" and off you go to the races!

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Millemissen replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 8:14 PM

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If you are really into Linux, you should leave the Playmaker in the shop....

....and have some fun with the Raspberry Pi:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/airplaying-music-and-video-from-ipad-to-raspberry-pi-its-as-easy-as/

Greetings Millemissen

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Puncher replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 8:26 PM

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I'm with the Muppet in that I'm not convinced Airplay is B&O's future.

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tournedos replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 8:39 PM

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muppetsrock:

On the Free Software front, it's not hard - the Playmaker's got an operating system, it boots up, talks IP etc. All that code could (probably) be released, and people could hack in additional features (top bets: graphic equalizers, fixing DLNA-"pause" signalling, etc.) probably by building a web interface to the embedded software on the Playmaker. That's the sort of stuff a lot of techs love to do.

The free / open software issue is complex, and there are a few points that might prevent stuff like this from ever happening:

• The chipset manufacturers might only release their programming specs under NDA. That's usually game over from the free software point of view. Many devices and their drivers have been reverse engineered, but B&O the company could have nothing to do with that
• It already includes an AirPlay implementation and they simply can not release that in the public - blame Apple, not B&O
• B&O don't want to support that even unofficially, because then they would also need to support it officially, train the dealers, etc etc (see next point)
• Company strategists nowadays try to offer the users "total brand experiences" and tinkering half-officially with non supported pieces of software and foreign hardware is totally against that
• They might even have a few executives that still think that free software is communism and will deprive them of their profits, even if it would be useless without the associated hardware
• Some decision makers might also think that nothing good can ever come out from free software, because it is hobbyist driven - you know, all the good programmers are working for big companies and those do everything better, even though they keep offering us such compost fodder as Windows Vista and charging us dearly
• Also, it might reveal that the Playmaker and similar devices are essentially a wifi chipset, a DAC and a smallish system-on-a-chip CPU with a small handful of discrete components and connectors, the only part differentiating it from anything else being the software. They are probably right with that.

Personally, I'd take an open specification such as DLNA over AirPlay or whatever any day.

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Millemissen replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 10:19 PM

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@tournedos - How about having and using both?

I love my Playmaker, as often stated in this forum!

Sometimes - for Spotify/netradio/podcasts etc - using the AirPlay part, sometimes using the DLNA part from the DLNA server on my NAS via PlugPlayer/iPad, but mostly using the line in for my Squeezebox drawing on the NAS (FLAC files) controlled by Squeezeplay/iPad. And the PM autoswitches these inputs, which is great.

The operation system of my Synology NAS, the DiskStation Manager (DSM) is a Linux based software - so in my case the Playmaker plays nice with Linux.

No need for a long story - or for 'OS battles' in my case.

Greetings Millemissen

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Puncher replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 10:30 PM

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Millemissen:

@tournedos - How about having and using both?

I'm sure Tournedos is not advocating DNLA to the exclusion of Airplay, he is merely saying that the former is likely to be more productive for a third party company as an open standard rather than the latter as closed - and I agree. Incorporating Apple standards is likely to incur a cost but a cost that should be incurred, but not to the exclusion of everyone else. The main point is that B&O's success of failure shouldn't be reliant on Apple and its whims - B&O is not, nor should become, an accessories supplier to a third party!

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Millemissen replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 11:06 PM

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Why do you think that B&O would rely on on only Apple in the future.

The BS/BM5 is DLNA, the PM is partly DLNA, the new tv's are DLNA., and B&O recommend using the Twonky Server, which is DLNA.

There is plenty of DLNA in the B&O product portfolio - I don't see why this should change...

...just because they are supporting AirPlay (for audio) as well!

Greetings Millemissen

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Puncher replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 11:13 PM

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Millemissen:

Why do you think that B&O would rely on on only Apple in the future.

The BS/BM5 is DLNA, the PM is partly DLNA, the new tv's are DLNA., and B&O recommend using the Twonky Server, which is DLNA.

There is plenty of DLNA in the B&O product portfolio - I don't see why this should change...

...just because they are supporting AirPlay (for audio) as well!

Greetings Millemissen

I base my opinion on what they have tried/promoted with their Beoplay product - it has been Apple centric. Hopefully the A3/A8 have been a valuable lesson, whereby the dictating company can make your product obsolete overnight, either totally or requiring an adapter.

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Millemissen replied on Mon, Jun 24 2013 11:41 PM

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B&O Play is just a part of the company, as you already know.

Greetings Millemissen

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DoubleU replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 6:02 AM

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Puncher, I don't see any reason how the A8 could be an obsolete product in the next forthcoming years. The (free) adapter is not an add-on but a replacement for the 30-pin. The lightning connector is probably going to stay for the next 10 years and so will Airplay. Somehow I have the feeling you want a B&O product supporting Apple technology to fail. 

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Puncher replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 7:30 AM

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DoubleU:

Puncher, I don't see any reason how the A8 could be an obsolete product in the next forthcoming years. The (free) adapter is not an add-on but a replacement for the 30-pin. The lightning connector is probably going to stay for the next 10 years and so will Airplay. Somehow I have the feeling you want a B&O product supporting Apple technology to fail. 

My mistake, I meant the BS8.

Nope, I definitely don't want B&O to fail - I especially don't want them to fail because they bet the shop on supporting another company! By all means support Apple's standards but do something extraordinary based upon Netlink or DLNA.

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tournedos replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 7:51 AM

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Puncher:

I'm sure Tournedos is not advocating DNLA to the exclusion of Airplay, he is merely saying that the former is likely to be more productive for a third party company as an open standard rather than the latter as closed - and I agree.

That's right, but it wasn't my point this time. All I did was list reasons why the Playmaker being "opened up" is extremely unlikely to ever happen, in response to another poster wishing for that.

I don't use either. I've had a DLNA player on my phone for three years though, but nothing to play it to

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Millemissen replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 9:22 AM

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"I don't use either. I've had a DLNA player on my phone for three years though, but nothing to play it to"

no experience with either

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muppetsrock replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 10:14 AM

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Guys, Airplay and DLNA are just two standards. They do a very similar job in slightly different ways. One's Apple native, the other's Android native.

Right now, Android outsells Apple at least two to one. There's no question, however, that Apple is going to stick around, because not much of that is people defecting from Apple - it's mostly people acquiring first smart phones.

But we're definitely entering a "Mac vs. PC" stage in smartphone markets - it's going to be both standards, side by side, for a long time.

B&O doesn't have a horse in the smartphone race, they owe allegiance to neither technology at a core level. They have nothing to lose for doing both.

As for opening up the Playmaker - those are good arguments, but I still point out: it's probably running Linux already. It's not clear what operating system it runs, it could be something like QNX, but it's probably Linux. If that's the case, in all probability, the could release the source code to their specific version without doing anything but good. Your arguments are valid, but not the whole story!

And B&O definitely, definitely need to cultivate the hacker market. There are a lot of 'em, they're not poor, they love music (see Reddit every time there's a music-to-code-by thread) and the BeoLab 3 in particular suits the aesthetics of that market.

$0.02 as you know, but there it is.

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muppetsrock replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 10:39 AM

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I took a quick look to see if I could figure out what OS the Playmaker is running

HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Date: Sat Jan  1 00:00:00 2000

Server: GoAhead-Webs

Pragma: no-cache

Cache-Control: no-cache

Content-type: text/html

So the web server is http://embedthis.com/products/goahead/

On closer examination 

Running: Bowers & Wilkins embedded, Denon embedded, Marantz embedded

OS details: Audio receiver: Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air, Denon AVR-1912, or Marantz NR1602

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Millemissen replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 10:45 AM

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"One's Apple native, the other's Android native."

DLNA is based on the UPnP standart and has existed long before Android came onto the scene.

This is - if we need to talk about it this way - rather a Mac vs PC war.

Linux and Android (as one of its commercial versions)  is the dark horse in that game.

For Linux user it is easier to use the DLNA standart - it is more open and can be licenced (for money or nothing ). This is not possible with AirPlay - unless you buy an implemented/embedded chip.

But AirPlay can be and has been reengineered and is thus used in a Linux environment as well (Raspberry Pi/BoxeeBox...)

But this has really nothing to do with the Playmaker and B&O.

The PM supports both DLNA and AirPlay - choose whatever you like, or use both!

No matter if you run a Windows, Apple or Linux OS...or both, or all three!

Greetings MM

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Millemissen replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 10:45 AM

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Double post 😂

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tournedos replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 11:36 AM

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Millemissen:

Seems a bit difficult to discuss the pros and cons of AirPlay and DLNA or AirPlay vs DLNA when you have

no experience with either

As I said, all I was talking about was why we are not going to see an open Playmaker from B&O. It is you who keep wanting to discuss AirPlay vs. DLNA, not me.

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Millemissen replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 11:49 AM

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The quotations were from your posts!

MM

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Millemissen replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 11:54 AM

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Muppetsrocks wrote:

"Sounds dumb, but there's good reasons for doing this. Ever wanted to use your B&O as an alarm clock? Not a hard function to add if the Playmaker was open. Graphic equalizer that you drive from a web browser? Certainly possible. Volume limiter for the kids? Can-do. The point of open source is that you can get good and cosy with your technology"

Why misuse a Playmaker for that - a Raspberry Pi can do that and much more.

Greetings MM

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muppetsrock replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 12:00 PM

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"Why misuse a Playmaker for that - a Raspberry Pi can do that and much more."

Misuse is in the eye of the beholder... A nice high quality D/A with networking features is whatever I tell it to be, if the software is open.

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tournedos replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 12:16 PM

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Millemissen:

The quotations were from your posts!

Of course they were, and out of the main context. For the second time, I didn't enter this thread to discuss Airplay vs. DLNA. Can I now go away?

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Millemissen replied on Tue, Jun 25 2013 1:19 PM

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You don't have to ask me that question.

MM

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StUrrock replied on Thu, Jun 27 2013 10:18 PM

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@muppetsrock 

Would be interested to what you think of 

This app is designed for Android device with ROOT permission

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StUrrock replied on Thu, Jun 27 2013 10:23 PM

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Millemissen:

B&O Play is just a part of the company, as you already know.

Greetings Millemissen

Good point please let Tue know!!

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Millemissen replied on Thu, Jun 27 2013 10:36 PM

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H'll be the first one to know.

Grrr! MM

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muppetsrock replied on Thu, Jun 27 2013 10:51 PM

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Ah, I can't install it, I haven't rooted my android.

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muppetsrock replied on Thu, Jun 27 2013 10:55 PM

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So now that it all works nicely, a second question: how good a D2A is the Playmaker?

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StUrrock replied on Thu, Jun 27 2013 11:07 PM

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muppetsrock:

Ah, I can't install it, I haven't rooted my android.

FYI

I am currently at home logged into WiFi  Picostation M2 running from Unifi controller beta version 3.1.1 on AWS cloud server.

On (the Wife's!! newly rooted) Nexus 7, now multicasting to numerous PMs, Airport Expresses, ATVs and the like!! Some on WiFisome wired!

@muppetsrock thanks for the hacking inspiration!!