Hi Chris,

Yesterday I bought this wonderful application. Thankyou for your work
I tried it with Firefly with a Soundbridge from Pinnacle and it works fine.
I also have a Qnap TS 101 NAS with a Twonkymedia Server.
It doesn't work
Is there a chance to include Twonkymedia as a mediaserver in your app?

It would be great.

Best,
Icke

Hi,

I've successfully used your application with Twonky yesterday. I seem to have had some strange entries like "Jazz", "Music" in my playlists but apart from that it seem to have worked. Could be a Twonky issue though.
Your app is really what I was missing and I consider buying a Touch just for the living room as a Soundbridge Remote in addition to my iPhone.

On your list of future features you said that browsing folder is not worth implementing. That's one of features I use most on my Soundbridge as it makes it much easier for me to search for my kids music and radio plays.

So pleeeeaaaasseee consider implementing it.


Cheers,
Matthias

Hi guys/gals, just to give an update on the next update (see what I did there)

I had to pull the update I uploaded a few days ago from apple as I found a major problem with a null pointer that was creeping up everywhere, causing major crashing galore. I though best to delay the update and fix the problem, instead of giving you guys/gals a dodgy update.

Well I have since fixed the bug with some bug spray and I am just about to upload the new update to apple again, so probably not going to see anything til the end of next week/beginning of following week now. Sorry for the wait

I took the chance though to add one more feature, which allows caching of artwork/lyrics to speed up the remote. After running the app for a while and caching starts to work, you'll notice a considerable speed difference in the remote Also, this enabled me to add an option to change artwork for an album with something in your photo album by touching for longer than 3 secs on the displayed artwork.

Below is just a list of definite features in the update im uploading:

Autodiscovery with bonjour: DONE
It should automatically find all your devices for you (No need to manual add anymore). I have left manual adding in there, just incase people do want to set static ones (such as controlling your device over the internet (forward port 5555 to ur roku device for extra fun when your away and someone is at home ), Also needed so apple can exactly do that to test the app on my device)

Alphabetic track order changed to normal track ordering: DONE
There was an option in the roku spec, ive set it so it does alphabetic when you list all your songs, but for everything else it is done by track order. (iTunes users, i understand what was happening now, iTunes lists things by lastPlayed unless you tell to otherwise)

Radio, Internet Radio and Preset Controls: DONE
Have add option to choose and play presets and internet radio presets

Artist -> Album -> Songs: DONE

Lyrics Download: DONE
Using Lyricwiki.org api

Alarm/Snooze: DONE
You can toggle through the different snooze times/off
You can switch alarms on or off. Cant really do anymore as roku spec doesnt give any other commands, so cannot get alarm/snooze details or set specific times etc..

Artwork/Lyrics caching
Once pulled off the net once, both are cached in the app for later use. When app closes, image data is saved to ipod/iphone and then reloaded when app restarts. Makes major improvements in speed of remote after caching starts to return hits

Correct Album Artwork
A long touch press (3 secs) on a displayed artwork in the remote will open your photo album, where you can select a replacement artwork image for that album. Recommended size is 325x330px



Sorry again for the delay, hope you think its worth it

Hi Chris,

I'm really happy with this app. I've been away from this forum for a while, so when I read your announcement today, I immediately bought the app.

Going through the requests in this post I think this is already a good filled list, and there isn't much that I can add to it. But here are a few things that would make me very happy.
- reading the artwork from the file, at least in the remote/now playing screen. You say your app may get too slow, but when you would only look for artwork in the mp3 file itself, then that should not take longer than a query to amazon. Keeping the artwork in each mp3 seperately just seems like good tag management to me.
- surely artist/album/song is a must, but also genre/artist/song would be really useful. maybe the way the ipod touch implements it? (having all albums at the same level as artist)
- to me usage data is almost as important as good tags. So I want to make sure my lastplayed & playcount are correctly being updated. Just tonight I've learned that the itunes track counter surfaced again: http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=16378 and this really works great. But really super would be to be able to update the song rating. So having that in your app would be really make this thing complete!
I realize that this needs some script running on the server. the itunes track counter works really good, maybe if you and the author could share some ideas how this could be done.....

keep up the good work !

cakes

Chris,

you must be a very courageous man, because you have developed an application for a dying if not already dead product. And I don't mean the iPhone.

Chapeau!
Klaas

My 3 Soundbridges aren't dead yet

I'm really looking forward to using this app, but I'm not buying a Touch until it they release a version with 64 GB so that I can sync my entire music collection to it easily. Within a year from now I hope, unless my collection grows by another 20 GB by then

Has anyone managed to get this app to work with Vista media sharing. My SB can see the media share on my Vista PC, but the app doesn't seem to to be able to read from it. It finds the server on the PC, but so far I get "device connection lost" everytime I try to see an artist, playlist, etc.

Also, has anyone managed to get it to work with Rhapsody. Same problem: sees the server, but disconnects.

UPDATE: turns out it's my install of WMP11. It's not being shared to the Roku. But Rhapsody still isn't working.

Has anyone tried this with TVersity as the server?
Thanks.

Chris

Absolutely superb app.
Have just purchased v1.0 from uk iTunes store. It works well with my M1000 & iTunes.

I can't wait for the next version with radio control support. I guess you are waiting for apple to approve it?

My iPhone & Roku are very happy

Regards,

Ashley

Here is the ServerGetCapabilities output for TVersity:

ServerGetCapabilities: TransactionInitiated
ServerGetCapabilities: QuerySupport: Partial
ServerGetCapabilities: Containers: yes
ServerGetCapabilities: Playlists: yes
ServerGetCapabilities: PartialResults: yes
ServerGetCapabilities: TransactionComplete

Will the app refuse to work if the server is not known, or is it more of a "use at your risk" thing?

reading the artwork from the file, at least in the remote/now playing screen. You say your app may get too slow, but when you would only look for artwork in the mp3 file itself, then that should not take longer than a query to amazon. Keeping the artwork in each mp3 seperately just seems like good tag management to me.

Its going to be very hit and miss with grabbing artwork from mp3's (see previous post about this). Im hoping with the artwork caching and the ability to change album artwork through your photo album will be a good "inbetween" solution that suits most people.

surely artist/album/song is a must, but also genre/artist/song would be really useful. maybe the way the ipod touch implements it? (having all albums at the same level as artist)

shall add it to the list

to me usage data is almost as important as good tags. So I want to make sure my lastplayed & playcount are correctly being updated. Just tonight I've learned that the itunes track counter surfaced again: http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=16378 and this really works great. But really super would be to be able to update the song rating. So having that in your app would be really make this thing complete!
I realize that this needs some script running on the server. the itunes track counter works really good, maybe if you and the author could share some ideas how this could be done.....

im not looking to develop anything like this atm, the other apps already out there do a pretty good job.

you must be a very courageous man, because you have developed an application for a dying if not already dead product. And I don't mean the iPhone.

an application that was well sort for, plus the fact i built it initially for myself as it was something I wanted. maybe the roku's are being discontinued, but im still pleased with what i've built, and i've learned a new language and platform to boot as well.

Also, has anyone managed to get it to work with Rhapsody. Same problem: sees the server, but disconnects.

UPDATE: turns out it's my install of WMP11. It's not being shared to the Roku. But Rhapsody still isn't working.

Rhapsody doesnt have artist/album/song list features available through roku (it connects through UPNP), so it cant be supported in the app at the moment (unless the api alters or i get containers included)

Has anyone tried this with TVersity as the server?

No one has said they have got TVersity working with it yet. A lot depends on how it connects to your roku and what is available through the roku api. If possible could you do the following:

- Switch your roku device on and connect it to your music server
- Go to a computer, open command prompt and connect to it via telnet on port 5555. For example: "telnet 192.168.0.4 5555"
- You should see "roku - ready" when its connects.
- Next type "GetConnectedSever" and press enter, it should return "GetConnectedServer: OK"
- Then type "ServerGetCapabilities" and press enter. Can you let me know what it returns.

And finally to ashleyhinton, thanks for the feedback and support. Im glad you like it, and yes it is a case of apple putting their rubber stamp on it (seems to take 1-2 weeks)

lol Haggis, you read my mind. it is a case of "use at your risk".

Your ServerGetCapabilities looks promising, can you run a few more commands for me (preferable in this order)

ListArtists (this should return list of artists)
ListAlbums (this should return list of albums)
SetBrowseFilterArtist ARTISTNAME (should return SetBrowseFilterArtist: OK)
ListSongs (this should return list of songs of artist set above)
ListPlaylists (this should return list of ur playlist)
ListPlaylistSongs 0 (this should return list of songs in your first playlsit)

If you get the responses above, then you should have a good chance of getting it working (but then as i cannot personally test it, it still goes with the "use at your risk" policy). If you do brave it let us know how it goes

Thanks. I got the expected responses with TVersity. I'll buy the app and give it a try later and let you know.

chris5287 wrote:

Album artwork is pulled from the net and not from mp3 tags. This is due to the many different ways each server saves this information, that it would slow the app down I feel too much to do so.

For example iTunes sometimes saves artwork into only one of your albums mp3 songs data (not all of them, gah!), so it would require loading through a whole album to find the artwork. Also, iTunes sometimes saves artwork in .itc files, stored somewhere on your computer, making it very difficult to actually find it. As for other servers, firefly doesnt have a feature (not I know of) to deal with artwork, so it just seems a lost caused, hence the net downloading instead using amazon.com api.

How about if the 1st mp3 in an album has an artwork tag, then use that, and if not, pull from the web? I've been fairly diligent about making sure my mp3s have embedded artwork; as you point out, servers are inconsistent about how artwork is handled, but embedding them directly in mp3 tags seems to work everywhere.

Amazon has been pretty hit-or-miss for me with artwork -- I have lots of demos, out-of-print lps, original unreleased works, live recordings, and obscure or personally-assembled compilations.

Works fine with TVersity. Looking forward to the features in the next version, particularly the track ordering and Artist -> Album -> Song.

If I could request a feature, it would be to browse the server containers. I've customized some of the menus that TVersity presents and use this to separate my music from my wife's and kid's.

Great work.