I would love to have a proper way of streaming media from external locations. The built in apps are not sufficient for me, as I also want to be able to browse through all the music and videos on my NAS. I used to run SubSonic on a PC which had all these features.
Is there a way of installing SubSonic Server on my NAS? That would be awesome - it would require Java to be installed as well. If not, what other similar methods could I implement to achieve the same thing - browsing my music and videos through a web-interface (and playing them as playlists) or through a media player.
You can browse through your files if you access the twonky interface on the unit by going to “http://deviceipaddress:9000” From there you can go through each category, (video, music, photo) and browse your files.
If you want, you can go to our ideas board and give your suggestions there:
Twonky is incredibly slow when I want to browse through the amount of media I’ve placed on the NAS and doesn’t allow me to play a full album or playlist, which is silly. Is there no way of installing SubSonic on the system as it is right now? The current media streaming solutions for it are quite slow or lacking of features.
It’s quite possible to run SubSonic on the EX4! A few requirements are easily set in place - however this is not tested extensively yet and it will not yet run automatically on reboot!
Firstly, Java needs to be installed (as standalone is okay!) - check this thread to see how.
Secondly, download the subsonic standalone version. Create /shares/Public/opt/subsonic and use tar xzf file.gz -C /shares/Public/opt/subsonic to extract the contents to the directory.
Create /shares/Public/subsonic and /shares/Public/subsonic/transcode and copy /usr/local/modules/twonky/cgi-bin/ffmpeg_wrapper to the transcode directory as ffmpeg (or create a symlink, if you wish)
SubSonic is started with the subsonic.sh script in /shares/Public/opt/subsonic. Execute that file with the --help flag to see all the possible options for starting the server. Now start SubSonic with the options you like.
Optional - I made a start.sh script in /shares/Public/opt/subsonic/ which runs subsonic.sh with –home=/shares/Public/subsonic --port=8080. The home option is required because we placed the transcoder there, you could place the transcoder anywhere and change the option accordingly.
I understand the frustration with Twonky, but to me the best way to access the functionality is through a tablet interface from where your HiFi system resides. Then you can have the convenience of digital music with the quality of sound that only a HiFi system can deliver.
I play my EX4 media through a Cambridge Audio NP30 streamer which gives me full access to my playlists, album art etc from a tablet (IOS) App. Although I use ALAC, the NP30 does a very good job of upsampling content.
In addition to your own music a digital streamer can access internet-streamed content and the Naim and Linn services (@350kbps) are very very good.
For in-house streaming all that sounds pretty good, however I want to stream from my NAS to any external device (on my body). I want to be able to listen to my music on my phone (streamed from the NAS) and on my laptop when I am at work.
SubSonic is the perfect solution for me - even though it’s rather slow on the hardware delivered in the EX4, it works fine and much faster than Twonky for me.
