Thursday, 29 December 2011
Remote Speakers Output Plug-In 4.0
The time has finally come! Since I first conceived of a Remote Speakers output plug-in, I have wanted to support synced playback on multiple devices. To do so, Apple has provided a UDP protocol that is a little more complex and finicky than the TCP protocol that has been present in past version of the plug-in. Today I am very happy to release v4.0 with support for syncing as well as all the new AirPlay branded devices out there.
Download link: Remote Speakers output v4.0
- Switched from TCP to UDP protocol for streaming audio data to remote speakers; the UDP protocol should offer more immediate responsiveness and actual synching between multiple devices
- Added support for several more device types — including the Apple TV, Denon AVR, Marantz AVR and Pioneer VSX
- Added support for sending track metadata (titles, artwork and progress) to devices that support displaying it
- Limited rate of warning messages because some players will try to open the next track in a playlist if the current track failed and this can cause a long sequence of dialog boxes that must be dismissed manually
- Checking a device in the Remote Speakers submenu will uncheck any inactive zero-conf devices
- Fixed bug in volume control setting where remote speakers would be left at whatever previous volume had been set, rather then resetting to full volume
- Enhanced device discovery TXT record checking by adding regex tests of many common properties
- Moved reformatter in front of output thread so that bytes output can be correctly reported according to input format; this should give a more accuratue playback timer reading in the player
- Added several debugger statements to help trace startup and shutdown issues
- Updated Bonjour to 3.0, OpenSSL to 1.0.0e, Poco to 1.4.2, Secret Rabbit Code (a.k.a. libsamplerate) to 0.1.8 and PC Guard for Win32 to 5.07.0100
Thank you to everyone who has helped me through the development and testing process. It has been a lot of work to get the AirPlay stuff working. And there is still much work to be done to continue to support new devices and different configurations. If anyone has an AirPlay device that does not work properly with the plug-in, I'd sure like to hear from you; I should be able to make an update in short order to address the issue.
Happy streaming,
Eric
