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1000GB flac on-the-go successfully, streaming to iPhone/iPad/Android portables - Page 6

post #76 of 99
9/8/12 at 6:35am
Thread Starter 

@ KilltheFAT,

My Patriot portable NAS is SAMBA only. So no NFSv4 [tcp]. Its straming speed limit is over 3000 kbps, according to my real life test. That 2000 kbps number appears to be limited by Patriot's software, which you can avoid.

If you know better, commercial and portable flac-streaming device,please feel free to suggest here.

I have abandoned that CloudFTP idea for a while. I have heard about Raspberry Pi. It is very interesting. But I do not have time for serious tinkering (2 jobs and a family to run).

I am aware of the cloud storage. But it is <50GB (expensive if you want more) and requires expensive data plans (>$40 per month). What I have here is 1000GB on-the-go, $230 for a life time, and upgradable to 2TB or SSD. If you have a music collection of 2000GB and do some math, you may understand.

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post #77 of 99
9/8/12 at 6:40am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by seeteeyou View Post

Thank you for your awesome update and please kindly let us know the typical battery life later.

 

What if you simply get another app and so something like this?

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/65643/how-to-wirelessly-access-network-shares-from-your-ios-device/

 

Manually mapping \\10.10.10.254 should allow your iPhone to see your PGN as a local drive. Then you might be able to play those files wirelessly with Golden Ear and FLAC Player.

 

By the way, I was still wondering if there were any USB 3.0 setup similar to this:

 

http://www.hwtools.net/adapter/SSDMb.html

 

http://www.amazon.com/40PIN-Adapter-Transformer-TF101-Infinity/dp/B008TO3PSS

 

@ seeteeyou,

 

Battery life seems about 5 hrs, same as claimed by Patriot. Sorry I would not run battery drain test as it will affect battery life.

 

The howtogeek web page you referred to talks about general file sharing, not streaming flac.I use AcePlayer pro, which streams high resolution flac files and play them on my iPhone, directly all-in-one.

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post #78 of 99
9/8/12 at 11:07am
Thread Starter 

I found 2 additional cons of the AcePlayer Pro app and have updated the 2nd post of this thread:
Con #4) when screen is off iPhone 3GS (IOS 5) will stop playing, so screen has to be on. Although the app can run in the background w/o problem.
Con #5) There is slight/discrete noise produced with screen activities (e.g., scrolling down a long page). High resolution playback seems to be affected more.

In the end, I will still use this set-up. I like having 1TB flac with me anywhere, without paying additional data screaming fees. UI is a bit rough but does the bare minimal of what I want.

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post #79 of 99
9/8/12 at 11:20am

I was just curious about mounting samba shares as a local drive on iOS because of that post by headfinoob on the first page.

 

Both FLAC Player and Golden Ear support album artwork so I wondered if they were able to play FLAC properly after mounting samba share as local drive.

 

Then I read more about this $2.99 app and it seemed to support album artwork, samba streaming, and FLAC playback:

 

http://www.hustmobile.com/goodplayer/

 

FYI - AcePlayer Pro is available for free at the moment:

 

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aceplayer-pro/id540326056?mt=8

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post #80 of 99
9/8/12 at 12:35pm
Thread Starter 
^ If you write a step-by-step dummy guide on how to do it, I can try it. I am a bit busy now.

I have tried the GoodPlayer. It's SAMBA streaming from Patriot Gauntlet Node did not work at all. No content of the PGN was displayed. GoodPlayer did work for a "Public Folder" on my Mac OS X (streaming flac), but it can not Skip to next song nor rewind to previous song. Hustmobile confirmed that as a bug.
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post #81 of 99
9/9/12 at 1:13am

Free version is only limited to PDF and image files, some step-by-step instructions here:

 

http://www.ehow.com/how_7673066_connect-iphone-network-drives.html

 

I already downloaded AcePlayer Pro for free even though I do not have anything running iOS yet.

 

Once they have announced iPhone 5 in several days, used iPhone 4 with 8GB storage should be a nice option for V-MODA VAMP plus 1TB of external storage. It is 600 bucks @ Amazon.com or 585 dollars with 10% off coupon code on the official site. I could actually get that for HK$4,160 (under $500) locally.

 

Or simply wait for CEntrance HiFi-M8 coming soon in October and grab an 8GB iPod Touch for cheap.

 

Just think about it:

 

PGN for less than 100 bucks. 1TB hard drives are 90 dollars or so. Used iPod Touch 4G should be roughly $100 depending on its conditions. I could also use Gauntlet Node Connector with my Galaxy Nexus if USB OTG were working with CEntrance HiFi-M8.

 

Unbeatable prices for a neat portable rig with 1TB to boot. 960GB SSDs are still $1,129.99 right now and hopefully they will make something cheaper in the future.

 

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDEX3G960/

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post #82 of 99
9/11/12 at 12:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by zzffnn View Post

Yes, I have success!!

 

I have used (all on battery here):

Patriot Gauntlet Node (portable battery-powered NAS) -> SAMBA streaming -> AcePlayer Pro app -> iPhone 3GS w/ IOS 5.

 

This is the portable NAS Patriot Gauntlet Node (PGN), whose size is a little bigger than Objective2 amp or HM801:

 

 

The above setting can (pros):

1) store and play up to 2TB of flac

2) output digital (via Pure i20 coax/optical) to an external DAC

3) stream 24 bit / 96 kHz flac songs (the largest flac I tried was 172mb in size and 3058 kbps). But I am not sure if down-sampling occurs during playback.

4) perform reasonably like an iTouch minus album art (can do auto next, next/previous song, fast forward/rewind, background play with screen off).

5) display all album structures correctly (including sub folders).

 

The cons/bad:

1) no album art

2) no gapleess playback. Gap is 1.5 - 3 seconds long depending on the size/bitrate of flac. Gap is longer than Rockboxed Clip during playback.

3) start-up time is 2 minutes in total. The NAS takes about 40 sec to boot to NAS mode, then you may need to set up bridge mode using the Gauntlet Connect app (if you want streaming music and internet at the same time on your iPhone). Without setting up bridge mode, PGN still works as a music/file server (for this it only takes 1.5 min from powering on to playing a song).

4) when screen is off, iPhone 3GS (IOS 5) will stop playing, so screen has to stay on. Although the app can run in the background w/o problem.
5) There is slight/discrete noise produced during screen activities (e.g., scrolling down a long page). High resolution playback seems to be affected more.

 

Additional note:

1) I have tried GoodPlayer and OPlayer as well. GoodPlayer did not work. OPlayer is tooooo slow (gap is longer, although it shows album arts).

2) You can format the hard drive in Patriot Gauntlet Node (PGN) as Fat32 to allow compatibility between Mac and PC.

3) The hard drive you use for PGN has to be a laptop type 2.5'' that is no ticker than 9mm.

4) Use "10.10.10.254" as the address for PGN and set up account name and password in PGN's Gauntlet Connect app.

5) The PGN works as a files server as well. The Gauntlet Connect app works with all my doc, pdf, xls, ppt or jpg files.

6) iPhone 3GS with IOS 4.0.1 also works with AcePlayer. But non-music file sharing is not available though the Gauntlet Connect app (which requires >= IOS 4.3).

 

I have updated the title of the thread and post the above details at post #2 on page 1.

 

Just an update to the above post (I have update post #2 as well).

 

I have loaded 300 GB to the PGN portable NAS. So far so good. My 24/192 test album did not play (not sure if it is software or hardware limitation), while a 24/88 album played fine. The set-up also successfully played one huge flac file that is 500MB in size (67 min of classical music).

 

iPhone 3GS with IOS 4.0.1 also works with AcePlayer. But non-music file sharing is not available though the Gauntlet Connect app (which requires >= IOS 4.3).


Edited by zzffnn - 10/31/12 at 8:49am
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post #83 of 99
9/18/12 at 9:36am
Thread Starter 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/625493/ipad-with-24-bit-files-high-storage-capacity-portability-bit-perfect-configurations-that-works

 

Headfi member "Thraex" reported in the above thread that iPad can stream 24 bit flac from a Seagate Satellite portable NAS and outputs 24 bit to an external DAC/amp. In stock form, the Seagate portable NAS takes only 500GB. However, if you want a transportable rig that have >250GB storage and can play at 24 bit, that may be the only way to go.  

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post #84 of 99
2/15/13 at 8:08pm
Thread Starter 
The new Seagate Wireless Plus 1TB drive should work the same way as Patriot Gauntlet Node (PGN). It appears to retail for $200 and offers longer battery life (~10hrs) along with an integrated 1TB hard drive.

And I would add few more notes for PGN:
1) It works natively with NTFS format, so you do not have to use fat32 format:
2) It can work with IOS 4.0.1 if you use it with the AcePlayer app via SAMBA;
3) Its battery life sucks (around 4-5 hrs). Even without any use, it may not power up if you don't charge it periodically. I actually returned my 1st unit thinking it may be defective, but the 2nd unit behaves the same way. So unless you want to put in a SSD, the Seagate Wireless Plus may be a better choice.
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post #85 of 99
2/15/13 at 8:56pm

I have a Wireless Plus unit shipping to me now, will have it Monday. Be interested to see how it compares to the GoFlex Satellite I have, seems like they've made a number of improvements.

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post #86 of 99
2/15/13 at 9:09pm
Thread Starter 
Please let us know how you like it. I may also pick up one, if the 10 hr battery life is real.
Just add some apps for IOS or Android, now we can easily play back 1000GB of flac music on-the-go! I have 3.5TB of flac music files, so I do need 1TB of space to take my music portably.
Edited by zzffnn - 2/15/13 at 9:15pm
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post #87 of 99
2/15/13 at 9:47pm
Yeah, be interested to see about the battery life - you need to use the 'stream and download' setting in the Seagate media application in order to get that battery life. The Satellite couldn't play flac though, so if that remains true for the Wireless Plus and a separate application is required it may not do as well as the quoted 10 hours.
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post #88 of 99
2/18/13 at 8:44pm

After about 2 hours of usage I usually end up with around 40% left.  The device connected to it is no more than around 10" away from it, if that matters.

 

I'm using 8player and I've had that "stream and download setting on by default".  

 

Aside from the significantly shorter than advertised battery life, it annoys me that the device uses a proprietary charging cable which Seagate doesn't sell as an accessory.  That makes no sense to me.

 

Btw, does anyone know if there's a way to speed up the process it goes through when you first turn it on to scan the library?  It takes between 3-4 minutes before I can get to the artists at the top of the alphabet.  I'm not exactly sure if it's the drive, the player, or the DLNA server on the drive that's taking so long.

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post #89 of 99
2/19/13 at 7:29am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by fonsecaj View Post

After about 2 hours of usage I usually end up with around 40% left.  The device connected to it is no more than around 10" away from it, if that matters.

 

I'm using 8player and I've had that "stream and download setting on by default".  

 

Aside from the significantly shorter than advertised battery life, it annoys me that the device uses a proprietary charging cable which Seagate doesn't sell as an accessory.  That makes no sense to me.

 

Btw, does anyone know if there's a way to speed up the process it goes through when you first turn it on to scan the library?  It takes between 3-4 minutes before I can get to the artists at the top of the alphabet.  I'm not exactly sure if it's the drive, the player, or the DLNA server on the drive that's taking so long.

 

Thanks for your comment (and welcome to Headfi!). I assume that you were talking about the Seagate Wireless Plus?

 

Your battery life is close to my Patriot Gauntlet Node. I guess a 2.5’’ HDD consumes quite some battery. With my PGN, I did not find a battery-saving mode.

 

I think you should be able to find a 3rd party charging cable on Amazon or eBay – search “USB to DC cable” and make sure which DC connector tip to use (there are various tip sizes).  

 

In terms of starting speed, I think every component (wifi drive, DLNA app and media player) in the rig counts. As an example, the AcePlayer app is significantly faster (in my rig) than the Oplayer app. It took my rig (with Patriot Gauntlet Node) 1 min and 30 sec from starting up hard drive to playing the first song (without bridge mode). I double checked my settings and did not find a way to speed up the starting process.

 

My rig is: 260GB flac on Patriot Gauntlet Node (with a 1TB fat32 hdd) --> AcePlayerPro app on ios5.1 -->  iPhone 3GS. It took about 1 min for to connect to PGN via wifi. Bridge mode will take 30 sec longer to start up (screen activity introduces noise into music though, so I usually do not use bridge mode).


Edited by zzffnn - 2/19/13 at 7:41am
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post #90 of 99
2/19/13 at 9:51am

Thanks for your comment (and welcome to Headfi!). I assume that you were talking about the Seagate Wireless Plus?

 

Quote:
Thanks for your comment (and welcome to Headfi!). I assume that you were talking about the Seagate Wireless Plus?

Yes, it's the Wireless Plus.  And thank you!

 

 

Quote:
I think you should be able to find a 3rd party charging cable on Amazon or eBay – search “USB to DC cable” and make sure which DC connector tip to use (there are various tip sizes).  

Yeah, I looked around a bit and couldn't find anything just yet.  The connector is a really slim barrel, almost needle-like.  I guess if I can figure out what the dimensions are I can order some from Mouser and make one or two out of old USB cables.  I don't know why they couldn't just put a mini/micro-USB jack on the side instead of this. I've been inside of the thing and there's room for it.

 

Thank you for the info on the startup speed.  I installed Aceplayer and it does seem faster.  Will play with it more on the way home.  In the meantime, I'm getting reaquainted with bands that start with the letter A.

 

On a semi-related note, I had posted a question with a new topic, but maybe this thread is the better place for it.  I'm alternating between using an iPod Touch gen5 and an iPad Mini as the player device.  I have some 24/96 in my library.  I had read earlier that only an ipad can send out those files.  My DAC is a CLAS -dB.  What I'm wondering is if the new generation of ipod touch, which has a similar CPU to an older iPad can do the 24/96 through USB and if the DAC is even converting it at that sample rate even if it does.  In the interest of size, I'd prefer to use the touch to the top of the DAC/amp instead of a wire connecting it to the Mini.

 

I have no means to determine any of this stuff in an empirical manner and was wondering if anyone knew for sure what was possible.

 

Thanks,

 

John

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