[APP][2.1+][v1.6.9] BubbleUPnP - UPnP/DLNA Control Point and Renderer

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BubbleUPnP Android Market link [current version: 1.6.9, released on May 8th 2013]
BubbleUPnP Server home page (download and documentation) [current version: 0.6.5, released on May 1th 2013]

BubbleUPnP is a full featured UPnP/DLNA Control Point, UPnP Media Renderer and UPnP Media Server.

• Play easily your music and videos on your phone and devices on your network (DLNA TVs, XMBC, WMP, ...) from your external UPnP Media Servers.
• Play your phone/tablet media to those devices
• Browse and play your local phone/tablet media from other devices (PS3, ...)

Optional Internet Streaming

More than just regular LAN streaming, BubbleUPnP can also stream efficiently your media via the Internet over a mobile or WiFi connection. Internet streaming requires installing server software "BubbleUPnP Server" running on Windows, MacOS X, Linux or a NAS (it is not required for regular LAN streaming, see NOTE below). To learn more about BubbleUPnP Server and Internet streaming visit http://bubblesoftapps.com/bubbleupnpserver

NOTE: YOU DO NOT NEED TO INSTALL ANY ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE FOR REGULAR UPNP/DLNA LAN STREAMING.

Features

• Tablet support
• stream music and videos from your UPnP/DLNA Media Server (Twonky, Asset UPnP, any NAS with UPnP, ...) to your Android device.
• Codecs supported for audio: with system decoders: MP3, AAC (without DRM), WMA, Ogg Vorbis. With custom decoders WAV, FLAC, ALAC, LPCM. WMA support is manufacturer and model dependent. Vorbis may not work on Android 2.1/2.2.
• Video playback is delagated to an external app (VPlayer, MoboPlayer, DicePlayer,...)
• stream music/videos from your UPnP/DLNA Media Server to your UPnP renderers (software or hardware) on your network with regular playback controls (play, pause, seek, volume, ...).
• UPnP Media Server (*** requires Android 2.2+ ***): play your local phone/tablet media to other devices or to your Android device (standalone media player). Browse and play your local phone/tablet media from other devices (PS3, WMP, ...). Able to browse Filesystem (SD Card) in licensed version.
• UPnP renderer: control audio playback of your android device from another UPnP Control point
• Internet streaming/downloading over a mobile or WiFi connection with BubbleUPnP Server
• UPnP tethering with BubbleUPnP Server (makes Media Servers from a LAN visible on another LAN)
• Download tracks, full albums and videos from your Media Server to your android device (with covers if available), to make them available in your favorite Android music and media player
• Landscape mode
• Now Playing screen with regular playback controls
• Mute / Repeat / Shuffle
• Editable playlist to queue tracks for playback
• Load and save playlists
• Shuffle Playlist
• Shuffle Library (shuffle tracks from your entire Media Server)
• Scrobbling support
• Sleep Timer
• Display album art
• Display artist info from Discogs or Last.fm (require Last.fm app)
• Powerful UPnP Search. Search for tracks, albums, artists and videos (exact support depends on Media Server)
• Bookmarks. Access quickly albums and folders
• Random track list generation. Discover forgotten gems in your Library
• Multiple selection. Anywhere a list of tracks or albums appear you can swipe many of them to apply a common operation (play, enqueue, remove, download,...).
• Control Renderer volume with the hardware volume buttons

The free version of BubbleUPnP has all the features listed above, with the following limitations that can be removed by purchasing the BubbleUPnP License app:

• ads
• Internet streaming with BubbleUPnP Server is limited to 30 minutes per app launch
• the Playlist is limited to 16 tracks
• Library Shuffle is limited to 16 shuffled tracks
• downloads are limited to batches of maximum 40 tracks
• the local renderer is not remotely controllable by external Control Points
• the local media server is not browsable by filesystem (SD Card)

If something is not working, you can record a log file and mail it to me at bubbleguuum@free.fr:

• launch the app
• go into the Advanced Settings page (Menu > Settings > Control)
• check "Enable logging to file".
• IMPORTANT: Exit the app using the "Exit " menu item found in menu of tab "Now Playing"
• restart the app.
• run the app until the problem appears
• exit the app
• connect your phone to your PC or MAC and mail me the file /Android/data/com.bubblesoft.android.bubbleupnp/log.txt found on the SD Card.

Looks like an awesome app - all the features I want... BUT it is not currently recognizing my Synology NAS (upnp/dlna). Win 7 media player works great.

EDIT - Sorry it did eventually show up. It would be nice to have some asynchronous loading notifications. Also, if I queue up an entire genre, for example, it takes a looong time to load/start playing (thousands of songs). Otherwise looking good.

Originally Posted by radeon_x

Looks like an awesome app - all the features I want... BUT it is not currently recognizing my Synology NAS (upnp/dlna). Win 7 media player works great.

EDIT - Sorry it did eventually show up. It would be nice to have some asynchronous loading notifications. Also, if I queue up an entire genre, for example, it takes a looong time to load/start playing (thousands of songs). Otherwise looking good.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'll think again about async loading notifications (I suppose you mean loading of folders here), but I do not like the additional clutter they involve.

For the second point, the playlist is not designed to handle thousands of tracks. What what your exact use case ? Doing shuffle on an entire genre ?

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I updated the first post with an Android Market link to install the app.

Originally Posted by bubbleguuum

For the second point, the playlist is not designed to handle thousands of tracks. What what your exact use case ? Doing shuffle on an entire genre ?

Yeah, exactly. But after using it for a while, I don't mind the delay all that much since it only happens on the initial adding the songs to the playlist. Once the songs are added there are no slowdowns.

No other complaints really - hands down the best functioning and looking UPnP audio player on the market.

excellent app, works great with PS3MediaServer

minor issues:
reports search as not supported but I guess that's a PS3MediaServer problem?
doesn't show any album art
I have a DLNA TV (LG_42LD790) but it doesn't show up as a renderer, only local renderer available

how much are you going to charge for the unlocker?

Originally Posted by jonengland

excellent app, works great with PS3MediaServer

minor issues:
reports search as not supported but I guess that's a PS3MediaServer problem?

Yes, it doesn't support searching at all.
I tried PS3MediaServer and it is not the best server you can find for audio (only folder browsing, no search, some bugs in returned data).
I found 2 bugs in less than 1h usage

doesn't show any album art

It likely doesn't expose any album art to the app.

I have a DLNA TV (LG_42LD790) but it doesn't show up as a renderer, only local renderer available

Most DLNA TV are not remotely controllable to push content. You can just browse from their interface to play content.

how much are you going to charge for the unlocker?

Undecided yet but it won't break the bank .

Correction: album art is working ok with ps3mediaserver, think I must have been playing tracks without art, doh!

1: has the potential of being better than upnplay (although the latter is free & ad-free)
2: needs a landscape mode (or use system/sensor detection)
3: exit on back key press
4: ability to add WAN server
5: use built-in player (like you already do for music types) for divx+mp3,x264+aac,mpeg2 files (detect via 4cc and/or extension - avi,divx,mkv,mp4,mpg,mpeg,vob,m2v)
open external player for other file types (mov/qt/rm/ac3); the system, hardware renderer should be able to decode most of the aforementioned files, thus eliminating the need for an additional app expressedly for that purpose (vplayer/mobo etc)
This COULD give you an edge over the other upnp/dlna solutions, since none of them provide this functionality (yet).

My Setup: Twonky Media Server and WD TV Live as Renderer!

This setup works fine with other apps, also on iOS...

BubbleUPNP looks really good, BUT:
- the timeline / song progress bar (dont know how you call it) doesn't work (even if use the setting 'use other...')!
-> so as a result, the next song in the playlist doesnt play

So by now, the app is useless. Would like to use yours, all the others work, but yours seems more smooth and has a better usability.

Looking forward to some updates!

Would def. pay for this if the issue gets fixed!

Originally Posted by adwinp

1: has the potential of being better than upnplay (although the latter is free & ad-free)
2: needs a landscape mode (or use system/sensor detection)
3: exit on back key press
4: ability to add WAN server
5: use built-in player (like you already do for music types) for divx+mp3,x264+aac,mpeg2 files (detect via 4cc and/or extension - avi,divx,mkv,mp4,mpg,mpeg,vob,m2v)
open external player for other file types (mov/qt/rm/ac3); the system, hardware renderer should be able to decode most of the aforementioned files, thus eliminating the need for an additional app expressedly for that purpose (vplayer/mobo etc)
This COULD give you an edge over the other upnp/dlna solutions, since none of them provide this functionality (yet).

Thanks for the feedback

2. Not a priority for the initial stable version but in consideration for future versions. Landscape is mostly useful for tablets as it is the natural orientation.

3. You can exit the app via the "Exit" menu action found in the Now Playing tab.

4. definitely on the todo list although probably not in the first stable version

5 in consideration for a future verson