Airplay not streaming smoothly using a Windows 8.1 tablet

[paddyb]

I've just purchased a Linx 10 tablet and I'm having problems using iTunes with Airplay. The tablet has the full version of Windows 8.1, a quad core Atom Z3735F 1.33Ghz processor, 2GB RAM and iTunes seems to work well. Tracks play fine through the tablet speakers, but when using Airplay to stream to my Marantz MCR603, it cuts out every few seconds for about a second, then starts again. My desktop PC and laptop both have no problems streaming using Airplay.

Any idea have to resolve this?

 

[Paul.]

iTunes for Windows was always a bit terrible, its pretty resouce hungry. Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil will allow you to send any audio source to an Airplay receiver so you could use an alternate player.

You could also consider using the DLNA capability of your Marantz, run a DLNA server on a desktop and control it via the remote app?

 

[paddyb]

iTunes for Windows was always a bit terrible, its pretty resouce hungry. Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil will allow you to send any audio source to an Airplay receiver so you could use an alternate player.

You could also consider using the DLNA capability of your Marantz, run a DLNA server on a desktop and control it via the remote app?

Thanks Paul

My problem is that I've rather tethered myself to iTunes by spening hours manually tidying up the library, correctly naming and tagging tracks, adding album art and removing duplicates etc. Moving over to DLNA, I think I would lose a lot of this, plus my Marantz will only play gappless via Airplay.

I was hoping that as these tablets run the full version of windows that I would be able to moving all my music to a NAS and play it with the tablet so I wouldn't need my destop PC on.

I tried playing an album using Windows Media Player and Airfoil, but it produced the same results.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has experience of iTunes & Airplay on a windows tablet (or a very low end or old PC/Laptop which would have similar specs.) Anyone know what the minimum specs are for Airplay to work on a PC?

 

[davedotco]

No experience of windows devices, but I have found that the smooth running of Airplay is invariably down to set up.

I do not know if this is possible on your setup but I found it very helpful to separare regular wireless access and music wireless on different 'recievers' and different channels. Ie in my setup, all my devices, bar one connect wirelessly to my router, for compatibility I use the 2.4Ghz band and use a channel that is not used by my neighbours. My laptop, which I usually use to stream Spotify, is connected to my AEX on the 5Ghz band, channel 36. Works perfectly.

 

[unsleepable]

You could also play media always from the computer—with the advantage that you'd only manage a single music collection—and use the tablet as remote controller. There are many options, but a straight one would be to use an app like this.

 

[paddyb]

Thanks everyone.

I’ll see if I can get my head around the router channels later when I’m at home. I forgot to mention that it’s only the tablet using WI-Fi, the Marantz is a wired connection.

I had a look at Task Manager while iTunes was running and it doesn’t look like it particularly stretching the system - memory usage of no more than 50% and CPU of 4% while iTunes is playing via Airplay. Out of this iTunes is only using 55MB RAM and no more than 2.4% CPU. So it could well be a router issue, but I’ve not been able to find out if others have been successful using Airplay with this tablet or similarly speed PC’s or Laptops. I did get it working with DLNA though.

Re using my PC, I was hoping to be able to move my music and iTunes library to a NAS (not yet purchased) and play it remotely using iTunes on the tablet so that I didn’t have to boot my PC up to play music. I’ve tried a few Android apps in the past, but they still need iTunes running on a PC or MAC to work, and they all seem to have problems displaying music correctly. I’ll have a look at that windows app though.

I think there are options to stream via using an iTunes server on a NAS, but I really want to retain the integrity of my iTunes library of over 2,000 albums, and I think I’ll lose a lot of meta info and cover art with any solution that doesn’t involve a PC or Mac running iTunes.

 

[unsleepable]

I completely get the thing with iTunes. The other players I've tried don't cut it for me.

Since you haven't bought a NAS yet, I'd recommend you to check both Synology (commercial) and FreeNAS (open source). Both can act as an iTunes Server in the network.

 

[paddyb]

I completely get the thing with iTunes. The other players I've tried don't cut it for me.

Since you haven't bought a NAS yet, I'd recommend you to check both Synology (commercial) and FreeNAS (open source). Both can act as an iTunes Server in the network.

Yes, I was looking at the Synology DS115j. It has an iTunes Server (as do many other NAS), but as I understand it, it can’t actually read an iTunes library, only send media to a PC or MAC running iTunes? So I don’t know if it will actually solve this particular problem.

I’ll have a look at the network configuration later, but as my PC and Laptop seem to be working fine with Airplay, I think it could be something in the tablets settings.

 

[unsleepable]

The Synology can be used to play audio too. You just need to enable the Audio Station service.

 

[paddyb]

The Synology can be used to play audio too. You just need to enable the Audio Station service.

Thanks unsleepable

I’ve just had a look at Synology’s instructions for Audio Station. They don’t exactly shout about it, but it does appear that it can stream directly from the NAS using Airplay (as well as DLNA). Am I correct in thinking that this will work without iTunes, just using a smartphone app or web interface to control it?

What I’m interested to hear is, if using this solution, will the music play gaplessly on my Marantaz MCR603? This device won’t play music gaplessly either directly from a hard drive or streamed via DLNA, but will if streamed from iTunes via Airplay. I don’t understand enough about the subject to know whether using Audio Station and Airplay will work the same way.

This would solve half my problem, but I believe the music would still have to be indexed and arranged by Audio Station, so I may lose some metadata and cover art?

 

[unsleepable]

Just manage the music library with iTunes—either with a direct share or DAAP. (You will likely want the latter as your connection to the NAS won't be persistent.) Then you tell AS where you have your music stored and it will index it. Just make sure that album covers are stored within the tracks—as opposed to the external database used by iTunes when you tell it to download covers—, or AS won't be able to gather them.

Gapless works well with USB, but this is not an option for you. It's also implemented for AirPlay—but I don't know if equally as flawless.

 

[paddyb]

Just manage the music library with iTunes—either with a direct share or DAAP.

DAAP, thats another new one on me! Slightly struggling with all this terminology. So am I right that this is part of the "iTunes Server" software on the NAS? iTunes Server on a NAS, as I now understand it is not actually a version of iTunes that runs on a NAS, just something that will show music stored on the NAS in an iTunes library on a PC or Mac?

Just make sure that album covers are stored within the tracks—as opposed to the external database used by iTunes when you tell it to download covers—, or AS won't be able to gather them.

Therein lies the problem for me. All my covers are stored in the iTunes database, so I will lose those. I'll have another look to see if there is software that can liberate them from iTunes and embed them, but last time I tried this it didn't work very well.

I think if I first consolidate my iTunes on the library to the NAS it might retain all the metadata corrections I made?

Gapless works well with USB, but this is not an option for you. It's also implemented for AirPlay—but I don't know if equally as flawless.

I've noticed that there is a separate NAS forum on WHF, so I've asked about this there.

I still think the easiest solution is to use iTunes on the tablet, with the library pointing to the NAS, but I need to get to the bottom of why Airplay will not work smoothly with it. Streaming wise, it play HD content from iPlayer no problem at all, but bizarrely, VLC media player struggles playing video files (of any quality). The video is fine, but the sound is full of tiny, regular breaks and is out of sync with the picture.

 

[paddyb]

I've now solved this by restoring the tablet to its factory settings and reinstalling everything. Airplay & VLC now working well, though the Maratnz is often greyed out in the Airplay link and I need to to restart iTunes, reboot the Marantz or both to get it back again.

Interesting to hear if anyone has any ideas as to what caused the initial problem, I don't want to have to restore the tablet & start again every time something goes wrong.