When I select Sheild TV as a PlexAmp player does Google Cast actually stream audio?

Plex Labs
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Curious if it is streaming the audio to the SheildTV - or - directing the player to play audio via Plex locally. Seems like it should be the latter…

IMHO, PlexAmp on a mobile device should be able to connect to a Plex install on a wired device (eg: Shield) and request the data file to the Plex Server from there. Am I thinking about this the wrong way?

Thank-you for feedback…

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No. There is no Plexamp running on the Shield. Thus casting doesn’t work like you hope it would. It is simply using the default Chromecast mechanism. At least if the mobile device is running Android OS.
And Chromecast means, the mobile device is fetching the media file from the server, then relays the audio via Chromecast protocol to the Shield. In other words, the mobile device must be present and awake during the whole playback session.

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Thanks Otto - I think you have just answer my other question in another thread - to RPi or to use another Shield. This is a major advantage over the R Pi Headless Plexamp apporach.

Thanks again….

PS: Nevermind that Chromecast is buggy as hell and half the time does not show players properly.

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What is? That with Chromecast you cannot use the mobile client to just trigger the playback and then remove it from the network?

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That in the case of Chrome/Google Cast, the source audio is streamed to my phone, then streamed to my Shield and in the process a CODEC is used. I don’t think we are stream 24/96 FLAC? Correct me if I’ve got that wrong. REVISED: Chrome/Google Cast transcodes 24/96 FLAC to Opus. Does PlexAmp force it to keep the original format?

Aside from sound degradation, that path introduces some latency but also uncessarily congests WiFi compared a Headless Plex R Pi solution.

I will add that ChromeCast/Google Cast unreliably enumerates players on PlexAmp. Ran into this recently and a lot of people have this issue. I am hoping that a PlexAmp to PlexAmp connection work more reliably?

Headless Plex alternate: my mobile device is simply sending commands to the R Pi Plex to fetch original audio from my server via my wired network to a DAC connected to my AVR.

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That depends on

  • the capabilities of the audio interface
  • what is set in the preferences of Plexamp as bitrate limit. Slower hardware or poor connectivity can make it necessary, to define a limit to avoid buffering pauses.

With a RasPi you might be able to achieve 24/96 stereo, but you better have a Pi from the last two generations and use a fast storage medium. (an “El Cheapo” SD card might give you grief)

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ok… so with those caveats - and with feedback from others - R Pi will work. I will be on R Pi5 and configured appropriately.

On the other hand, with Google/Chromecast - unless PlexAmp will force it to NOT transcode - it will be Opus from server to phone and then AGAIN from phone to Shield. Thats two paths on Wi-Fi, audio degradation, latency and associated Google issues.

I love my Shields but R Pi wins in this use-case. :slight_smile:

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