[DONE] Playing music files from shared drives (wifi LAN)

[stry]

With ES file explorer I can access shared drives with all kind of music files via air (wifi). Through a simplified and friendly interface, ES lists all files. You can click on a file and play it through .... Neutron.

Neutron sometimes plays wavs, mp3s, wvs, etc., but not flacs.

Besides, most times music is interrupted and file needs reloading.

BUT, ES embeds a media player app that plays EVERYTHING and flawlessly. You can click a files or an entire folder (!) and play all included files serially. No interruptions here.

So, I dream the day that Neutron developer offers us an update that allows playing every kind of music file in the way that ES does.

And lastly, ES may be sooo friendly, but its audio quality is MILES away from Neutron's. That's why this feature is a must (for me).

Please count this feature in the near future.

[dmitrykos]

Unfortunately only FLAC was missing capability to be played over the network. It has been fixed, so from next version you will be able to listen to FLACs over the network if file is referenced by URL. Tested with ES Explorer + WiFi + FLAC file on remote device within local network.

[TheStanger]

Not sure I understand all that is being said here. Does this mean we can now access network folders through Neutron? If so how is this done?

[stry]

Use ES file explorer from google play. Share your hard disk (the one containing songs). Setup ES for a LAN coonection over Wifi. Click on a song, select to open as music via Neutron and voila! The latter plays everything, flac (latest version only), wav, wv, mp3. Fanstastic!!! Thanx developer.

[dmitrykos]

Yes, you can use either ES File Browser app and open individual tracks, or if device is rooted then better solution would be mounting of whole external drive to some mount point like, /mnt/ext_drive. There are apps like CifsManager (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ifsmanager), AndSMB (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... oft.andsmb), or similar which have GUI to make such mounts.

As to FLAC streaming then besides streaming on local network it can be streamed over the Internet too, from some web-sites and etc.

[TheStanger]

Ok, I should have stated in my earlier post that I don't have an android device but rather I use Neutron on my Playbook. I did manage to side load ES File Explorer and have found my music folder on my LAN but I do not get the option to open music files in Neutron. The only media players I have access to through ES are Winamp and the ES music player. Any idea what I can do to get Neutron to play my music files through ES?

[dmitrykos]

Hi TheStanger! Do you mean that Winamp is opening when you tap on music file inside ES Explorer? May be Android framework already supports invocation of application for the registered file types but for native apps even on PlayBook OS 2.1 such support does not exist. In BlackBerry 10 OS I confirm that tapping on let's say MP3 file outside Neutron in some file browsing apps you will be offered to play it with Neutron. So, currently sharing network drives is not directly possible with Neutron on PlayBook, but indirectly possible, if for example you make some big M3U file and specify the list of music files with networks paths but this is quite inconvenient.

[TheStanger]

When I try to open a music file within ES File Explorer, the 2 options I get to open it are ES Media Player Winamp. It's unfortunate that Neutron was not one of the options.

[dmitrykos]

Hmm..., may be because both apps are from Android area and using Android framework they can cooperate like in Android OS. Neutron is native app and not using any Android related APIs in PlayBook. I will be constantly checking for the possibilities on PlayBook anyway.