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Stream music from your home computer - help test MeCanto

J

jodaboda

Member
I used Mecanto on Nokia, and it's very impressive. It's like ORB, except it has a very good app (instead of using a browser). Mecanto now has an Android app in beta; I just got the email:

Installation:
1. Go to Settings > Applications and then check the box called Unknown sources.
2. Use the phone
 
OPdate- It actually works great without stuttering... outside my house. I drove for about an hour today, and playback was fine. I'm not sure why this is the case, since in my apartment (in the downtown area of the capital city of the seventh largest economy in the world...) it SAYS I have 3G...

I think my only complaint about mecanto is that it takes a few seconds before each track to buffer. I wish it would anticipate the next song and buffer it up and the current song is ending.

I can't believe more people don't know about this or aren't interested. Everyone is waiting on $200 32GB microSD cards-- I'm streaming my entire HALF TERABYTE music collection without spending a dime...
 
I just downloaded the app and tried it with a single folder of music to see how it would work. So far, it sounded fine. I'll have to try it for awhile and upload some more to see if it is going to be what I am looking for in a long term solution.
 
Yeah, there are ways to manual ways to do it, and there's ORB (which doesn't work for me, and costs money), but Mecanto is the best thing I've found so far. I'm anxious to see if Simplify comes up with an Android app...
 
Sounds good. I find ORB very cloggy and not at all ergonomic. Will give it a try. Is it like a media player in its own right? Or does it browse through your folders?
 
I think Orb functions as both (the app does, anyway). You browse your music and choose what to play, and it's played in Orb.

in a nearby thread, one user is having good luck with Gmote. I'm downloading now.

There's also Subsonic, as another alternative.
 
Hi,
Can some one help me? I have sprint hero, running mecanto, but get "error playing message" when streaming from computer...
thanks
 
Most errors encountered with remote streaming have to do with port forwarding. Make sure whatever port(s) the application is using is open and forwarded to your computer on your home network.
 
BTW, I'm now using Subsonic for the most part. It's audio-only, but it's quite good, and has LOTS of options, including changing the streaming bitrate to avoid skipping/stuttering.
 
Joda, did you ever try GMote? I installed last night, but I've had port forwarding issues with it. I have not tried Subsonic at all yet.
 
I did, and it worked fine (in some ways, I like it better than the other options). It actually took a lot of work for me to get Subsonic working. Gmote worked without a hitch, after port forwarding. BUT Gmote didn't work as a trackpad for the computer. It could send keyboard commands, but not mouse. Probably has to do with my mouse software or something.

What issues are you having? Errors?
 
I've just started using Subsonic and I love it! It's works great both on wifi (home and abroad) and over 3G. It does take a little setting up though, but not super difficult. My only complaint is it seems that you have to register (by making a donation) in order to use for more than 30 days on the phone. If it continues to work out though I'll be happy to donate. I love having my entire music collection "on my phone!" :D
 
I had a new router that I needed to install, so I was waiting before I played around much more with GMote. After swapping routers, I was able to forward the port GMote wanted and get it up and running without too much trouble. I haven't used it too much yet. The UI for GMote is clunky to say the least - and for some reason it takes my 300x300 album art and stretches it to the native Droid screen resolution. Mecanto is currently my favorite. It's not beautiful, but it was worked the best out of what I've tried so far. Subsonic looked better than either one - although it was a beast to get up and running for me. Unfortunately, Subsonic has crashed twice on me and both times it completely shut down my Droid. I had to pop the battery out on the phone both times to even get it to start! I will stop by the Subsonic forum later and see if any other Droid users have had the same problem. I just downloaded Jinzora (I think it does the same thing) and intend to try Orb sometime this weekend. I believe there is at least one more app similar, as well.
 
On Monday I decided to give Subsonic another try. When I went back to check my settings, I realized that GMote, MeCanto, and Subsonic were all running. Whether it should make a difference or not, after I disabled GMote and Mecanto, Subsonic seems to be running fine. I've listened to my music on the way to work the last two mornings with an occasional stutter, but no more of the hard crashes like earlier.
 
Here's my scorecard so far:

Subsonic - I had some problems setting it up, but once I worked out the kinks, this seems to be the best option so far. It has a very simple option to delete the cached music. The interface on the Droid is far from lovely looking, but it is the one I am using the most right now. While I was typing this, an update for Subsonic has come out!

Orb - I really thought this was going to the "the one" I was looking for to stream music. The interface is awesome, and the setup was EXTREMELY easy. HOWEVER, this is the only Android app I've seen that DOES NOT multi-task at all. If you press your home key, or try to do anything but listen to Orb - no music. As much as I loved everything else about it, this is a deal breaker for me. If I planned on just listening to music and not doing anything else with my phone, I would have bought an ipod. Since Orb was originally used on the iphone, I guess they just ported over the code for Android and didn't take multi-tasking into account.

MeCanto - MeCanto seemed to stutter and pause while playing more than Subsonic. To be fair, I haven't used this one as much. The interface is pretty blah - no artwork at all. It was pretty simple to set up.

GMote - Like MeCanto, I haven't done a whole lot of testing with GMote. I had some early problems with port forwarding, but I seem to have taken care of that. The interface is UGLY - album art looks compressed and distorted.

Jinzora Mobile - I have downloaded the Android client, but that's as far as I've gone.

These are the other apps that I understand will stream music from a home computer:

Remote RDP
StreamFurious (?)
DroidLive (?)
RemoteFile
DroidTunes
Moozone

Any input on the above would be great! I will probably play around with GMote and Mecanto some more this week before I decide whether or not to donate for Subsonic.
 
Ok. So I downloaded MeCanto onto my windows 7 PC. No problems - musicis uploading to the server nicely. I got the MeCanto app on my phone and created an account on it with no problem. The only problem is that as my music is uploading to the servers, my phone says it cannot connect to the server. I know this is supposed to be super easy to setup but I need help. Lol - please help. I have only had my phone for 2.5 weeks.
 
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