SPOTIFY SUPPORT

That was long awaited. Just insert your Spotify credentials into Settings page (a premium account is required) and there will be no music you can’t listen to. You have full Spotify search and all your playlists listed on the Spotify section of the Browse tab. This amazing feature was made possible thanks to the contribution of Volumio community member ning-you (huge thanks for this) and to an awesome daemon by Schnouki called SPOP. Needless to say, even Spotify’s sound quality sounds impressive on Volumio.

FULLY REVISITED LIBRARY TAB

Volumio community member Jotak did it again. He reworked its brilliant Library Tab ensuring it will work better and reducing significantly the load it applies to the system, mostly thanks to this brilliant feature. It’s really a feature I cannot live without. It comes disabled by default, to enable it just go to settings and tick the library tab, you can also choose to see it as a tab or as an entry in the browse section. Jotak made also lots of other improvements to Volumio, like the following.

UPDATE SYSTEM

Yes, the next Volumio updates (at least not critical ones) will not require a complete re-flash of the system. Jotak developed this system which wil allow you to receive new updates with just a push of a button. Go to settings and check updates, if new updates are found you’ll be prompted to apply or ignore them. Does this sound great just to me? Of course there could be something we didn’t think on, and we need to test this capability. So please let us know what happens when new updates will be released.

UPDATE: To benefit from Updates system you must create a new SD Card with 1.5 release, from now on you’ll be able to update without reflashing!

SOCIAL SHARING

The tunes you listen may sometimes be memorable. Let your friend know about it. Now Volumio features Twitter, Facebook and Google+ sharing mechanism. The last 2 are still a work in progress, since we need a long and necessary verification, but expect them to land soon (via updates!)

REWORKED NETWORKING

Now Volumio can connect to every network without issues, the whole network managemet now works just flawlessly. And let’s you understand the quality of your connection.

UPNP with OHMEDIA SUPPORT

As you already know, Volumio uses the excellent UPNP\DLNA mpd plugin upmpdcli. This awesome piece of code has been recently updated to include OpenHomeOhMedia Support. Quoting from Upmpdcli:

OpenHome is probably supposed to be some kind of industry alliance, but, as far as I know it is exactly composed of Linn Devices, a British supplier of high end audio equipment.

OpenHome has published ohMedia, a set of standards for network audio, which have been implemented in a number of hardware and software products beyond those from Linn.

ohMedia is based on the UPnP base protocols, but it uses different services. The most important difference from the user point of view is that ohMedia has a PlayListservice which manages the play queue much in the same way that MPD does.

Some of the best UPnP control point software packages (e.g. Bubble UPnP, PlugPlayer) include support for both bare UPnP and ohMedia. In cases where a device supports both interfaces, they will default to ohMedia. Using several ohMedia control points on the same device is not a problem, but mixing UPnP and ohMedia control points is sure to end in confusion because of the very different play queue management.

What does this mean? You will be able to control your Playlists and PlayQueues with excellent Upnp client like BubbleUPNP and JamCast!

DSD Direct Playback

Now Volumio can play DSD Audio in direct mode: this allows to play them in bit perfect mode, if your DAC supports them. If not you can choose to play them in DoP mode (DSD Over PCM)now it’s up to you to decide wether DSD is the future of Digital Audio Playback.

Raspberry PI B+ I2S DACs Compatibility

Volumio is now fully compatible with Raspberry PI B+, and all the most famous i2s DACs available. Just connect them, go to settings and enable yours. Harware Volume Mixer works as well.

LOT OF REFINEMENTS AND NEW CAPABILITIES

This release features a big amount of improvements and refinements, both under the hood and in term of User interface. Just to quote some: you’ll be able to add your WebRadios from the WebUi, disable the Startup Sound (another new feature), change the Player Name and more.
This release was prepared in a long period of time, trying to address all the precious feedbacks and suggestions and involving the community actively. I want to publicly say thank you to everyone in our great community: what Volumio is now is thank to you, the passion, the brilliant insights and the discoveries you’ve put into this.

As usual you can download it from download page and leave your feedbacks and partecipate into Volumio development on this thread 

Today, you’ll find just Raspberry Pi release, on the following days I’ll update ALL the other platforms. Stay tuned! 

And this, is the full changelog:

-Full Spotify Integration
-Reworked Library TAB
-Update System Introduced
-OhMedia UPNP Support
-AirPlay issues fixed
-Selectable Player Name
-System services selector
-WebRadios can be added from WebUi
-Clear Whole queue from WebUi
-Social Sharing
-Direct DSD Playback
-Full I2S B+ DACs compatibility
-Better i2s DACs management
-Networking Page Reworked
-Song title in Browser Tab
-Startup Sound
-Shell shock bug fixed
-MPD 19.1

The post Volumio 1.5: the best Audiophile Player ever appeared first on Volumio.

A new and improved Volumio version for Raspberry PI

Raspberry Pi is the most popular platform, even if it’s the worst performing one of the supported devices. I’m not just talking about mere computing power. You may be aware that Pi suffers of a “less than optimal” implementation of the shared USB\Ethernet Bus. But we can see maybe the light at the end of the tunnel. An improved USB driver is currently under development (and I really hope it will be included in the mainline kernel…). Take it as an USB audio fix II. I examined a little what it does, and I’m really not sure it will be improving performances in all scenarios. But for the majority of people (and systems), this should grant a listening experience without crackles, noises and pops. Here you can find an extensive explanation of what this new driver does.
Thanks to Tux for suggesting this fix 

Other improvements you’ll find in Volumio Beta 1.2

• An handy script to update Volumio’s webUI (thank you Ebsy)
• Logging to RamDisk, this reduces click and SD Card wearing, you can now find the logs @ /run (source)
• Hifiberry Digi support, just activate it like you would do with other i2s DACS
• Other minor improvements

As usual, you can find the new image in the download section .
PLEASE NOTE: It would be extremely important to know your experience with this Version, since it features some experimental fixes that could lead to some instabilities. I created an ad-hoc thread for this release, please report your experience there.

VOLUMIO goes to CeBit

Next week in Hannover there will be one of the most interesting IT fairs in the world: CeBIT. If you will be around, you will find me talking about Volumio, on the 12th of March at CeBIT’s barcamp. So if you want to know how Volumio was born, built, developed and what are future directions, or just want to throw me rotten potatoes or your bra, just come there.

RASPBERRY PI system rebuilding

I’m now devoting my (few) free time to improve even more the Raspberry Pi Volumio system. I’m now building a minimal debian FS from scratch again, recompiling some core packages to further push performances. Results are encouraging, but this task is time consuming and there will be lot of patience needed, both for me and for you. I’m also wondering to abandon the beloved debian wheezy in favour of the brand new and shiny Jessie… If you have some suggestion, just let me know via comments below.

WebUI radical redesign is about to start

You know that Volumio features a brilliant WebUI that was coded by ACX and ORION for RaspyFi. I’m now taking care of improving it and adding some more functionalities. But, the more I dig into that, the more I feel that PHP soon or late will become a bottleneck.
This is also because I recently fell in love with Node.js, and I’m starting to learning how to develop with this amazing framework.
So, what I’m planning is a whole system redesign, using Node and Socket.io . What I really like is that we could have an integrated system that will be lot more efficient and flexible. I also think, this will save lot of time in the long run, since there are thousands of modules that could be used.
This will take months to be done, so don’t expect anything to land on your devices soon. When I will have a more coherent idea of the approach and the system design, you’ll be the first to know and I will share both the code and the progresses. If you have any suggestion, again, let me know via comments or forum.

A new Repo and DOCS are now available

Ok, this project lacks proper documentation. And it just doesn’t make sense to keep all the stuff I have just on my Hard Drive. So, I set a brand new docs system, based on Read The Docs . This way, everyone can contribute by committing to Volumio Docs Repo on github.
Now the Docs are empty, I’m waiting for some vacation to upload all my knowledge into that. If you want to start contributing, here you can read how to do that.
Then we have the Volumio Repo. It is not a standard Debian Repo, so don’t expect to do apt-get with it (at least for now). It just contains a bunch of files that could be useful, also for non Volumio users. You can find all the kernels I compiled, for example. Plus some other stuff. The Repo is powered by h5ai by Lars Jung, thank you mate!

Here are the links

• repo.volumio.org
• docs.volumio.org

CUBIEBOARD2 and CUBIETRUCK VOLUMIO porting is on its way 

Yes. For those of you craving to listen their favourite tunes with Volumio on cubies, developement is on its final stages. Really like those boards, filled with accessories. Expect the images to be done in about a week.

That was it! Que viva Volumio!

The post A new Raspberry PI version and some news appeared first on Volumio.