Chromecast gapless playback

[Thorsten Friese]

Since it unfortunately doesn't work for me seamless, I'm looking for the perfect settings for gapless playback on Google Chromecast 3rd generation and Chromecast Audio.

The media server is a Fritz!Box and gapless playback works with Denon HEOS-1 as renderer or with local playback on the Pixel 6.

Sorry if the settings have been posted here before, at least I tried to find them.

[SimBun]

Chromecast isn't a gapless protocol. You could use the Audio Cast functionality in BubbleUPnP, but this requires BubbleUPnP to process the audio in order to turn it into a single "gapless" stream to then pass onto the Chromecast device.

Your HEOS-1 will be using UPnP.

[Bubblesoft]

Chromecast does not indeed support gapless playback natively.

Achieving gapless can only be done playing to it a gapless continuous stream.

That can be done with BubbleUPnP with its 'Audio Cast' feature capturing audio from most other apps that play locally.

It requires a device running Android 10 or higher.

To use 'Audio Cast':

- start an app (other than BubbleUPnP) and play some music in it

in BubbleUPnP:

- go into the Now Playing tab
- tap the floating cast icon to display the dialog listing the renderers
- make sure the external renderer you want to play to is selected
- tap the 'Audio Cast' toggle
- grant the required permissions
=> If all goes well, you should hear the music  playing on your external renderer

[Thorsten Friese]

Thanks for the instructions. 

Gapless playback works flawlessly with my Chromecast(s) setup with Hi-Fi Cast out of the box - and also has under Google Play Music (those were the days)

Don't worry, I'm staying loyal to BubbleUPnP because I love the super rare shuffle albums feature that apparently only the brightest minds are able to program. 

Thanks.

[SimBun]

Hi-Fi Cast isn't gapless out of the box but it's certainly more gapless than BubbleUPnP, which is interesting. I wonder how it does that.

To get truly gapless you have to enable 'Settings > Chromecast > Chomecast gapless playback', which is the equivalent of BubbleUPnP's Audio Cast.

Why they didn't implement gapless playback in the protocol I don't know!

[Bubblesoft]

Hi-Fi cast implement gapless by decoding  tracks into a single stream (WAV or FLAC I believe) and playing it to the renderer.
BubbleUPnP does not support such playback mode and sends each track (as a http URL) for playback to the renderer which does the decoding.
Technically the app could support the single stream method but it is not a piece of cake and there is no plan for it.
Sending a single stream is the only way to achieve gapless playback on Chromecast.
The only way to do that with BubbleUPnP is via its 'Audio Cast' feature allowing to capture audio from other apps (here, an app that plays gaplessly).
Unfortunately, BubbleUPnP cannot capture audio of itself (playing to the local renderer). This could somewhat be implemented
but not a piece of cake either. I might look into it in the future but not promise.