BubbleUPnP is a DLNA-compliant UPnP media controller, server and renderer, designed to allow streaming of audio or video from and to an Android device with various external devices and software.[2][3] Alongside the Android client, it also has a server middleware application that can be installed on Windows, macOS and Linux computers or network storage devices,[4] providing remote access through a web interface. BubbleUPnP also utilises ffmpeg and ffprobe for transcoding.[5]
Features
The app has three menus: Library (browsing media files locally or another server), Playlist (enqueuing files/folders), and Now Playing (controls the active media playback).[6]
Server and controller
BubbleUPnP's integrated DLNA media server allows browsing of media of the Android device from other DLNA devices.[4] The integrated renderer makes BubbleUPnP act as a control point on a home network between a source server and the player.[7][8][9] According to the software website, it is able to play media to various external devices such as:[10]
BubbleUPnP can play media from the local device itself, standalone UPnP/DLNA media servers (such as Kodi and Jellyfin) or those running on a NAS (including Synology, Western Digital and QNAP), local network SMB server shares (Windows and Mac), cloud storage services (such as Dropbox), WebDAV servers, and various third-party Android media and music apps.[10][13] There is support for Internet radio streams like Shoutcast, which can be added in the Playlist menu by entering the URL of the stream.[6]
Licensed version
BubbleUPnP is free to use and ad-supported; a number of advanced features are offered when purchasing a license, such as filesystem browsing from remote devices, unlimited playlist size, remote access to home libraries and no ads.[14]
BubbleUPnP Server
BubbleUPnP Server running in Microsoft Edge on Windows 10
BubbleUPnP Server is a server application to run on a PC or NAS on top of existing UPnP/DLNA devices. It allows the transcoding of media formats to be playable on a Chromecast if they are not natively supported, such as Xvid, AVI and FLAC.[15][6] The server also provides secure remote access to existing media servers content from the BubbleUPnP app on Android,[15] and from foobar2000 (with foo_upnp plugin) on Windows.[16][17] Streaming or downloading of media from a mobile or Wi-Fi connection is also permitted, removing the need of synchronisation or online services.[15]