Qobuz through HQPlayer © Sound Galleries 2018 March 11, 2018 Chapter 1 Introduction This document concentrates on the ability to play streams from the Qobuz streaming service through HQPlayer using my “Supersonic” add-on for Kodi. “Supersonic” may also be used for playing “Tidal” streams through HQPlayer. So most of what is written here will be equally applicable for Tidal, except for a few exceptions which I will point out. Qobuz is the longest running streaming service I am aware of that has been capable of streaming in lossless (flac) format. The lowest quality flac streams available from Qobuz are the same as standard CD quality. This is also known as “Redbook” and refers to 44.1khz/16bit streams. Qobuz later added it’s “Sub- lime” subscription which permits streaming of high-rez material at 44.1khz, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 khz all at 24bit, providing you had previously purchased the files themselves from Qobuz. (Qobuz is an online store for purchasing and downloading music, as well as a streaming service). In may of 2017, Qobuz in- troduced it’s “Sublime plus” subscription, which allows streaming of these high resolution files, regardless of whether you had previously purchased them. Ob- viously the price of the subscription rises in line with the streaming capability. Qobuz are officially launching their services in the US this year. Until this offi- cial launch, the only way to obtain Qobuz in the US, has been by using a VPN service. In order for Qobuz URLs to be passed to HQPlayer for playback, there must first be a way of obtaining those URLs. “Supersonic” does not obtain the URLs from Qobuz. Instead it relies on two disctinctly different methods of obtaining the URLs and passing them to Kodi. Once Kodi has received a Qobuz URL, Supersonic can take over and pass the URL to HQPlayer. The two methods of obtaining the Qobuz URLs are described below. 1 Chapter 2 Installing Supersonic 2 Chapter 3 Supersonic’s settings With my “Supersonic” add-on correctly installed in Kodi, you now need to make sure “Supersonic’s” settings are correct for playing Qobuz streams through HQ- Player. Right click (or equivlent on the “Supersonic” add-on and choose “Settings”. 1. With “Main settings”chosen on the left hand side, make sure “Active” is enabled so that Supersonic is activated. 2. Set “Choose player” to “HQPlayer” if it is not already the selected player. 3. Make sure destination platform corresponds to the platform HQPlayer is running on. (a) If both Kodi and HQPlayer are running on the same machine this will be the platform (Mac, Windows or Linux) of that machine. (b) If Kodi is running on one machine and HQPlayer on another. the platform of the machine which HQPlayer is running on will be the destination platform that needs to be chosen here. (c) 3 CHAPTER 3. SUPERSONIC’S SETTINGS 4 4. Finally verify that HQPlayer specific settings in “Supersonic” are correct. In this example Kodi and HQPlayer are both running on the same Mac. (a) The “Path to HQPlayer” is the default path where you would nor- mally install HQPlayer on a Mac. (b) “Client” is set to “localhost”. (c) 5. You needn’t bother about any of the other “Supersonic” settings at this stage. The settings can be accepted by clicking on “OK”. Chapter 4 Using a UPnP server There are several UPNP servers which support the Qobuz (and Tidal) streaming services. The two which I’ve tested with “Supersonic” and found to work well, both run on mobile devices. These are as follows: 1. BubbleUPnP (running on an Android Samsung Tablet) 2. mconnect (Running on Apple iPhone and iPad) The advantage of using one of these UPnP servers on a mobile device, is simplic- ity. The only add-on required for Kodi is my “Supersonic” add-on itself. There will probably be UPnP servers of this kind running on one platform or another, which can support Qobuz, way into the forseeable future. 4.1 Kodi settings In order to use one of these UPnP servers with Qobuz support you will first need to enable UPnP control within Kodi. Within Kodi go to Settings (cog wheel icon) -> Service Settings -> Click or Tap on “UPnP/DLNA” on the left hand pane and ensure “Allow remote control via UPnP” is enabled. 5 CHAPTER 4. USING A UPNP SERVER 6 4.2 mconnect For my UPnP server example, I’ve chosen “mconnect”. There is an mconnect app for iPhone and iPad as well as “mconnect HD” for iPad, which has some additional features. For our purposes though the set-up for Qobuz streaming is the same. 4.2.1 Cloud Setup 1. Launch the “mconnect” app on your IOS device. Tap on the cog wheel icon at top far left corner and choose/tap on “Cloud Set-up”. 2. Qobuz should be listed under “Internet Music”. CHAPTER 4. USING A UPNP SERVER 7 3. Tap on Qobuz and you will be prompted to enter your Qobuz credentials (Username and Password). 4. Make sure Qobuz is set to “ON”. 4.2.2 Maximum resolution for Wi-Fi streaming The next step within “mconnect” will be to set up the maximum resolution streams that you’re entitled to, and able to stream, over your wifi connection. As previously explained you will need a Qobuz “Sublime” subscription to be able to stream high resolution music that you’ve already purchased from Qobuz or a “Sublime plus” subscription to be able to stream all high resolution Qobuz content, regardless of whether you previously purchased it from Qobuz. Note: The terms “Sublime” and “Sublime Plus” are used as names for these subscriptions on the French Qobuz site. These are likely to be changed to something like, “Audiophile” and Audiophile plus” for English speakers. Obviously both your internet connection and WiFi connection will need to be capable of handling these High Resolution streams. Otherwise you will be forced to drop back to 44.1khz/16bit within mconnect settings. To set the streaming resolution accoding to the above in mconnect, you’ll need to do the following: 1. Tap on Browser 2. Tap on Qobuz (a) Now you should see selections from Qobuz CHAPTER 4. USING A UPNP SERVER 8 3. Tap on the “Hamburger” menu (3 horizontal lines) at the top of the screen. 4. Tap on “Settings” (a) Now you’ll be able to set the maximum resolution to stream via both the Mobile Network and Wi-Fi. We are obviously interested in Wi-Fi here. (b) Select the appropriate resolution by tapping on the text describing that resolution (not the button to the left of it; to save you frustra- tion). 4.2.3 Play to Kodi renderer Once you’ve set the maximum resolution to stream over wi-fi, tap on the “Play to” button. You need to make sure the Kodi desktop app with Supersonic is running and that HQPlayer is also launched. The “Play to” button in “mconnect” will allow you to select Kodi as the renderer to send the Qobuz urls to. As long as Kod is running and UPnP control is enabled in Kodi, as previously instructed, Kodi should show up here. CHAPTER 4. USING A UPNP SERVER 9 If your instance of Kodi renderer doesn’t show up here, and you’re sure it’s running with UPnP control enabled, tap the refresh button at the top right hand corner in “mconnect” and see if this causes it to appear. All that remains is to play some music from Qobuz. 4.2.4 Choose and play music 1. Tap on “Browser” in mconnect 2. Tap on “Qobuz” 3. Tap on the “Hamburger” icon to select how you want to access music within Qobuz. The choices are as follows: (a) Search (b) Discover i. To access Qobuz’s own selections of music (c) Playlists i. To access your own playlists which you’ve already set up in Qobuz (d) Favourites i. To access your favourite Albums, Tracks and Artists which you’ve already set up in Qobuz (e) Purchases i. To access the albums you’ve purchased from the Qobuz online music store. CHAPTER 4. USING A UPNP SERVER 10 Once you’ve selected the music you wish to play, tap on the play button or one of the tracks you wish to play. After a matter of seconds the music should be playing in HQPlayer. The playback in “mconnect” will have advanced a little ahead of HQPlayer. This is to ensure as close to “gapless” play back as possible. “mconnect” is advanced by approximately the amount of seconds it took to load the track into HQPlayer, after it’s set back to the beginning to bring it in line with HQPlayer’s track progress. Within mconnect in the settings for “Gapless” you should have “Gapless to CHAPTER 4. USING A UPNP SERVER 11 Renderer” set to “OFF”; otherwise I cannot guarantee Kodi and Supersonic will work correctly with mconnect. 4.2.5 Navigation If you want to change tracks within an Album or playlist, simply choose the track you wish to switch to in “mconnect”. Playback will stop in both Kodi and HQPlayer momentarily. If the track you’re switching to is already in HQPlayer’s playlist that track will begin to play after a few seconds. If the track you’re switching to is not already in HQPlayer’s playlist, it will be added as the next item and playback will start for that track once it is loaded. This includes use of the previous and next buttons to go to the previous or next track in “mconnect’s” queue.