Play a playlist on a Yamaha Musiccast Receiver

Configuration
1

I thought this was going to be an easy one, but so far it has proven extremely frustrating. Basically…

What I have tried…

I have:

  • A Yamaha MusicCast capable receiver
  • An AppleTV connected to the Yamaha receiver
  • A Plex Server (running on an Unraid server) with music (also works as a DLNA server)
  • Local Media on my Home Assistant (ODROID running Hassio)
  • A bunch of different streaming services (like Youtube Music Premium, Amazon Music (but no Unlimited), Spotify (but only free)

And I want to:

  • Play some kind of playlist (could be everything of one folder, or an m3u playlist, or a playlist I can create on any of the listed streaming services) on my Yamaha Receiver

However, despite all my efforts, I’m not able to get any playlists running, because:

  • Even though the Yamaha Receiver connects to my Amazon Music account, it’s unable to stream a user defined playlist (seems like a Yamaha Bug)
  • There seems to be no easy / reliable option to play Youtube Music via Home Assistant
  • All Spotify based solutions I found require a premium membership (which I don’t want)
  • The Plex integration would require me to turn on the Apple TV (which seems impossible) and launch the Plex app on the Apple TV (which I couldn’t figure out how)
  • The Yamaha MusicCast integration provided by HomeAssistant only seems to be able to play a single audio file or switch to a preset - at least that’s the only thing I got working from the documentation.
  • Local playback isn’t working either: My unraid server doesn’t have audio support in the kernel (and I don’t think setting up an extra VM with passthrough is the right solution) and the ODROID Hassio VLC player isn’t able to playback anything via the HDMI out

So right now, the only solution that I haven’t ruled out is via DLNA Home Assistant integration. However, I can’t find out the correct media source URI. I can stream files via the Media tab (select the Yamaha DLNA player and then use the Plex DLNA server as a source), but how do I figure out the correct service call to start playing back from a playlist or a folder?

The documentation gives some hints, but isn’t detailed enough in my opinion. E.g. where do I get the Object IDs from?

TLDR;

  • Is there an easy solution to playing back a playlist on a Yamaha Musiccast receiver that doesn’t require additional hardware / premium account subscriptions?
  • How can I get the Object IDs / file path for a Home Assistant DLNA DMS connected to a Plex Media Server (DLNA support enabled) so that I can use it to playback a playlist on my Yamaha Receiver which is connected to Home Assistant via the DLNA DMR integration?
2

Install Music Assistant : GitHub - music-assistant/hass-music-assistant: Turn your Home Assistant instance into a jukebox, hassle free streaming of your favorite media to Home Assistant media players.

For me: Music Assistant (MASS) has tackled EVERY hurdle and irritation mediaplayers gave me.
A quick glance at your issues tells me, MASS will do this for you to.

It gives seamless access to all your players and sources.

Besides the common interface, it provides additional Lovelace UI Elements.

In the end, total time invested in MASS is far lower than hussling with all your separated players and sources.

Mind you: current version of music Assistant only works on HA 2022.11, which is awesome btw

3

May be that is the reason

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4

I tried owntone for a while now and most of the time it works pretty nicely - transmitting the Audio via AirPlay from my unRaid server to the Yamaha Receiver. However, lately I often find it starts stuttering and completely grinds to a halt. Haven’t found out yet when that happens.

I will given Music Assistant a try, though my experience with HACS addons hasn’t been smooth so far. Let’s hope Music Assistant is one of the more stable addons :slight_smile: