Serento: The audiophile UPnP controller app for iOS/macOS

[serento]

Hello everyone,

Version 1.1.3 comes with the new Serento app for Apple TV.

APPLE TV

Serento for Apple TV shows what your streamer plays on the big screen, and you control it with the Siri Remote from the sofa. It does not play music itself: your iPhone, iPad or Mac does the work, as it does today, and the music goes from your server straight to your streamer.

Now Playing shows the cover, the format, and the bit-perfect ring when the music plays bit-perfect, with a bar to move through the track and shuffle, previous, play and pause, next and repeat. From Playing on you move the music to another streamer, and the heart adds the track to your favorites.

Queue, Lyrics and Radio open across the whole screen: play or remove tracks in the queue, read synced lyrics in large type, and start or stop Serento Radio. When an internet radio station plays, On Air shows the song on air and the songs before it.

The Apple TV app comes with Serento at no extra cost and needs no account, only Serento on your iPhone, iPad or Mac on the same network. Open the App Store on your Apple TV, search for Serento and install it.

NEW

Group as Versions. Select two or more albums and choose Group as Versions in the … menu: they become versions of one album, and you pick the main version. Manage Versions, on an album’s Versions screen, opens the same editor. Your groups sync across your devices.

“The” in artist names, in Settings › Display › Artist Settings. Match “The” variants as one artist, on by default, makes “The Pink Floyd” and “Pink Floyd” one artist, named as on the newest release, orchestras and choirs included. Ignore “The” when sorting puts “The Beatles” under B. Both choices can sync across your devices.

Tracks in every genre. A genre’s page has a new Tracks section under Decades, and View All lists every track of the genre, with search, filters, sorting and Play. A track appears under each genre it carries, even on an album of another genre.

IMPROVED

When a streamer refuses a DSD file and your server also offers a PCM version, Serento plays that version instead of showing an error, and remembers the streamer’s limit on all your devices. Nothing is converted: Serento picks between your server’s versions.

A DSD file sent to a streamer untouched now shows BIT-PERFECT. DSD OVER PCM appears only when your server sends DoP.

On streamers that Serento feeds one track at a time, Serento follows the track the streamer plays, wherever it is in the queue: after your iPhone, iPad or Mac slept, after another device moved on, or after a network drop. The queue, Now Playing and the Lock Screen show that track, and the music goes on.

Composers that your server joins with a comma, as MinimServer does, are now split into separate composers, while a name written “Surname, First name” stays whole. Sync with your server to apply it: Settings › your server › Sync Data › Sync now.

When a name in a shared credit belongs to another artist in your library, Serento’s database now tells them apart: “Travis” in “Travis & Fripp” is Theo Travis, not the band Travis. This applies at your next sync.

During a sync, artist credits that got no answer, for example while Serento was in the background or during a network drop, are asked again before the sync ends.

Genres, as the community suggested: Alternative Dance now sits under Pop, Avant-Garde only under Experimental, Folktronica also under Downtempo, and Alternative Metal also under Metal.

A genre’s Decades section now shows the decades with the most albums first, as suggested here on the forum. Pinned decades still lead, and you can now pin and unpin them on the section’s cards too. View All still lists the pinned decades first, then the others newest first.

FIXED

On streamers that Serento feeds one track at a time, an album could stop after its first track, for example while your iPhone or iPad was locked. The first track now hands the next one to the streamer, so the album plays on without a gap.

On some streamers, Play and Pause could stop responding after the streamer restarted and lost the track. Play now gives it your track again from the position on the screen, also when another app took the streamer while your track was paused.

On streamers that keep the queue themselves, Next with Repeat One on starts the current track again, also right after you turn Repeat One on. Before, it could move on through the album.

On those streamers, Next and Previous pressed while an album is still loading, or right after you change Repeat, are no longer lost: they wait until the streamer is ready, then go to the right track.

Repeat All on those streamers plays each track once per round. Before, a few tracks could play twice at the end of a round.

When you move playback to another output, your other devices show the new output at once.

A device following playback started on another device now shows the format your streamer actually receives.

On some streamers, a radio station started after a track could lose its logo and make the mini player flicker.

A genre now shows the same picture on its page and on its tile, and keeps it.

Many bug fixes and other small improvements.