ExoAirPlayer vs Podcini.X - Podcast instrument
Side-by-side comparison of two open source alternatives
ExoAirPlayer
ExoAirPlayer is an app you run on your Android set-top box. It plays video/audio URLs "cast" to it with a stateless HTTP API (based on AirPlay).There is no UI when the app starts. It’s a foreground service with a notification, which runs a web server on port 8192. The IP address of the server is given in the notification message.When a video URL is "cast" to the server, a video player opens full-screen. If the video player loses focus (ex: by pressing the "home" button), another notification is added to control playback or refocus on the video player window.When an audio URL is "cast" to the server, the music plays in the background – even when the screen is off.This page is the simplest way to send signals to a running instance. Though other "high-level" tools exist to capture media URLs from the wild (some are listed here). One of them is DroidPlay, which lets you cast content from another Android device to ExoAirPlayer.Audio or video files/playlists can also be started directly from the Android file system, which makes this app a very suitable replacement for a general-purpose video player. This can be done locally on the same device, e.g. using a file manager like Total Commander: if you tap a media file there, it implicitly calls an intent ExoAirPlayer (and other installed media players) act upon – so a list of such apps open and you can chose from it. You can also use Total Commander to create playlists; see here for details.The remote way to do this requires knowing the structure of the Android file system. In that case, rather than "casting" a URL.. you can "cast" a file or directory path (ex: /storage/sdb1/Downloads/my-video.mp4). This can be done with the website mentioned above.
Podcini.X - Podcast instrument
Podcini, an open source podcast instrument, attuned to Puccini, adorned with pasticcini and aromatized with porcini, invites your harmonious heartbeats. Do I hear your heartbeats? Great! Common functionalities of a podcast player are well-supported: Search, discover and subscribe to podcasts, by keywords, simple RSS URLs, or OPML files. Download, stream or queue episodes, and enjoy them the way you like with adjustable playback speeds. Save effort, battery power and mobile data usage with powerful automation controls for auto-downloading/auto-enqueuing episodes. If the feed contains no media (plain RSS feed), Text-to-Speech engine is used to play the text. Listening progress can be instantly synced through a NextCloud server or across devices in the same Wi-Fi network without a server. So what's special with this podcast app among the many? Well, aside from doing the above well, the following make it stand out: It's open sourced, free to use and free of ads, free as in beer and free as in speech! It takes advantage of modern frameworks to be efficient and conserve energy. In addition to subscriptions, it allows you to create your own synthetic podcasts to compile your interested episodes from various sources to better focus on your interests. While the list of episodes (filtered and sorted by you) in each podcast serves a natural playlist for you, it also empowers you with multiple queues each associable with any podcasts to group similar contents for better listening. On any podcast/episode, you can assign 5 levels of rating allowing you to make better decisions on where to put your attention. You have 12 levels of play states (like to play soon, play again, etc) to better plan and enhance your listening experiences. You can also keep your personal notes with your opinions/comments on each podcast/episode. It has sophisticated sorting and filtering options for you to better select contents. When you unsubscribe a podcast, it allows you to preserve your important episodes of the podcast in a synthetic feed. It keeps a record of your unsubscribed podcasts and notifies you if you unknowingly try to re-subscribe to some. It caches streamed audio for seamless local rewind and replay. You can record audio clips or mark positions on any episodes for better review. You can also set selected episodes related for better grouping. Sure, you can play any episodes in your car's speakers. And, it's not all about audio, video is well handled. You can cast the audio/video to Chromecast speakers/screens. Some other podcast players can also do all of the above? Join the Podcini community! Podcini is under active development by volunteers. You can contribute too, with code, comments or improvements. See source code on github.com/XilinJia/Podcini.X
| Feature | ExoAirPlayer | Podcini.X - Podcast instrument |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-2.0-only | GPL-3.0-only |
| Install sources | GitHubIzzyOnDroid | F-DroidGitHubIzzyOnDroid |
| Categories | Media PlayerVideo | Media PlayerPodcastVideoBrowser |
| Features | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking |
| Platforms | Android | Android |
| Website | ||
| Source code |