HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[Miska]

8 minutes ago, Rovo said:

@Miska

for the NAA 5.0.0 you mention "hardware volume control". Can you elaborate more on this? How to actually implement this?

 

Some devices, like some portable USB DACs have analog volume control implemented in hardware that can be controlled over USB. This has been supported since HQPlayer Embedded v4 for local playback. Now this same is also available over NAA when the NAA is running on Linux.

 

This volume control is kind of hybrid approach. So the hardware volume control, when enabled, is used for coarse adjustments and then the finer adjustments between those steps are done with digital volume control. So let's say your hardware volume control works in steps of 3 dB and you want to set volume to -7.5 dB. In this case hardware would be set to -3 dB and then digital volume to -4.5 dB. This also takes into account the specified -3 dB inter-sample over headroom, so the digital volume control won't go values less than -3 dB. Otherwise, setting hardware to -6 dB would result in -1.5 dB digital volume setting which would again have the inter-sample overs issue.

 

This is configured the same way for both Embedded and NAA. In NAA you will need to define the device in /etc/networkaudiod/networkaudiod.xml, specify the mixer control element name, specify the inter-sample over headroom factor and enable this feature.

 

[blackhawk579]

@Miska .  I have flashed my Holo Red with the NAA 5.0.0.   I have not been successful in getting my Holo May to read either PCM 1.5M or DSD 1024 on either the stock OS or the NAA HQP

layer 5.0 build for the Holo Red.  Any suggestions are appreciated.       

[Miska]

14 hours ago, blackhawk579 said:

@Miska .  I have flashed my Holo Red with the NAA 5.0.0.   I have not been successful in getting my Holo May to read either PCM 1.5M or DSD 1024 on either the stock OS or the NAA HQP

layer 5.0 build for the Holo Red.  Any suggestions are appreciated.       

 

I assume you have connected May to you Red using USB cable?

 

[Markus8]

On 2/15/2024 at 6:09 PM, bogi said:

Only HQPlayer OS is running realtime kernel.

Isn’t there an update so that also HQPlayer OS is using the low latency kernel (like latest RoPieee) ?

[bogi]

32 minutes ago, Markus8 said:

Isn’t there an update so that also HQPlayer OS is using the low latency kernel (like latest RoPieee) ?

 

That would be a question for Miska ... But HQPlayer OS is not only about realtime kernel. It is also about treating it as a firmware - you burn image to SD card or USB key and boot from it. No additional software package installations, so it is usable for people without Linux OS experience. It is not possible to support all different nVidia CUDA compatible graphics cards within the same HQPlayer OS image. I think this is the main restriction (not realtime kernel) why HQPlayer OS does not support CUDA offload.

If you know how to install/update nVidia driver on Linux then use Linux with low latency kernel and install both nVidia drivers and HQPlayer Embedded on it.

[blackhawk579]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I assume you have connected May to you Red using USB cable?

 

Yes.  Usb from holo red to may.  Odd I am not getting 1.5M pcm or 1050dsd.  I will look I to any may firmware updates I may be missing.   

[Miska]

The Nvidia software stack has tight binding to the overall OS software stack, including the development/compiler side. Trying to support it on HQPlayer OS would place too many constraints on the OS itself. This includes kernel and all development tools.

 

So CUDA is supported by HQPlayer only on platforms where Nvidia officially supports it. That is currently Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora. And I suspect Fedora is going away in not too distant future...

 

[jcn3]

On 3/9/2024 at 3:45 PM, blackhawk579 said:

@Miska .  I have flashed my Holo Red with the NAA 5.0.0.   I have not been successful in getting my Holo May to read either PCM 1.5M or DSD 1024 on either the stock OS or the NAA HQP

layer 5.0 build for the Holo Red.  Any suggestions are appreciated.       

 

what are the specs of the pc that hqplayer is running on?

[blackhawk579]

9 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

 

what are the specs of the pc that hqplayer is running on?

Brand new, 14900k,  32 GB Ram, SSD, w/ 4070 ti super.  

[Markus8]

On 3/10/2024 at 1:29 PM, bogi said:

 

That would be a question for Miska ... But HQPlayer OS is not only about realtime kernel. It is also about treating it as a firmware - you burn image to SD card or USB key and boot from it. No additional software package installations, so it is usable for people without Linux OS experience.

@Miska Any update on that?

[Miska]

On 3/11/2024 at 6:37 PM, Markus8 said:

@Miska Any update on that?

 

Sorry, but I kind of don't follow about update on what?

 

[Markus8]

21 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Sorry, but I kind of don't follow about update on what?

 

It was 

 

[Miska]

21 minutes ago, Markus8 said:

It was 

 

 

Yes, but??

 

[Markus8]

32 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, but??

 

So is HQPlayer OS for example in the Holo Red using a low latency kernel? 

[Miska]

39 minutes ago, Markus8 said:

So is HQPlayer OS for example in the Holo Red using a low latency kernel? 

 

Yes...

[lsantista]

hi! am I really the only lucky one experiencing constant disconnections between Roon and HQP?

Yes I had that in the past, but it was rare, or very rare (though to be honest it was impossible to fix, only time fixed it, meaning, I cound only control HQP on Roon a couple weeks later).

Now though, for the past month, disconnection has been ocurring daily, actually sometimes a few times a day - though a simple Modem reset solves some 2/3 of the times, and on the rest, a reset of all things online (modem, router, innuos switch, rendu streamer) will do. Just restarting the apps or restarting HQP on the Rendu webcontroler won't do, unfurtunetly, as the modem takes 2 minutes to turn off/on, plus Im not a fan of messing with the on/off buttons on the back of the linear supplies all the time.

 

disconection has been ocurring during playback ramdonly, even when Im not even near the PC, nor using the cellphone I control Roon with. All the setup is cabled, Im not losing web connection as well. But out of the sudden, music simply stops, and when trying to play again , I get "starting playback on your audio device, this might take a moment". I have tried to fool myself into believing the issue will stop soon, but nah.. Roon has updated at least twice since this started. I have constatly checked my windows PC firewall settings, and nothing has changed (not to mention nothing would change behind my back, I suppose, just to work again for one hower upon restarting the modem). I wish I didnt notice any difference with and without HQP, but I do, as subtle as it is to me (blame my poor ears), it is there.

 

now, why me, unless I missed something, no one else has had that issue recently?

 

 

[R1200CL]

50 minutes ago, lsantista said:

no one else has had that issue recently?

All the time 😂

 

In my case I suspected my Roon server, or network/switch where Roon server is. So I tested Roon installed different place and used RAAT without HQplayer. This seems to eliminate my issues. Maybe you can try something similar. 
I haven’t yet concluded. These investigations is very time consuming. 
 

If you want more help, you should draw your network, and post. 

[Rovo]

with me it turned out to be a faulty network card, took me months to find out

[Miska]

9 hours ago, lsantista said:

now, why me, unless I missed something, no one else has had that issue recently?

 

No, hours of playback without issues. Roon Server running on ancient i5 NUC on Debian 12 bookworm.

 

Couple of things to check:

1) If you are using Windows, check that you are not using Windows Defender, but instead something proper. F-Secure and e-set for example are known to work. Avast also works with firewall and remote control protection disabled, though it can be a bit annoying after software update.

2) Check that you are using stock CAT6 U/UTP cables. Try replacing cables on the relevant data path (except in-wall cables of course).

3) Check from HQPlayer log file what is the actual reason for the stop... Essential information for troubleshooting the issue. Same goes for Roon log file.

 

[bubbleguuum]

Hi,

 

BubbleUPnP dev here.

 

A user of the HQPlayerEmbedded:SignalystHQPlayer5 renderer made me aware of playing some SHOUTCast streams to this devices, with log files. It showed a few problems in BubbleUPnP, but I have some questions about this renderer capabilities to make a proper fix.

 

What are the exact capabilities of HQPlayerEmbedded with SHOUTcast streams (whether via ICY or HTTP protocols) ?

In particular, does it support natively AAC streams and Ogg-FLAC streams ?

 

example streams:

 

AAC: https://st01.sslstream.dlf.de/dlf/01/high/aac/stream.aac?aggregator=web

Ogg-FLAC: https://stream.radioparadise.com/flacm

 

Also, can you confirm that this renderer does strict checking of the mime-type vs its protocolInfo, when being issued a SetAVTransportURI command, and if the mime-type is not listed in its protocolInfo it always return error 714 "Illegal mime-type" ?

Speaking of which, it does not seem to define any mime-type for playing AAC (audio/aac) and AAC im MP4 container (audio/mp4 or audio/x-m4a). Does it support AAC at all ?

[bogi]

3 hours ago, bubbleguuum said:

A user of the HQPlayerEmbedded:SignalystHQPlayer5 renderer made me aware of playing some SHOUTCast streams to this devices

I am HQPlayer Desktop (not Embedded) user but I expect the http stream input capabilities to be the same.

 

AFAIK raw streams as well as Ogg encapsulation works but only for formats supported by HQPlayer (FLAC, MP3). A special support was added to read non standard WAV endless stream from 'playback stream capture' feature of foo_upnp. I dont expect AAC support but Miska's answer will make it clear. Your link with AAC stream does not play on my HQPlayer Desktop. I myself tested Ogg/FLAC streaming through IceCast server and it worked.

 

 

Just we are here off topic, it is not related to NAA endpoint devices. Embddded thread would be more appropriate.

[Miska]

6 hours ago, bubbleguuum said:

A user of the HQPlayerEmbedded:SignalystHQPlayer5 renderer made me aware of playing some SHOUTCast streams to this devices, with log files. It showed a few problems in BubbleUPnP, but I have some questions about this renderer capabilities to make a proper fix.

 

What are the exact capabilities of HQPlayerEmbedded with SHOUTcast streams (whether via ICY or HTTP protocols) ?

In particular, does it support natively AAC streams and Ogg-FLAC streams ?

 

Natively for example MP3 and Ogg-FLAC (MIME types "application/ogg" and "audio/ogg"). Generally content that is supported by HQPlayer. No special URL schema is needed, just use the standard "http" or "https" and HQPlayer will detect any ICY headers.

 

6 hours ago, bubbleguuum said:

Also, can you confirm that this renderer does strict checking of the mime-type vs its protocolInfo, when being issued a SetAVTransportURI command, and if the mime-type is not listed in its protocolInfo it always return error 714 "Illegal mime-type" ?

 

I think so yes.

 

6 hours ago, bubbleguuum said:

Speaking of which, it does not seem to define any mime-type for playing AAC (audio/aac) and AAC im MP4 container (audio/mp4 or audio/x-m4a). Does it support AAC at all ?

 

No, not supported at all. As it incurs patent licensing fees which I have not yet seen feasible, since it would need to be reflected in the license price as well and the demand for such has been practically non-existent.

 

[bubbleguuum]

@Miska

 

Thank you for the info.

 

The renderer's protocolInfo does not seem to include application/ogg (while it includes audio/ogg),

at least it is not included in the protocolInfo I have for HQPlayerEmbedded:SignalystHQPlayer5 from a few months ago.

Many Ogg-FLAC streams use application/ogg as their Content-Type http header, thus this what BubbleUPnP uses

as mime-type for SetAVTransportURI (which fails with an error 714).

Can you consider adding application/ogg to the protocolInfo ?

[Miska]

14 minutes ago, bubbleguuum said:

The renderer's protocolInfo does not seem to include application/ogg (while it includes audio/ogg),

at least it is not included in the protocolInfo I have for HQPlayerEmbedded:SignalystHQPlayer5 from a few months ago.

Many Ogg-FLAC streams use application/ogg as their Content-Type http header, thus this what BubbleUPnP uses

as mime-type for SetAVTransportURI (which fails with an error 714).

Can you consider adding application/ogg to the protocolInfo ?

 

I have now added that to the default hqplayerd.xml configuration file. It was missing from there. On purpose, there's the possibility to specify additional supported MIME types through HQPlayer configuration file.

 

Will be included in next release!

 

[bogi]

@bubbleguuum
We had some communication maybe 4 years ago (I don't remember exactly) about 'playback stream capture' feature of foo_upnp.
What we were asking for that time was to add one special mode which would close http stream on source content sample rate change and create a new stream at the new sample rate, thus following the source content sample rate. Miska confirmed that time that HQPlayer would restart playback when stream is closed and new stream is detected (with 'repeat track' player setting).

Although I don't know for which of your products the discussed feature is intended for: If you intend to add some compatibility with HQPlayer, such an 'adaptive' behavior would be welcome and HQPlayer users would appreciate it.