HQ Player

[Allan F]

Frankly I'd be just as happy, maybe more so, to see JRiver front end-to HQP, but knowing JRiver's aversion to any sound engine partnership, it ain't gonna happen.

Not as long as JRiver sticks to its corporate mantra of "bits are bits" and "all bit perfect music players sound the same".

[Allan F]

Editing of Metadata

This has probably been addressed before but I could not locate a definitive answer. I have made dozens of changes to the HQP library.xml file to eliminate duplicate artists or to change the artist entry to "Various" for compilation and tribute albums. Specifically, what do I have to do to retain all these changes if I have to regenerate the HQP library because an updated version of HQP has been released?

[Allan F]

On 2/8/2018 at 3:23 PM, Allan F said:

Editing of Metadata

This has probably been addressed before but I could not locate a definitive answer. I have made dozens of changes to the HQP library.xml file to eliminate duplicate artists or to change the artist entry to "Various" for compilation and tribute albums. Specifically, what do I have to do to retain all these changes if I have to regenerate the HQP library because an updated version of HQP has been released?

 

Jussi (Miska) has kindly provided the following answer:

 

First of all, I always suggest to backup your library.xml, for example using the export-functionality in recent HQPlayer versions. At the moment rescanning doesn't touch any of the modifications for already known content, but can discover changed cover art. For other metadata, there are no updates at the moment. But I'm thinking how to bring more data to the library without adverse effects. I don't have a definitive answer for future versions yet... It is mostly about trade-off between (re-)scanning speed and flexibility.

[Allan F]

20 minutes ago, RamUwe said:

I want to hear my music in the best way that is possible. I don‘t want to wait years for it. That‘s my dilemma.

 

Perhaps your goal should be to hear your music in "the best way that is possible" today, and learn to live with gratification delay.

[Allan F]

14 hours ago, Ben-M said:

My T+A DAC 8 DSD doors accept both 44.1k*DSD512 and 48k*DSD512, so I'll have to find out which one and which upsampling method I prefer. 

 

For the T+A DAC 8 DSD, Miska recommends setting bit rate to 48k x 512.

[Allan F]

19 minutes ago, Miska said:

Interesting new feature to try out with HQPlayer when it comes out:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/14/windows-10-ultimate-performance-mode/

 

A description of this new edition of Windows: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

[Allan F]

2 hours ago, jimdukey said:

The 2-s Filters mention being for the "Higher rates " of DSD upsampling.

Does that start at DSD 256, or should it be used on DSD 128?

I see that 2-s uses less processing power, but the non 2-s still have at least 50% idle.

Not sure I hear a difference...

 

The non -2s filters require considerably more processing power. The rate at which you can no longer use these depends on your computer's processing power and choice of filter.  For example, the xtr filters are the most demanding in terms of processing power. You can find the limit for yourself by trying non -2s filter upsampling until you reach the point where you can no longer play the music uninterrupted, i.e. the point at which your computer can no longer keep up with the demand for processing power. Depending on your processor, you will likely find that the same type of filter in -2s form will play the music without problems. If you don't hear a difference between non -2s filters and -2s filters, stick with the lower processor load, i.e. the -2s filters. The most demanding non -2s filters are beyond the capability of most currently available processors.

[Allan F]

This may be a dumb question, but I am somewhat confused by the following instruction on the Signalyst web page:

Important! On Windows, uninstall the previous version of HQPlayer before installing 3.14 or newer!

Does this mean that, if you have version 3.14 or earlier installed, uninstall it before installing any later version, or does it mean that for version 3.14 and all later versions, uninstall it before installing the newer version? IOW, If I have version 3.19 installed, does it mean that I should uninstall it before installing 3.20, or can I just run the setup program for 3.20 with 3.19 still installed? I believe that it applies only to 3.14 and earlier and I can run setup for 3.20 without uninstalling 3.19,  but I could be wrong.

 

Of equal or greater importance, how can I retain the changes that I made to the metadata in the library.xml file for 3.19 when installing 3.20?

 

 

[Allan F]

33 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

 

On windows always uninstall the old version and install the new version is the rule.  I assume the library.xml hangs around as all your settings and your activation key do but you could copy it someplace for safe keeping and do the uninstall reinstall and see.

 

Thanks. I always keep at least two backups of my library.xml file, but I wasn't sure if the library.xml file in AppData for HQPlayer was retained when HQPlayer is uninstalled.

 

I just realized that I am already at 3.20.1. Does the same rule apply rule apply in updating to 3.20.2?

 

I still want to know how I can retain the changes I made to the metadata in the library.xml file for 3.20.1 when installing 3.20.2 and recreating the library. For example, I have manually made dozens of edits to the library.xml file to change artist to "Various" for compilation and tribute albums and to eliminate duplicate artists created by HQPlayer. I would like to avoid repeating that time consuming process if I can.

[Allan F]

On 2/22/2018 at 8:44 AM, Dr Tone said:

 I assume the library.xml hangs around as all your settings and your activation key do but you could copy it someplace for safe keeping and do the uninstall reinstall and see.

 

Thanks. Your assumption is correct. The library.xml file is retained in AppData for HQPlayer after uninstalling.

[Allan F]

Jussi,

 

I have also been wondering about this issue. Phrasing the question another way, if an album has no cover path, i.e. no cover="file:///........./Folder.jpg" entry, is there anything else in the content for that album in iibrary.xml to indicate that there is cover art in the metadata?

[Allan F]

Ted,

FWIW. the way I have been searching the contents of library.xml is to simply open a copy of it in Notepad and then use the Edit / Find function. That, of course, does not address the issue of album cover art in the metadata.

[Allan F]

51 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Allan, same here but my library is large and it is tedious.  Also, as you reiterated, just because an album has no "cover=" comment doesn't mean it is void of cover art (if the art is embedded in the file).  At least that is my assumption, prior to Jussi's response.

 

It is very tedious. I spent hours editing library.xml to get things to display the way I wanted them to in both HQPlayer and HQPD control.

 

Your assumption is correct unless we are missing something that Jussi can point out. In my initial installation of HQPDcontrol, the only albums for which cover art was displayed were those with cover art in the metadata because of the NAS path format problem in HQPlayer's API, which erroneously omitted cover art for all albums with a cover art path.

[Allan F]

45 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

@ted_b, @Allan F

I am not able to follow you.

In my library.xml all album folders have an entry similar to this one:

cover="file:///media/samba/Music/A Girl Called Eddy/A Girl Called Eddy/folder.jpg"

Covers and albums are resident on my NAS.

If you open library.xml and do a seach (in my case) with cover="file:///", don't you get all directories with cover as folder.jpg? 

 

No. While most of my albums contain cover path entries similar to yours, a number of the albums do not. All the albums ripped from CDs using dBpoweramp have Folder.jpg files in the album folder, but a number of downloaded albums do not. The album cover art for albums without Folder.jpg files is contained in the album's metadata. Those are the albums that Ted and I are referring to.

[Allan F]

16 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

"simply" as straight forward. I realize that it can be tedious to accomplish.

 

However, Ted's intended approach is simpler and less tedious.

[Allan F]

I have run Scan Tree several times with HQP 3.20.2 but year is not being added from the metadata. There are no date="xxxx" entries for albums in library.xml, with the sole exception of an album that I ripped and added yesterday. How can I add year without recreating the library from scratch? I don't want to do that because of the countless manual edits I have made to library.xml.

[Allan F]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Only reason I can think of is some unknown tag id or format used for the date, or missing information in first place.

 

Did you click "OK" in the Library dialog after rescanning to save the update?

 

 

I clicked Scan tree, selected my music folder, and clicked "OK". The scan proceeded, as evidenced by the blue stripe moving back and forth for several minutes until it stopped. But, when I exported library.xml, there were no date="yyyy" entries, apart from the one for the album I added yesterday. If it was a tag issue, I don't understand why the date for that one album would be picked up? It was ripped to my NAS with dBpoweramp exactly the same way as hundreds of other CDs were ripped to my music library before I installed HQPlayer.

 

After seeing your reply, I ran Scan tree again. When the scan completed this time I clicked "OK" again, but that made no difference. I have a copy of JRiver on my desktop PC. When I look at the tags for my albums with it, there are tags for both "Date" and "Year".

[Allan F]

Thanks, Jussi.

 

My mistake. I was not clicking "OK" at the completion of the scan. The reason I thought that it didn't make a difference is because, when I ran Syncing the HQPlater Library in HQPDcontrol, the dates were not displayed. Then I realized that when I rescanned, I had inadvertently used the //Disktation/My Music format for my NAS instead of using the mapped drive forma M: I then opened library.xml in Notepad and did a search using Edit/Find date= and I found that date entries were there.

 

So, I rescanned my NAS using the mapped drive format M: and clicked "OK" at the completion. I ran Syncing the HQPlayer Library again in HQPDcontrol and the dates are now displayed.

 

I have learned at least two things:

1) After running Scan tree, you have to click "OK" when the scan completes in order to save the library file.

2) The HQPlayer API has the same problem for dates that it had for album cover art when a music library is stored on a NAS. It won't pass the data to HQPDcontrol if you scan using the format //Diskstation/My Music.

 

I am glad that this issue is now resolved.

[Allan F]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

 

This should be fixed in latest 3.20.2 release...

 

But note that you should stick to either mapped one or non-mapped one when scanning. Otherwise you'll end up with duplicate entries in the library, because scanning looks at the paths when deciding if the album is already known to the library. And it cannot know if the mapped and non-mapped are the same or not.

 

 

I am on the 3.20.2 release and I don't believe that date was displayed in HQPDcontrol when I scanned using the //Diskstation/My Music format. I could be wrong, but I think it may be fixed for album cover art but not for date.

 

Your advice to stick to the mapped drive format has been duly noted and will be followed religiously in the future. Unfortunately, I had scanned with both formats of the NAS, and ended up spending a long time cleaning up library.xml to remove duplicates. Because of all the editing I had previously done, I thought that was preferable to recreating the library and losing all my edits. I also encountered a problem with the date data for my DSD albums. Presumably because of a tagging issue, I found that genre was inserted instead of year in the date entries, e.g. date="Classical", date="Jazz", date="Pop/Rock". I manually corrected all of those.

 

Everything now appears to be working and looking as it should, so I made several backups of library.xml.

[Allan F]

8 hours ago, Solstice380 said:

 

Yes, because HQPlayer is a better upsampling player.  Roon is a great front end, but not necessary.   HQP has a simple, purposeful interface that some call too simplistic.   The two go together well, but the better SQ is through HQP for me too. 

 

If you add the HQPDcontrol app to an Android tablet, the interface to HQP is simple and far more user friendly, i.e. it is no longer "too simplistic" and Roon remains unnecessary.

[Allan F]

Is it possible to play music files with HQP without adding them to the library? I know that I can add a folder to the library and and then delete it. But, is it possible to eliminate that step and play directly from a USB stick or drive if I just want to sample an album before deciding if I want to keep it?

[Allan F]

12 hours ago, ted_b said:

You mean HQP's own library?  Sure!  Just drag the tracks onto the HQP screen.

 

6 hours ago, Miska said:

And one can hide the library view if needed in the main window, by dragging the splitter between library and playlist/transport views fully up...

 

Many thanks to both of you.

[Allan F]

On 6/1/2018 at 9:07 AM, jimdukey said:

I've never enjoyed HQ more than with the new 3.21...

 

I wasn't expecting better sound quality from 3.21 but, from the first few albums, it was clear that there was an audible improvement. I don't know how you do it, Miska, but you keeping getting more out of HQP. Much appreciated.

[Allan F]

poly-sinc-xtr-2s

On 6/10/2018 at 1:56 PM, Miska said:

I have only experience with Core i5 6600T and 7600T (low TDP models)...

 

FWIW, the Core i7 7700 has a TDP of 65W and will upsample to DSD512 (poly-sinc-xtr-2s), typically averaging 35% CPU utilization or less in my system.

[Allan F]

32 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Since we are comparing...my i7-6700 converts redbook to poly-sinc-xtr-2s @ DSD512 with 2 channel convolution with a CPU load of around 45%.

 

The TDP spec for the i7-6700 is the same as that of the i7-7700 at 65W.