HQ Player

[bogi]

1 minute ago, dericchan1 said:

They were previously not in bookworm’s config.txt

It means your port was not switched to peripheral mode. I guess only one of those lines was really applied, the peripheral one. Maybe the last dwc2 line wins. But I would not change anything till Miska will explain the thing.

[dericchan1]

3 minutes ago, bogi said:

It means your port was not switched to peripheral mode. I guess only one of those lines was really applied, the peripheral one. Maybe the last dwc2 line wins. But I would not change anything till Miska will explain the thing.

I figured I would need both lines because I am also using it as a NAA output to my dac… but I could be wrong

[bogi]

9 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

I figured I would need both lines because I am also using it as a NAA output to my dac… but I could be wrong

But you are using an other USB-A port for the output NAA.

The dwc2 setting is intended only for the USB-C port. No other port on Pi4 has the peripheral (slave) capability - it requires a specific hardware to be present for such a port. Only the USB-C port is switchable.
The rest USB-A ports are usual host (master) ports. The dwc2 setting does not apply for them.

[dericchan1]

4 minutes ago, bogi said:

But you are using an other USB-A port for the output NAA.

The dwc2 setting is intended only for the USB-C port. No other port on Pi4 has the peripheral (slave) capability - it requires a specific hardware to be present for such a port. Only the USB-C port is switchable.
The rest USB-A ports are usual host (master) ports. The dwc2 setting does not apply for them.

It makes sense but I guess I will wait for Miska’s explanation on that…

[Miska]

5 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=host

dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=peripheral

 

HQPlayer OS and NAA OS images have these two at the end of config.txt by default. First line enabled, and the second one commented out with '#' mark. To switch to peripheral (device) mode, you need to swap the comment mark to the first line and remove it from the second. So the first one should have '#' at the beginning (commented out) and the second one not.

 

Host mode is enabled by default, because I want the image to work on Holo Red out of the box.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

I did some readings on enabling otg and also recalled seeing those lines in the NAA image config.

 

They were previously not in bookworm’s config.txt 

 

Yeah, not on bookworm by default. You should have only the peripheral one. Leave the host one out, or at least commented out.

 

DWC2 is a DesignWare USB controller IP block from Synopsys for chip designers:

https://www.synopsys.com/designware-ip/interface-ip/usb.html

 

Some Intel chips, like the one used in UP Gateway have the DWC3 version of the block.

 

[Fredc]

On 3/16/2024 at 11:18 AM, Miska said:

 

Are these two albums in same format? Do you have prefetch enabled? How about freewheel? Now there's the buffer indicator, but in any case, the playback will continue with the next track once 10 seconds worth of audio has been fetched. And with prefetch enabled, that begins 10 seconds before end of the current track. This means that if the internet connection is able to keep up with realtime playback, it will have the necessary amount prefetched before the track switch.

 

However, there can be of course uncertain delays at the service side (cloud CDN), or with name service, or with TLS CRL checks or something else.

 

If the two subsequent tracks are different format (different sampling rate), then the DSP pipeline needs to be reinitialized and possibly DAC needs to be restarted (if switching between rate families using adaptive rate). These things can take some amount of time depending on the particular settings.

 

 

Album art is square scaled such that it will fill the available vertical space. If you make the window wider with lower height, you have more space on the edges. Otherwise, if you shrink it and retain aspect ratio, there will be just black banners above and beneath the picture which is also wasted space.

 

 

It is partially there, for example regarding position.

 

 

This depends on your display scaling. But remember that the GUI must work with touch screens as well. If the item size is very tiny, it becomes really painful to use with your fingers. But to me it doesn't look like particularly huge. This if from my MacBook Pro 14" display:

 

What I've tested on my Microsoft Surface tablet touch screen and on iPad touch screen, this is on the usable edge for selecting tracks through touch.

 

"And with prefetch enabled, that begins 10 seconds before end of the current track."

The prefetch is causing problem in my case. As it begins 10 seconds before end of current track, it causes some stutters/skips in the last 10 seconds of the current track. When I turned off prefetch, this works fine. Don't think it's got to do with my internet, unless 100Mbps is not enough.

 

As far as the client GUI goes, I don't have too much problems with the capabilities. More with the form than the function. It certainly works better when I run the client on an old surface pro 4. It's not that intuitive to use, not a big problem after using it for sometime, but it's likely to turn off new users (except those who are willing to read the manual before trying). The look and feel in my opnion needs some polishing.  I guess this will appeal to your cult following but I think you can do better to attract a wider audience. Again, just my personal opnion.

[chipvn]

On 3/2/2024 at 11:41 AM, cpcat said:

Have you tried ecores=pool?  Just curious, this seems to be consistently the best for me with regards to overall CPU and GPU utilization.  Even when I turned GPU offloading off- it was still better.

I managed to solve the heat issue of my passive 12700k. Now it can do 24/48 to DSD1024x48 with Poly-sinc-gauss-long/AMSDM7EC 512+fs and CPU temperature is stable at about 65oC with ecores=filter after 1hr.

Ecores=pool give slightly better result st about 2oC cooler with the same settings.

[dericchan1]

Sorry if this has been answered a billion times before but what is the top green bar =input buffer represents? Why is it so low?

 

Thanks

[Miska]

15 hours ago, Fredc said:

"And with prefetch enabled, that begins 10 seconds before end of the current track."

The prefetch is causing problem in my case. As it begins 10 seconds before end of current track, it causes some stutters/skips in the last 10 seconds of the current track. When I turned off prefetch, this works fine. Don't think it's got to do with my internet, unless 100Mbps is not enough.

 

It adds some load while handling HTTPS transfer, the encryption setup and decryption takes some CPU time, especially if your CPU doesn't have AESNI or similar crypto-accelerator. So if your CPU is already fairly high loaded doing audio processing, then the amount of additional load from the transfer can occasionally flip it over. That's one reason why the setting is there in first place. OTOH, if you don't have freewheel enabled, it doesn't try to pull the entire track immediately, which will also tame the CPU load during those 10 seconds. 10 seconds worth of FLAC compressed audio is not that much data.

 

100 Mbps is certainly fine.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, dericchan1 said:

Sorry if this has been answered a billion times before but what is the top green bar =input buffer represents? Why is it so low?

 

Thanks

 

Since you are playing from audio input, the input side buffer should be pretty much empty while the output side buffer should be pretty much full.

 

Just curious, why just 192k output?

 

[dericchan1]

11 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Since you are playing from audio input, the input side buffer should be pretty much empty while the output side buffer should be pretty much full.

 

Just curious, why just 192k output?

 

Thanks Miska, yes I am using audio input...

 

192k output because I am currently using the Asus xonar essence DAC at my home office that only supports PCM 24/192 or DSD64

[Schafheide]

I have no trouble adding folders on my NAS to a library.  But I cannot add folders on my mac HD to a library.  Ideas?

[dericchan1]

My second RPI5 is the charm!!! Stable oc’d at 3100hz (could potentially set higher still) 

 

DSD256 running great!!

[Schafheide]

14 hours ago, Schafheide said:

I have no trouble adding folders on my NAS to a library.  But I cannot add folders on my mac HD to a library.  Ideas?

Problem solved (once I cleared the brain fog).

[Miska]

20 hours ago, Schafheide said:

I have no trouble adding folders on my NAS to a library.  But I cannot add folders on my mac HD to a library.  Ideas?

 

Have you allowed HQPlayer access to your storage media? macOS pops up with a dialog when HQPlayer is trying to access your local folders whether you like to grant access there. If the access is not granted, HQPlayer won't be able to see your content. You can adjust these later in System Preferences / Security.

 

[Schafheide]

All of my music files are on an NAS.  Like lots of us, I have spent lots of $$ on my DAC & Amp etc, but the NAS is not "audiophile", nor is the router.  Can someone explain what effect on the system SQ, does my NAS + router + interconnecting cables + power supplies (and of course my Mac) ??  Like most, I am trying to extract the last possible dregs of SQ, that might be available from my system!

[Schafheide]

Regarding my humble Mac - from personal experience, I can confirm that upgrading the Mac Mini PS, does, indeed bring about a very noticeable SQ improvement.  No doubt the same would be true about Windows/PC.

[Markus8]

6 hours ago, Schafheide said:

All of my music files are on an NAS.  Like lots of us, I have spent lots of $$ on my DAC & Amp etc, but the NAS is not "audiophile", nor is the router.  Can someone explain what effect on the system SQ, does my NAS + router + interconnecting cables + power supplies (and of course my Mac) ??  Like most, I am trying to extract the last possible dregs of SQ, that might be available from my system!

Puh this is a huge topic and there is a lot to address to gain the best sound quality. You might start with 

 

 

But this thread is about HQPlayer so you better continue that journey on a different thread. There is already a lot out there. 

[bogi]

On 3/19/2024 at 8:13 PM, Miska said:

It is the same standard 2,54mm pitch connector as used for PC ribbon cables as for example PC motherboard power button, power LED, HDD LED etc connections. You can also find individual single pin connectors for those square pins. And I wouldn't be surprised if you can also find various power hats for Pi4 that just have a barrel connector or similar.

I looked at the possibilities how to power Pi4 through GPIO pins.

What I found:
from Aliexpress

 

or from Amazon

 

If one would like to use the original Pi4 power supply, an usual USB-C female to USB-A male adapter is yet needed, such a thing can be bought anywhere.
 

[Miska]

17 hours ago, Schafheide said:

All of my music files are on an NAS.  Like lots of us, I have spent lots of $$ on my DAC & Amp etc, but the NAS is not "audiophile", nor is the router.

 

Better that way.

 

17 hours ago, Schafheide said:

  Can someone explain what effect on the system SQ, does my NAS + router + interconnecting cables + power supplies (and of course my Mac) ??  Like most, I am trying to extract the last possible dregs of SQ, that might be available from my system!

 

Best is to focus on NAA and the components from there, as long as you have enough computing power to run your HQPlayer server with the settings you want.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, bogi said:

I looked at the possibilities how to power Pi4 through GPIO pins.

 

But why something related to USB!?

 

Few options here:

https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-power-management-hats

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/poe-plus-hat/

https://www.pishop.us/product/pijuice-hat-a-portable-power-platform-for-every-raspberry-pi/

 

[bogi]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

But why something related to USB!?

In my POW USB is not a priority, but I am searching for something simple for everybody and cheap.

 

Thanks for the links, Using the 1st one I found this thing I didn't know before about:
https://thepihut.com/products/adafruit-piuart-usb-console-and-power-add-on-for-raspberry-pi
Although it's main purpose seems to be adding serial port access to Pi, it also allows powering Pi4 from its USB-C port. So the official Pi power suppy can be directly connected to it without and further adapter. It contains a small GPIO header for the purpose so it does not require soldering. Easy for everybody to use and costs only 6 EUR. For light uses like NAA and UPnP Renderer I guess no active cooling is needed, so a suitable case with some amount of passive cooling could be sufficient.

 

For more load, if active cooling is needed for Pi4, this one combines 12V power input with small active fan and still costs only 14 EUR:

https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-power-fan-hat
The original Pi4 power supply cannot be used with this one so it would be another small investment if somebody doesn't have a spare 12V adapter.

It is more complicated to inject power to Pi5 while using it's OTG port for data because of Pi5 PD supply requirement. For the NAA input thing with possibly added UPnP Renderer functionality Pi4 is sufficient.

[Miska]

7 minutes ago, bogi said:

It is more complicated to inject power to Pi5 while using it's OTG port for data because of Pi5 PD supply requirement. For the NAA input thing with possibly added UPnP Renderer functionality Pi4 is sufficient.

 

I believe the most convenient method for Pi5 is to use some USB-C PD dock. There are many options out there these days, since most laptops support charging through USB-C PD.

 

For example Lenovo has such.

 

While writing this, I'm using Lenovo's Thunderbolt 4 dock with my MacBook Pro to provide both power and Thunderbolt connectivity through a single Type-C cable. The dock itself has gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gbps USB ports for example for network and further connectivity, along with 135W PSU.

 

[dericchan1]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

I believe the most convenient method for Pi5 is to use some USB-C PD dock. There are many options out there these days, since most laptops support charging through USB-C PD.

 

For example Lenovo has such.

 

While writing this, I'm using Lenovo's Thunderbolt 4 dock with my MacBook Pro to provide both power and Thunderbolt connectivity through a single Type-C cable. The dock itself has gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gbps USB ports for example for network and further connectivity, along with 135W PSU.

 

Hi Miska, can you refer to some usb c dock with pd capabilities that work to power a rpi5?

 

I have a couple of these usb c dock with pd, usb ports, ethernet, hdmi…. from ugreen or anker but they did not work. 
 

I suppose you can do all that and it’s much easier to do just do that with a rpi4 with that power splitter but perhaps if one can make it work for a rpi5 then that opens up the possibility of a ALL in one solution including using the same rpi5 to run hqplayer as well 

 

cheers