HQ Player

[Miska]

Hi Miska - Idly thinking about trying TrueOS (a FreeBSD-Current fork, see https://www.trueos.org/more-on-trueos/), wondering what sort of effort would be involved in making an HQPlayer build that would run on *BSD, and whether you would be even the tiniest bit interested in doing so.

 

It would require writing a new backend to support the audio API used on BSDs. Other than that, probably not much changes needed, assuming Qt-5.6.x+ being available through ports.

[Jud]

It would require writing a new backend to support the audio API used on BSDs. Other than that, probably not much changes needed, assuming Qt-5.6.x+ being available through ports.

 

https://www.trueos.org/blog/ - "One core philosophy behind the development of Lumina [the TrueOS lightweight desktop environment] has been to use nothing but pure Qt5 for all underlying utilities."

[mroerup]

A "non" technical question for Miska...

 

I have tried the free trial and really like the product. I now want to purchase the license but would like to hear a little more about the license terms. I don't think it is already explained in the manual and I have had no luck trying to Google an answer...

 

For how long time can I expect to be able to update the HQPlayer software after the purchase?

...or is it licensed like 1.x.x , 2.x.x , 3.x.x meaning that the 4.x.x would require a new license?

 

And while talking about the version 4...is that version planed to to be released within the next year or so?

 

Thank you very much :-)

 

Regards

Martin Roerup

[bibo01]

A "non" technical question for Miska...

 

I have tried the free trial and really like the product. I now want to purchase the license but would like to hear a little more about the license terms. I don't think it is already explained in the manual and I have had no luck trying to Google an answer...

 

For how long time can I expect to be able to update the HQPlayer software after the purchase?

...or is it licensed like 1.x.x , 2.x.x , 3.x.x meaning that the 4.x.x would require a new license?

 

And while talking about the version 4...is that version planed to to be released within the next year or so?

 

Thank you very much :-)

 

Regards

Martin Roerup

 

Well, if you buy a license now, you're entitled to free upgrades to all versions 3.x.x.

When v4 is released, there will be an upgrade cost involved. Owners of v3.x.x license will be able to upgrade at a discount price.

 

I leave Miska to reply to the second part of your question

[Theobetley]

What defines version 4?

[blue2]

Well, if you buy a license now, you're entitled to free upgrades to all versions 3.x.x.

When v4 is released, there will be an upgrade cost involved. Owners of v3.x.x license will be able to upgrade at a discount price.

 

I leave Miska to reply to the second part of your question

 

I'm also interested in the license details. Does purchasing a license mean it's tied to 1 machine so I can't upgrade my PC without purchasing a second license? Some programs allow you to "move license to another machine" - that would be ideal

[tboooe]

I think I recall HQP being a "site" license so you can run it on as many PCs you own.

[bibo01]

I think I recall HQP being a "site" license so you can run it on as many PCs you own.

 

That's right. They have to belong to the licensee.

[Jud]

I want to run HQPlayer using a network drive as the source of the library. That is, I would like to run HQP on my laptop downstairs while accessing music stored on an HDD attached to my upstairs desktop; or run it on the desktop while accessing music stored on an HDD attached to the laptop downstairs. (I realize I can do something much like the first of these by running HQP on the desktop through the NAA downstairs. Still, I'd like to be able to do all three.)

 

The laptop downstairs can access the files on the upstairs HDD via my network, and vice versa with the upstairs desktop and downstairs HDD. However, when I try to add upstairs HDD files to the library of HQP running on the laptop downstairs, or files from the downstairs HDD to the library of HQP running on the desktop upstairs, it doesn't work for me.

 

Does HQP not accept files from network attached drives, or is there something I'm not doing correctly?

[lmitche]

Jud, HQplayer will definitely play files from a NAS drive, at least in Windows and Linux. If you are using OSX, I have no experience, but I would be surprised if it doesn't work or couldn't be made to work.

[Superdad]

Jud, HQplayer will definitely play files from a NAS drive, at least in Windows and Linux. If you are using OSX, I have no experience, but I would be surprised if it doesn't work or couldn't be made to work.

 

Yes, it absolutely allows network shared files to be played under OS X. That's how I use it all the time. In fact, you can locally save playlists that point to files on network shared drives.

[Miska]

Does HQP not accept files from network attached drives, or is there something I'm not doing correctly?

 

I have my music on a Linux computer running Samba (I also have another copy on MacMini on a Thunderbolt-connected external drive). I then mount it on OS X using smb://server/music type URI and it becomes (IIRC) /Volumes/music which I then point HQPlayer at. There may be ways to do this directly too.

 

On Windows I don't map the network drive, I just browse it straight from the file open dialog when HQPlayer asks for the scan location. So the library paths become like \\server\music there.

 

Both work fine...

[dean70]

Jud, HQplayer will definitely play files from a NAS drive, at least in Windows and Linux. If you are using OSX, I have no experience, but I would be surprised if it doesn't work or couldn't be made to work.

 

Yes it can work. I have successfully translated a Windows UNC path to play the same content from a NAS remotely on all 3 platforms (Win, OSX and Linux).

[Jud]

Interesting. I have the same setup downstairs as Miska (upstairs network attached HDD mounted on OS X as /Volumes/Music), so I'll have to look into this a little more.

[cfisher]

Anyone willing to share their settings for upsampling to a Mojo? For some reason, I am getting a lot of dropouts on an i7-4770 with 12gb of memory. At the moment, I am using poly-sinc-shrt-mp/NS5/352 and getting fairly frequent dropouts.

[bibo01]

Anyone willing to share their settings for upsampling to a Mojo? For some reason, I am getting a lot of dropouts on an i7-4770 with 12gb of memory. At the moment, I am using poly-sinc-shrt-mp/NS5/352 and getting fairly frequent dropouts.

 

You are not on an NAA, I suppose...

 

With those settings I doubt that it's a problem of cpu power.

I would set DAC bits to Default and check in your system if there is something that creates high latency like a driver or antivirus. Look on Gogle for some software utility to measure latency on your OS.

[tboooe]

Anyone willing to share their settings for upsampling to a Mojo? For some reason, I am getting a lot of dropouts on an i7-4770 with 12gb of memory. At the moment, I am using poly-sinc-shrt-mp/NS5/352 and getting fairly frequent dropouts.

 

What are you trying to upsample to? I dont have your DAC but I am using an i7-3770S and upsampling to DSD256 is no problem. I will say however, that I had issues with dropouts when I had my pc connected directly to my DAC. I had to adjust the buffer settings of my DAC driver. Once I introduced an NAA, I could reduce the buffer settings to minimal and had no dropouts at all. I think the computing overhead with upsampling to DSD interfered with the USB output in some way even though the CPU usage is no where near maxed out.

[cfisher]

You are not on an NAA, I suppose...

 

With those settings I doubt that it's a problem of cpu power.

I would set DAC bits to Default and check in your system if there is something that creates high latency like a driver or antivirus. Look on Gogle for some software utility to measure latency on your OS

.

 

I am using a microrendu. I downloaded Latencymon (?) and that seems to show that things are ok. I did discover that I was on some weird Samsung power saving plan. Got off that but still dropping out. Thanks for the suggestions.

[cfisher]

What are you trying to upsample to? I dont have your DAC but I am using an i7-3770S and upsampling to DSD256 is no problem. I will say however, that I had issues with dropouts when I had my pc connected directly to my DAC. I had to adjust the buffer settings of my DAC driver. Once I introduced an NAA, I could reduce the buffer settings to minimal and had no dropouts at all. I think the computing overhead with upsampling to DSD interfered with the USB output in some way even though the CPU usage is no where near maxed out.

 

Thanks, I am using an NAA so the direct connection is not the problem.

[bibo01]

I am using a microrendu. I downloaded Latencymon (?) and that seems to show that things are ok. I did discover that I was on some weird Samsung power saving plan. Got off that but still dropping out. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Ah, you do have a NAA... the matter is different then.

...and you're outputting at 352.8 on the microRendu, right?!

The problem probably resides in your network.

How is your LAN? What switch do you have?

[kennyb123]

Anyone willing to share their settings for upsampling to a Mojo? For some reason, I am getting a lot of dropouts on an i7-4770 with 12gb of memory. At the moment, I am using poly-sinc-shrt-mp/NS5/352 and getting fairly frequent dropouts.

 

I upsample everything to PCM using poly-sinc-mp/TPDF. Max rate is set to 768000 and Auto rate family is checked. No issues with dropouts, but do get occasional hissing.

 

Computer is a 2008 Mac Pro quad core and it barely breaks a sweat.

[Madra]

Yesterday, I installed a trial version of HQ Player on my MB pro.

I noticed that the software remembers the output device and filter settings, but does not keep the last dither or sampling frequency settings.

Is this a normal behavior? is it related to the Demo version?

[bibo01]

Yesterday, I installed a trial version of HQ Player on my MB pro.

I noticed that the software remembers the output device and filter settings, but does not keep the last dither or sampling frequency settings.

Is this a normal behavior? is it related to the Demo version?

 

It depends on your setup in Settings. As long as you close it properly, HQPlayer keeps dither and frequency.

 

PS: I sent you a PM

[Miska]

Anyone willing to share their settings for upsampling to a Mojo? For some reason, I am getting a lot of dropouts on an i7-4770 with 12gb of memory. At the moment, I am using poly-sinc-shrt-mp/NS5/352 and getting fairly frequent dropouts.

 

Certainly with that kind of machine and PCM upsampling there's no issue regarding the CPU load. But the USB interface on Mojo is extremely sensitive to disturbances and USB cables.

 

Their ASIO driver doesn't allow adjustment of buffer size. But with WASAPI backend I get reliable upsampling to 768/24 on my mini-laptop when "Buffer time" in HQPlayer settings is set to 100 ms.

 

For their ASIO driver to work I needed to make sure Mojo is not set as default device for Windows audio output (Control Panel -> Sound). ASIO driver seems to be "working" too at 768/32, but couple of minutes of listening ended up with music on left channel and white noise on right channel... *sigh*

[craighartley]

Miska,

 

Could I ask what buffer setting you are using with the T&A DSD 8?