HQ Player

[Miska]

1 hour ago, richard kimber said:

I'm using Ubuntu, but I understood that  4.10 wouldn't arrive as part of the distro until 17.04

 

I don't know, but I've been building 4.9 kernel packages for Ubuntu 16.04 with the audio related patches...

 

18.04 is the next LTS, so I'm not going to switch until then.

[mirekti]

 

5 hours ago, bibo01 said:

For v4.x Miska has not yet established a cost for upgrading.

It's probably worth it to upgrade to the latest version.

 

Oh, I wasn't aware there was an upgrade path like this. 
Do you know what features will version 4 have?  

[bibo01]

3 hours ago, mirekti said:

 

 

Oh, I wasn't aware there was an upgrade path like this. 
Do you know what features will version 4 have?  

No, Miska has not made them public. He will when v4 is going to be available.

[Miska]

8 hours ago, bibo01 said:

No, Miska has not made them public. He will when v4 is going to be available.

 

With 4.x it only about Embedded version anyway. I have not even started working on 4.x Desktop version, so anything related to that one is pure speculation for me too...

 

[richard kimber]

17 hours ago, mirekti said:

Oh, I wasn't aware there was an upgrade path like this. 
Do you know what features will version 4 have?  

 

Let's hope the library interface is improved. My carefully structured music collection is rendered virtually random by the current one.

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, richard kimber said:

 

Let's hope the library interface is improved. My carefully structured music collection is rendered virtually random by the current one.

 

Yes.

 

Currently, the "Composer" tag (in the music file) is remapped to "Artist" within HQPlayer and the "Artist" tag is remapped to "Performer".

 

First, why remap tags -- what's wrong with the standard? Second, why create new names, like "Performer"? Last, since I can only sort by "Artist" tag in HQPlayer (which is the "Composer" tag from the music file) transport area, I cannot find a lot of my music.  I listen to rock/pop/R&B, etc. (but never classical), the composer means little to me. I really hope Miska (Jussi) fixes this!

 

In addition to using the standard tags (no remapping or renaming), it would be nice if we could sort and sub-sort on various other fields.  

[Miska]

4 hours ago, lucretius said:

Currently, the "Composer" tag (in the music file) is remapped to "Artist" within HQPlayer and the "Artist" tag is remapped to "Performer".

 

First, why remap tags -- what's wrong with the standard? Second, why create new names, like "Performer"? Last, since I can only sort by "Artist" tag in HQPlayer (which is the "Composer" tag from the music file) transport area, I cannot find a lot of my music.  I listen to rock/pop/R&B, etc. (but never classical), the composer means little to me. I really hope Miska (Jussi) fixes this!

 

In addition to using the standard tags (no remapping or renaming), it would be nice if we could sort and sub-sort on various other fields.  

 

Because that's the defined standard set of Vorbis comments used on FLAC:

https://xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

 

ID3v2 used on AIFF/DSF is mapped to fit that set. ID3v2 in itself doesn't really have clear "Composer" or "Artist", it is more complex and the mapping is done in most sensible way to from the ID3 spec set, depending on what kind of combination of the ID3 tags the file uses.

 

Here's the ID3v2.4 set:

4.2.2.   Involved persons frames

  TPE1
   The 'Lead artist/Lead performer/Soloist/Performing group' is
   used for the main artist.

  TPE2
   The 'Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment' frame is used for additional
   information about the performers in the recording.

  TPE3
   The 'Conductor' frame is used for the name of the conductor.

  TPE4
   The 'Interpreted, remixed, or otherwise modified by' frame contains
   more information about the people behind a remix and similar
   interpretations of another existing piece.

  TOPE
   The 'Original artist/performer' frame is intended for the performer
   of the original recording, if for example the music in the file
   should be a cover of a previously released song.

  TEXT
   The 'Lyricist/Text writer' frame is intended for the writer of the
   text or lyrics in the recording.

  TOLY
   The 'Original lyricist/text writer' frame is intended for the
   text writer of the original recording, if for example the music in
   the file should be a cover of a previously released song.

  TCOM
   The 'Composer' frame is intended for the name of the composer.

  TMCL
   The 'Musician credits list' is intended as a mapping between
   instruments and the musician that played it. Every odd field is an
   instrument and every even is an artist or a comma delimited list of
   artists.

  TIPL
   The 'Involved people list' is very similar to the musician credits
   list, but maps between functions, like producer, and names.

  TENC
   The 'Encoded by' frame contains the name of the person or
   organisation that encoded the audio file. This field may contain a
   copyright message, if the audio file also is copyrighted by the
   encoder.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, richard kimber said:

Let's hope the library interface is improved. My carefully structured music collection is rendered virtually random by the current one.

 

How is it structured, IOW how the structure is represented?

 

One challenge is that different people prefer different ways. Some people like how Roon does it and other people don't. It is impossible to come up with one single thing that would please everybody. So instead people can use different front-ends of their choice.

[lucretius]

22 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Because that's the defined standard set of Vorbis comments used on FLAC:

https://xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

 

ID3v2 used on AIFF/DSF is mapped to fit that set. ID3v2 in itself doesn't really have clear "Composer" or "Artist", it is more complex and the mapping is done in most sensible way to from the ID3 spec set, depending on what kind of combination of the ID3 tags the file uses.

 

Here's the ID3v2.4 set:

4.2.2.   Involved persons frames

  TPE1
   The 'Lead artist/Lead performer/Soloist/Performing group' is
   used for the main artist.

  TPE2
   The 'Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment' frame is used for additional
   information about the performers in the recording.

  TPE3
   The 'Conductor' frame is used for the name of the conductor.

  TPE4
   The 'Interpreted, remixed, or otherwise modified by' frame contains
   more information about the people behind a remix and similar
   interpretations of another existing piece.

  TOPE
   The 'Original artist/performer' frame is intended for the performer
   of the original recording, if for example the music in the file
   should be a cover of a previously released song.

  TEXT
   The 'Lyricist/Text writer' frame is intended for the writer of the
   text or lyrics in the recording.

  TOLY
   The 'Original lyricist/text writer' frame is intended for the
   text writer of the original recording, if for example the music in
   the file should be a cover of a previously released song.

  TCOM
   The 'Composer' frame is intended for the name of the composer.

  TMCL
   The 'Musician credits list' is intended as a mapping between
   instruments and the musician that played it. Every odd field is an
   instrument and every even is an artist or a comma delimited list of
   artists.

  TIPL
   The 'Involved people list' is very similar to the musician credits
   list, but maps between functions, like producer, and names.

  TENC
   The 'Encoded by' frame contains the name of the person or
   organisation that encoded the audio file. This field may contain a
   copyright message, if the audio file also is copyrighted by the
   encoder.

 

 

I have a better look at this over the weekend.

 

Nonetheless, even according to the  Vorbis standard,  the Artist generally considered responsible for the work -- In popular music this is usually the performing band or singer. For classical music it would be the composer. For an audio book it would be the author of the original text.

 

For popular music, it's the same with the ID3 tags for ARTIST (TPE1). 

 

But that's not what's happening with HQPlayer. It is taking the TCOM (Composer) tag and mapping it to ARTIST.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, lucretius said:

Nonetheless, even according to the  Vorbis standard,  the Artist generally considered responsible for the work -- In popular music this is usually the performing band or singer. For classical music it would be the composer. For an audio book it would be the author of the original text.

 

Yes, that's why for popular music PERFORMER is not defined, only ARTIST is because they are usually the "same". What is the problem?

 

Quote

For popular music, it's the same with the ID3 tags for ARTIST (TPE1). 

 

But that's not what's happening with HQPlayer. It is taking the TCOM (Composer) tag and mapping it to ARTIST.

 

Yes, I've explained the substitution logic already couple of times earlier in this thread.

 

Artist is primarily TCOM, if specified, if not, it is TPE1 in newer spec and TP1 in the older spec.

 

Likewise, performer is TPE1 if TCOM was specified, otherwise it is TPE2, TPE3, TP2, or TP3 in this order.

 

For popular music, you don't generally have TCOM or PERFORMER specified. So most of the time, the "performer" field stays empty for popular music and is populated only for classical. Or if you have Ebook, then artist is author of the book and performer is the one who has read it (voice of the book).

[lucretius]

59 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, that's why for popular music PERFORMER is not defined, only ARTIST is because they are usually the "same". What is the problem?

 

 

Yes, I've explained the substitution logic already couple of times earlier in this thread.

 

Artist is primarily TCOM, if specified, if not, it is TPE1 in newer spec and TP1 in the older spec.

 

Likewise, performer is TPE1 if TCOM was specified, otherwise it is TPE2, TPE3, TP2, or TP3 in this order.

 

For popular music, you don't generally have TCOM or PERFORMER specified. So most of the time, the "performer" field stays empty for popular music and is populated only for classical. Or if you have Ebook, then artist is author of the book and performer is the one who has read it (voice of the book).

 

"Artist" is not TCOM -- "Composer" is TCOM; "Artist" is TPE1; that's how the spec is defined and that's exactly how it is in my music files -- iTunes and JRiver get this right. And yes, "Performer" is not specified because Artist=Performer (for popular music).

 

The problem is that in HQPlayer, the tag information is concatenated into Artist/Performer/Album/Song so that it can only be sorted on Artist -- but "Artist" here is mistakenly taken from the TCOM tag.  For example, take an ABBA song -- it is appearing as and sorted as:

- Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Stig Anderson.  It's not until you click on this that you see ABBA.

 

For most of my music, I don't even know who the composer was in many cases.  Further, different songs from the same artists could have different composers, so they'll end up being sorted separately in HQPlayer.

 

I realize that none of this is a problem for classical music, but it is a problem for popular music.

[luchoh]

On 4/8/2017 at 11:53 AM, volpone said:

 

Simon,
Thank you very much for you detailed and useful explanations.

I will try with buffer time adjustments. Actually my HQP buffer time is set to "default" and i don't know what is the corresponding value. Not easy to manage because the "clicks" are very sporadic.
 

Regards 

I have a bit more information on this:

 

1. OS: Ubuntu Studio with Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1246 v3 @ 3.50GHz

2. DAC: iDSD BL

3. Filters; 512x48 closed-form ASDM7 (auto rate family, cud offload, multi-core dsp)

4. NAA: Odroid C2 (ARMBIAN 5.25 stable Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS 3.14.79-odroidc2)

5. Roon: 1.3 (build 216)

 

With the above settings, 3.16.0 doesn't have the vinyl noise while 3.16.1 always has the vinyl noise. I tried all possible buffer settings: from Default to 250.

With 3.16.1, the vinyl noise is present with 256x48 as well and there is no audible difference with the 512 rates, i.e. it is as bad and going down to 256 doesn't improve the situation.

Another interesting situation is that SoTM sMS-200 always has the pops, while the Odroid doesn't with 3.16.0. I upgraded sMS-200 to the new firmware that has NAA 3.5.0 without improvements.

The Odroid CPU stays about 18%. I can't say anything about sMS-200 because it is a closed system. 

 

I also noticed something interesting I suspect repeated with the last update of Roon build 216: a) I can't adjust the volume during play - the knob on HQPlayer is inactive; b) It doesn't matter where I position the volume knob before playing music - the loudness is the same.

 

Finally, on the HQ Player serve, none of the four(eight) cores goes above 40% with atop and my network is CAT6 and I tried both via a Gigabit switch or direct crossover to the NAAs - it makes no difference.

 

I hope this helps.

 

[volpone]

2 hours ago, luchoh said:

....

With the above settings, 3.16.0 doesn't have the vinyl noise while 3.16.1 always has the vinyl noise. I tried all possible buffer settings: from Default to 250. ....

 

Hi @luchoh,

From my side (DSD128 , HQP 3.16.0) i've fixed the "vinyl noise" with HQPlayer settings Vol Max: -3db

I've not tried yet with 3.16.1.
 

I'm using T+A DAC8 DSD and according to @Miska "Amanero drivers use fixed buffer size that cannot be adjusted anywhere. So no matter what is set in HQPlayer settings the buffer is always same size".

[Miska]

7 hours ago, lucretius said:

"Artist" is not TCOM -- "Composer" is TCOM; "Artist" is TPE1; that's how the spec is defined and that's exactly how it is in my music files -- iTunes and JRiver get this right. And yes, "Performer" is not specified because Artist=Performer (for popular music).

 

HQPlayer doesn't have "composer", it only has "artist" and "performer". What are you having in your TCOM for popular music!? Never seen any problem with my content.

 

Quote

The problem is that in HQPlayer, the tag information is concatenated into Artist/Performer/Album/Song so that it can only be sorted on Artist -- but "Artist" here is mistakenly taken from the TCOM tag.  For example, take an ABBA song -- it is appearing as and sorted as:

- Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Stig Anderson.  It's not until you click on this that you see ABBA.

 

For most of my music, I don't even know who the composer was in many cases.  Further, different songs from the same artists could have different composers, so they'll end up being sorted separately in HQPlayer.

 

I realize that none of this is a problem for classical music, but it is a problem for popular music.

 

Just don't put TCOM on your popular music files, use TMCL or TIPL instead for that kind of purpose... Or rather I'd recommend to use FLAC and the problem goes away.

[Miska]

3 hours ago, luchoh said:

1. OS: Ubuntu Studio with Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1246 v3 @ 3.50GHz

2. DAC: iDSD BL

3. Filters; 512x48 closed-form ASDM7 (auto rate family, cud offload, multi-core dsp)

4. NAA: Odroid C2 (ARMBIAN 5.25 stable Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS 3.14.79-odroidc2)

5. Roon: 1.3 (build 216)

 

With the above settings, 3.16.0 doesn't have the vinyl noise while 3.16.1 always has the vinyl noise. I tried all possible buffer settings: from Default to 250.

With 3.16.1, the vinyl noise is present with 256x48 as well and there is no audible difference with the 512 rates, i.e. it is as bad and going down to 256 doesn't improve the situation.

Another interesting situation is that SoTM sMS-200 always has the pops, while the Odroid doesn't with 3.16.0. I upgraded sMS-200 to the new firmware that has NAA 3.5.0 without improvements.

The Odroid CPU stays about 18%. I can't say anything about sMS-200 because it is a closed system. 

 

I also noticed something interesting I suspect repeated with the last update of Roon build 216: a) I can't adjust the volume during play - the knob on HQPlayer is inactive; b) It doesn't matter where I position the volume knob before playing music - the loudness is the same.

 

Finally, on the HQ Player serve, none of the four(eight) cores goes above 40% with atop and my network is CAT6 and I tried both via a Gigabit switch or direct crossover to the NAAs - it makes no difference.

 

I hope this helps.

 

 

 

Since you have CUDA offload enabled, specs for your GPU are missing from the list. So instead of looking at just CPU loads you need to look at CPU + GPU load.

 

With very similar setup, Ubuntu Studio (on Xeon E5) and iDSD BL, I don't get any problems. The GeForce GTX 1060 load peaks at 25%. Buffer time set to 100 ms. Volume set to -3 dBFS. To isolate the problem, have you tried without Roon and NAA, just HQPlayer alone to the iDSD BL locally?

 

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

HQPlayer doesn't have "composer", it only has "artist" and "performer". What are you having in your TCOM for popular music!? Never seen any problem with my content.

 

 

TCOM, when it is populated, contains the composer (songwriter).

 

Quote

Just don't put TCOM on your popular music files, use TMCL or TIPL instead for that kind of purpose... Or rather I'd recommend to use FLAC and the problem goes away.

 

The tags were automatically populated.  I may have to manually remove the TCOM info.  As far as using TMCL or TIPL, I don't know what program has access to see and write these tags.

 

I'd prefer not to have to use FLAC, since it is a compressed format and the lack of compatibility with Macs, Ipads, etc.

[richard kimber]

15 hours ago, Miska said:

 

How is it structured, IOW how the structure is represented?

 

One challenge is that different people prefer different ways. Some people like how Roon does it and other people don't. It is impossible to come up with one single thing that would please everybody. So instead people can use different front-ends of their choice.

 

I have four very broad categories of music and a folder for each. Within these, composers each have their own folders, and withing these are categories like 'symphonies', 'piano_sonatas' etc., and within these are individual works, some having 2 or 3 folders if they stretch over 2 or 3 CDs (e.g. operas), or if there are different interpretations.

 

So what's needed is a 'folder view' - this is very common with other systems (Asset, LMS, etc), and presumably there are library routines already written that can be used for this, so you wouldn't have to program it. It just needs to be an available option in the preferences.

 

The current system doesn't reflect the folder structure, but has what seems like arbitrary classifications. For example, I have a number of recordings of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Some are grouped by the library view under B - 'Beethoven' and some under L - 'Ludwig ..' The same sort of thing is the case for many items, so that finding a given recording can take several minutes of hunting, especially as the four broad categories are all lumped together in one single listing: it didn't seem possible to have these overarching folders as separate content.

 

It really does need a folder view.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, richard kimber said:

I have four very broad categories of music and a folder for each. Within these, composers each have their own folders, and withing these are categories like 'symphonies', 'piano_sonatas' etc., and within these are individual works, some having 2 or 3 folders if they stretch over 2 or 3 CDs (e.g. operas), or if there are different interpretations.

 

You may have some limited success using "Structure only" checkbox when importing the content to HQPlayer... But it only looks at two levels up in the directory tree.

 

Quote

So what's needed is a 'folder view' - this is very common with other systems (Asset, LMS, etc), and presumably there are library routines already written that can be used for this, so you wouldn't have to program it. It just needs to be an available option in the preferences.

 

The current system doesn't reflect the folder structure, but has what seems like arbitrary classifications. For example, I have a number of recordings of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Some are grouped by the library view under B - 'Beethoven' and some under L - 'Ludwig ..' The same sort of thing is the case for many items, so that finding a given recording can take several minutes of hunting, especially as the four broad categories are all lumped together in one single listing: it didn't seem possible to have these overarching folders as separate content.

 

It really does need a folder view.

 

The embedded metadata is used and everything else is just about structuring it as a tree in Artist/Performer/Album/Song structure. The Library dialog allows editing this information without touching the data in the files, it only modifies data stored by HQPlayer.

I personally store the content in different places depending on where it came from and then I like to see aggregated view of the content, even if some of it is stored locally and some is stored in a NAS for example.

 

Reason why there is no folder view is that all support operating systems provide this functionality separately and it can be used from there using drag-and-drop. Windows File Explorer, Finder on macOS and on Linux there are multiple choices depending on used desktop environment. So I've felt that there is no point in duplicating the functionality already provided by the OS.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, lucretius said:

The tags were automatically populated.  I may have to manually remove the TCOM info.  As far as using TMCL or TIPL, I don't know what program has access to see and write these tags.

 

I'd prefer not to have to use FLAC, since it is a compressed format and the lack of compatibility with Macs, Ipads, etc.

 

Automatic metadata is pain, usually it is more or less messed up and inconsistent.

 

FLAC (just like ALAC) saves some diskspace due to lossless compression although it doesn't matter much these days. I don't see any other compatibility problem apart from Apple refusing to support it in iTunes, but who would anyway use iTunes for anything?

 

mp3tag is quite flexible metadata editor.

[luchoh]

6 hours ago, Miska said:

 

 

Since you have CUDA offload enabled, specs for your GPU are missing from the list. So instead of looking at just CPU loads you need to look at CPU + GPU load.

 

With very similar setup, Ubuntu Studio (on Xeon E5) and iDSD BL, I don't get any problems. The GeForce GTX 1060 load peaks at 25%. Buffer time set to 100 ms. Volume set to -3 dBFS. To isolate the problem, have you tried without Roon and NAA, just HQPlayer alone to the iDSD BL locally?

 

My GPU is the lowly 1050 Ti and I haven't checked the load on it.

 

Otherwise, I tried all buffer sizes and my Volume is normally -3, but I tried all the way down to -10.

 

I think you're absolutely correct - the only meaningful test left (besides getting a better GPU) is eliminating Roon, because as I said before, the Volume setting changes are not audible to me.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Automatic metadata is pain, usually it is more or less messed up and inconsistent.

 

FLAC (just like ALAC) saves some diskspace due to lossless compression although it doesn't matter much these days. I don't see any other compatibility problem apart from Apple refusing to support it in iTunes, but who would anyway use iTunes for anything?

 

mp3tag is quite flexible metadata editor.

 

I don't think the metadata I'm talking about is messed up. I use mp3tag -- for AIFF files, it maps the ID3 tags differently than HQPlayer. When I get some time, I'll show screen shots.  

 

With mp3tag, I don't see the TMCL or TIPL tags (or I don't recognize them) that you mentioned previously.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, lucretius said:

I don't think the metadata I'm talking about is messed up. I use mp3tag -- for AIFF files, it maps the ID3 tags differently than HQPlayer. When I get some time, I'll show screen shots.  

 

With mp3tag, I don't see the TMCL or TIPL tags (or I don't recognize them) that you mentioned previously.

 

 

Usually the challenge with tag editors is that they don't clearly show what you are actually doing in terms of tags, so it is a bit of guess work to figure out how they map their GUI to actual tags.

[Miska]

6 hours ago, luchoh said:

My GPU is the lowly 1050 Ti and I haven't checked the load on it.

 

Otherwise, I tried all buffer sizes and my Volume is normally -3, but I tried all the way down to -10.

 

I think you're absolutely correct - the only meaningful test left (besides getting a better GPU) is eliminating Roon, because as I said before, the Volume setting changes are not audible to me.

 

Just disable CUDA offload in HQPlayer settings and see if it has any effect on the end result...

 

[lmitche]

Jussi, can you successfully upsample to dsd512 with polysinc-xtr and adsdm7+512 fs on your nvidia 1060 gpu and 6700k?

 

Thanks,

 

Larry

[zorntel]

Larry's question is for 2-channel.