HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[Miska]

On 2/19/2024 at 11:31 PM, maxijazz said:

How many channels will the NAA OS present to Windows? Just two (stereo)? Is it possible to feed NAA with decoded multichannel Atmos from Apple Music on:

 

Stereo is the default. Yes, it is possible to do multichannel. Eventually that will begin to restrict your maximum sampling rate.

 

In normal UAC2 you have roughly following limits:

2 channels: 768k

4 channels: 384k:

8 channels: 192k

16 channels: 96k

32 channels: 48k

 

Overall, current limit for HQPlayer is 128 channels, except for some DSD cases 48 channels.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

@Miska Will convolution work with Direct SDM engaged?

 

Generally not for DSD, but in some cases that setting is ignored apart from fixed volume setting, if matrix is enabled.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, bogi said:

Does it mean where 1536k is possible it is through a non standard USB driver?

 

Yes...

 

5 hours ago, bogi said:

What for max. DSD rate is possible for 8ch and ASIO USB driver?

 

It is 32x the PCM rates. So DSD128.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, DomiJi said:

i've got Roon and HQPlayer Embedded running on my Ubuntu Server but unfortunately Roon can't connect to HQPlayer Embedded.

I have tried "localhost" as well as the IP Adress of my server but i still get the message

 

"Playback failed because Roon couldn't connect to HQPlayer"

 

I've also tried playing with mConnect via my iPhone but it doesn't work.

 

Do i need to configure something special or open a special port?

 

Is your Roon server running on the same Ubuntu Server machine? When you go to the HQPlayer web interface, does it take you to the front page, or the /config page? If you land on /config page, you have some configuration issue and that's why incoming connections are rejected. Typical reason would be inability to access your DAC.

 

If you specifically didn't install a firewall, there's no firewall.

 

3 hours ago, DomiJi said:

I've figured out that my problem belongs to my NAA endpoint. If i stream via ALSA directly from my server everything works fine. 

 

Should i configure my NAA endpoint in a specific way? I just installed Raspian OS Lite and your .deb package for bookworm.

 

Are you on RPi5? Or some other reason for not using NAA OS?

 

No need to configure NAA if the current hostname as NAA name is sufficient.

 

[Miska]

24 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Installed hqplayerd within Rpi OS lite on a rpi5, client app streaming qobuz is fine. Tried Jplay iOS, mconnect and bubbleupnp, all apps see hqplayer embedded5 but could not connect to it.

 

Did you remember to also update libsoup with my fixed version? (the one shipped in bookworm is buggy)

 

[Miska]

26 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Yes I did, with the 2 libsoup deb packages 

 

Do you get any specific kind of errors from those apps? At which point and what kind of error? Anything in HQPlayer log file? Web interface doesn't complain about internet connection?

 

[Miska]

12 minutes ago, Markus8 said:

When will HQe also support it?

 

In next release...

 

Since both player and NAA side need update, I wanted to release player side first.

 

[Miska]

Just now, dericchan1 said:

Exciting news!!! Wonder what NAA side improvements are, is it SQ related?

 

Well, if both transfer the same data...

 

But some specific network cases have been optimized.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, camott said:

1. I am now seeing the lower/ouput buffer info in HQPClient with NAA 5. Is this the output on the NAA device downstream or the HQPlayer device? I assume the former otherwise it would have worked without yesterdays NAA5 release?

    a. If so, what size/time does it represent?

    b. if not, is there an application level output buffer in NAA on top of the hardware driver buffer (see #4 below)?

 

Yes, it is the NAA side buffer (FIFO) level. It is similar to the FIFO buffer inside HQPlayer when the playback is local. Thus you have same view now regardless if the endpoint is local or remote.

 

Presentation is in percentage of the FIFO buffer.

 

And it is the application level buffer.

 

Hardware level buffer is set by "Buffer time" setting. If it's set to "Default":

1) for Linux endpoint, it is 100 ms

2) for Windows WASAPI endpoint, it is typically 10 ms, although defined by the driver

3) for Windows ASIO endpoint, it is the one defined by the ASIO driver, usually the value set in ASIO control panel

4) for macOS CoreAudio endpoint, cannot be changed, defined by macOS

If you set it to something else than "Default", it is up to the hardware driver to get rounded to something nearby, or just plain rejected.

 

1 hour ago, camott said:

2. When you say that with an "endless" source it's roughly 10 second intermediate buffer, is this referring to the input or output? I am mainly using Roon as input and the input buffer never shows any info.

 

Input... So HQPlayer fetches 10 seconds worth of audio before proceeding with playback. And then attempts to stay 10 seconds ahead of the playback always.

 

1 hour ago, camott said:

3. Are either of these related to the "short buffer" (normal/short/minimal) setting?

 

This is related to HQPlayer side FIFO buffers for "hardware" input/output. Streaming or file sources don't count as "input".

 

1 hour ago, camott said:

4. I assume that none of this is related to the audio backend "buffer time" (0 being driver default) for, in my case, NAA device. Correct?

 

You have two buffers. One is the FIFO on HQPlayer side. And another is the hardware (DMA) buffer on hardware driver side. "Buffer time" is about the latter, asking the hardware driver to use certain buffer size.

 

HQPlayer FIFO is generally bigger than the small/tiny hardware DMA buffer that exists in the kernel space driver.

 

[Miska]

13 minutes ago, camott said:

Struggling to figure this one out, but pushing DSD1024 to NAA on HoloRed (pi4) with Default or 90ms buffer time, I get the occasional light dust tick/pop, say 1 per minute or two , which I assume is a block/packet being dropped by buffer overflow. Yet, if I change it to something much shorter like 10ms it's clean. Makes no sense ...

 

Maybe 802.3x Flow Control is not active on the network?

 

Using HQPlayer >= 5.5.0 and NAA v5 could help on this. Would be interesting to hear!

 

13 minutes ago, camott said:

This is the only point I didn't fully get. Are you saying that the short buffer setting has no impact when source is streaming/file and output is NAA? Does it not apply to the NAA application level FIFO buffer?

 

Yes it has, on output side. Naturally on input side if you are streaming from internet or playing from a file, you don't have input side audio device hardware buffer, since there's no input side audio hardware (USB Audio Class, S/PDIF, AES/EBU, I2S, etc).

 

[Miska]

39 minutes ago, camott said:

But this is the buffer time on the NAA device USB output to DAC ... what does that have to do with network flow before the NAA device?

 

It affects the NAA device hardware device driver buffer.

 

But nothing about anything before NAA.

 

39 minutes ago, camott said:

If output is via NAA downstream, then does the short buffer setting affect the NAA application level FIFO?

 

Yes it does!

 

[Miska]

Point is that you always have two things towards hardware. The hardware (DMA) buffer, and the FIFO buffer. It shouldn't matter if the input or output is local, or over the network from/to a NAA.

 

So whether you use or don't use NAA doesn't affect this buffering aspect. It only affects where your input or output is vs where your HQPlayer processing is.

 

[Miska]

11 hours ago, cpcat said:

Sorry for the stupid question, but how do you back up playlists in embedded?  Backup and restore?  And when you backup are the playlists backed up with “configuration” or “library”?

 

Local playlists created with Client are stored as part of library, so if you backup library, then it is included there.

 

11 hours ago, cpcat said:

And on an iPad the backup goes automatically to a zip file- do I just restore directly from the zip or do I need to unzip first?

 

Restore works by uploading the zip back to the HQPlayer.

 

11 hours ago, cpcat said:

What about the “scope”- system vs user setting?

 

Usually your scope is "system", unless you know you are running things manually under your regular user session.

 

11 hours ago, cpcat said:

The reason I ask is I am having fun making playlists via Client iOS but I seem to be losing playlists when I update HQPe to a new version.

 

Which OS are you using? HQPlayer OS? On HQPlayer OS you need to backup/restore library across updates. On regular Linux distributions this is not necessary.

 

[Miska]

55 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

The real problem is that also on jammy version hqplayer is aware of nblocks option, since it will automatically set it to 0 at the first configuration change if the value is different.

I hope this will be fixed in the next version.

 

Yes I will certainly fix that, it is not intended.

 

55 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

I agree that the options should be displayed on all hqplayer versions if possible.

 

This is set by the hardware manufacturer and shouldn't be modified by the user...

 

If hardware manufacturer wants to make that available on their system, they can implement it on their interface.

 

For DIY server builders, it is anyway necessary to do command line work to install and update HQPlayer Embedded on the distribution, so at the same time editing the hqplayerd.xml is easy.

 

55 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

I would take the opportunity to add also cuda... :)

 

Same applies to this. It is not supported on HQPlayer OS, so it is not necessary to implement the setting there.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, cpcat said:

Where are the backups saved, on the device/web ui location or on the server where HQPe is located?  I don’t have enough space on iPad to back up the whole library.

 

You end up downloading the backup data, be it settings or library. Either case is relatively small file. It is not the music content, only the related metadata, excluding any pictures. You can also download it on your computer.

 

3 hours ago, cpcat said:

Maybe it was a glitch- but I lost playlists when I went from 5.4.1 to 5.5.0.  The playlist names were still there, but all the songs were gone.

 

If the name is shown, but when you "Load" it and it ends up empty, it means that the files are not accessible anymore. For example because they are relocated to different filesystem path or similar.

 

[Miska]

19 hours ago, hifi25nl said:

I hope this will be fixed in the next version.

 

Fixed builds are now available. Since this is more of a build issue, I only incremented build number, but not the software version.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, Sunny_Player said:

Good morning @Miska and all. Just a quick one: I am playing a 24/192 source and the apodizing counter is above 12000. What is the reason for this behaviour? Thank you. 

 

It is being detected as possibly upsampled content. You could check HQPlayer Client metering to confirm whether this is the case or not.

 

[Miska]

On 3/7/2024 at 9:39 AM, R1200CL said:

Still purchasing HQplayer licenses, you have to do yourself. (Before you cold purchase from SMG).

 

From my point of view, you could still purchase it the same way from Andrew. Not sure if he decides to continue that service.

 

On 3/7/2024 at 9:39 AM, R1200CL said:

And add the license yourself into the preinstalled HQplayer of cause.
And in order to get the discounted upgrade you need a file, not only the fingerprint. I haven’t tried, but maybe it’s as easy as pasting the fingerprint into a text file, and load it up.
I’m hoping @Miska can tell me that either SMG ought to assist me one way or another, (remote assistance), or he can give me a recipe how to extract the required information to be added to his web shop. 
Maybe he can upgrade version 4.35 to pull out the required file. I assume others will at some time have same issues as me. 

 

You should be able to get your license key file from Andrew, he should know what your device has. Or possibly he could remotely access it (I don't know).

 

If the license key is still valid and you have still v4 installed, it's serial number is shown on /about page. Based on that, Aapo can possibly find the license key from our database. If your device has serial number printed somewhere, it could be the same case.

 

 

P.S. Sorry for the delay, I'm traveling at the moment and trying to catch up. Writing this at the moment from Lisbon, Portugal...

 

[Miska]

17 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Is Aapo same as user dabassgoesboomboom in Roon ?

 

No, Aapo is my only employee handling license key updates and such.

 

DBGBB on Roon forum is one of HQPlayer customers.

 

17 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Is he available here?

 

No, so far Aapo is not on any of these forums.

 

17 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Should i send him a message through Roon ?

 

Best is to use our info or support email, both end up on both my and Aapo's email inbox.

 

I believe we got your email, I will respond to it shortly.

[Miska]

On 3/4/2024 at 1:56 AM, cpcat said:

Does the nblocks setting interact with the ecores setting?  I haven’t experimented with the nblocks setting - but ecores=pool works best for me.  Maybe with nblocks at a higher setting ecores=filter works better?  

 

Yes, nblocks affects all cases. However, the largest L3 cache is shared between all core types. While smaller L2 cache is CPU group specific and even smaller L1 is CPU core specific.

 

[Miska]

On 3/12/2024 at 12:39 AM, maxijazz said:

Do i need to do something (in HQPlayer Desktop on Windows or in OS NAA) to get 6 or 8 or 16 channels flowing from Apple Music on Mac to OS NAA over USB then to HQPlayer Desktop on Windows?
Currently i have set audio:default/0/6 in HQPd but in MacOS i see "Playback Inactive" for 2 outs (= 2 channels) only.

What i am doing wrong?

 

You need to modify the device setup script at NAA side to present a 6 or 8 channel device instead of stereo. There's already a commented out line there for 12 channel case. See /usr/sbin/naa-start-uac-gadget.sh or /sbin/naa-start-uac-gadget.sh

 

[Miska]

On 3/11/2024 at 11:14 PM, Carousel said:

Aha! And the readme.txt really is just a text file on HQP OS. On my Ubuntu server it is a gzip compressed file, taking extra handling to get a view of what is inside.

 

Modern "less" can decompress it for you, but you can also pipe it through gzcat.

 

[Miska]

On 3/14/2024 at 12:54 AM, maxijazz said:

I have changed c_chmask to 63 and adjusted number of channels to 6 in networkaudiod.xml.
But it has got "worse". Now Midi setup on Mac shows 0-outs for Playback Inactive, so i cannot even choose as sound output.

 

OK, no idea then...

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Gato said:

Under OSX, how to add an item to a playlist using hqp5-control: something like /hq/hqp5-control.app/Contents/MacOS/hqp5-control 192.168.1.51 --???

 

You just specify the content you want. No other arguments needed.

 

You may want to ensure first that playlist transport is selected with "--set-transport 240"

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Gato said:

but the following do not work: /hq/hqp5-control.app/Contents/MacOS/hqp5-control 192.168.1.51 "/library#62d395482346180f48c7b424a3aeb7f3"

 

Does such file actually exist? What does it say if you do for example "file /library#62d395482346180f48c7b424a3aeb7f3"?

 

It needs to be full path and filename the server can access. Or any other valid URI.