Anyone using HQPD app?

[Allan F]

8 hours ago, Ales Prochazka said:

If the library in HQPlayer Desktop in Windows is created via a network path (\\nas1\media\...), there are three cases:

1. The file 'cover.jpg' and 'folder.jpg' are not present in the album directory, and the music files contain cover art in the metadata, cover art is downloaded into HQPDcontrol.
2. The file 'cover.jpg' or 'folder.jpg' is present in the album directory, and the music files contain cover art in the metadata, cover art is not downloaded to HQPDcontrol.
3. The file 'cover.jpg' or 'folder.jpg' is present in the album directory and the music files do not contain cover art in the metadata, cover art is not downloaded to HQPDcontrol.

 

Almost all of the albums for which no album cover art was being downloaded fit within case 2. However, I also found that I had three instances where there was no file 'Folder.jpg' present in the album directory and the music files did not contain cover art in the metadata. Obviously, for those albums cover art could not be downloaded to HQPDcontrol. To display the cover art, I added 'Folder.jpg' files to the album directories and created entries of the type: cover="file:///M:/...../Folder.jpg" to HQPlayer's xml library for each of those albums in the appropriate location.

 

HQPDcontrol now works great on my Galaxy S2 Android tablet, and I do not hesitate to recommend it as a remote app for control of HQPlayer from a tablet.

[maggio]

7 hours ago, Allan F said:

Ales and maggio:

 

Problem solved! Thanks to Ales' suggestion today to map my network drive and then replace the NAS/share path with the networked drive letter, I now have full album cover art loading into the Albums section of HQPDcontrol.

 

Many thanks, Ales, for your time and effort in assisting me.

 

Regards,

Allan

 

Well!

Good music!

[maggio]

HQPlayer Desktop 3.20.2
HQPD 1.3.5-139

 

[Ales Prochazka]

18 minutes ago, maggio said:

HQPlayer Desktop 3.20.2
HQPD 1.3.5-139

 

Just in the beta channel.

[maggio]

Hi Ales, I have tested HQPD only for 5 mins... it looks ok!

[Ales Prochazka]

4 minutes ago, maggio said:

Hi Ales, I have tested HQPD only for 5 mins... it looks ok!

 

Hi Maggio, thanks 

[Allan F]

Latest HQPD app release: HQPDcontrol

Works great, Ales!

[tboooe]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

Latest HQPD app release: HQPDcontrol

Works great, Ales!

Awesome!  I definitely do not need all the Roon features or the cost.  Got it downloaded and connected to HQP desktop already.  Going to play around now.

[Allan F]

23 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Awesome!  I definitely do not need all the Roon features or the cost.  Got it downloaded and connected to HQP desktop already.  Going to play around now.

 

I agree. I flirted with Roon before I discovered HQPDcontrol. As HQPlayer is my music player and does all the upsampling, and I don't subscribe to a streaming service, most of Roon's features are an unnecessary luxury, given its cost. HQPDcontrol provides a simple app that fills the need for a user friendly remote interface for HQPlayer. I have found Ales to be very responsive to emails if you have any questions or problems with his app.

[ted_b]

So for those of us without an Android tablet (i.e are IOS folks) what is a good cheap tablet to find out there (realizing one needs Android 5.0+..my cheap tablet I bought at CES a couple years ago is running version 4.x kitkat and no idea how to upgrade it).  Does a $49 Amazon Fire work?

[Allan F]

[email protected]

8 minutes ago, ted_b said:

So for those of us without an Android tablet (i.e are IOS folks) what is a good cheap tablet to find out there (realizing one needs Android 5.0+..my cheap tablet I bought at CES a couple years ago is running version 4.x kitkat and no idea how to upgrade it).  Does a $49 Amazon Fire work?

 

Ted, I don't know but you might want to email Ales to see what he has to say. His email address is: [email protected]

[ted_b]

Well, I posted it here so all could benefit.  We'll wait and see what comes back.  Thx

[Ales Prochazka]

Ted,

I'm going to try how the app will behave on Android 4.
But only in the emulator.

However, between Android 4 and 5 have probably made significant changes.

Let's see what will be done.

[Miska]

7 hours ago, ted_b said:

So for those of us without an Android tablet (i.e are IOS folks) what is a good cheap tablet to find out there (realizing one needs Android 5.0+..my cheap tablet I bought at CES a couple years ago is running version 4.x kitkat and no idea how to upgrade it).  Does a $49 Amazon Fire work?

 

I have a Sony, not new but it is quite nice. Full HD resolution, waterproof and now runs Android 6.

 

I think ASUS, Lenovo and Huawei at least still make tablets. But, IMO, those bigger 6" phones also work OK.

 

For ones that currently have old Android, one could also check if the device is supported by LineageOS.

[Ales Prochazka]

17 hours ago, ted_b said:

So for those of us without an Android tablet (i.e are IOS folks) what is a good cheap tablet to find out there (realizing one needs Android 5.0+..my cheap tablet I bought at CES a couple years ago is running version 4.x kitkat and no idea how to upgrade it).  Does a $49 Amazon Fire work?

 Ted,

I tried to compile the version of HQPDcontrol with Android support from KitKat version 4.4.

Application in emulator seems to run, although the graphics might be better.

But I do not want to release this version right in the production channel.

If you send me your Google Account email address, I'll put you in a group of people with access to the beta channel.

I would publish this version here.

[ted_b]

On 2/3/2018 at 6:03 PM, Ales Prochazka said:

 

Hi Maggio,

If the library in HQPlayer Desktop in Windows is created via a network path (\\nas1\media\...), there are three cases:

1. The file 'cover.jpg' and 'folder.jpg' are not present in the album directory, and the music files contain cover art in the metadata, cover art is downloaded into HQPDcontrol.
2. The file 'cover.jpg' or 'folder.jpg' is present in the album directory, and the music files contain cover art in the metadata, cover art is not downloaded to HQPDcontrol.
3. The file 'cover.jpg' or 'folder.jpg' is present in the album directory and the music files do not contain cover art in the metadata, cover art is not downloaded to HQPDcontrol.

Point 1, that's 150 albums downloaded with cover art in Allan's case.

Ales, what about when HQPlayer is local?  What is the best case scenario for album art showing up in HQP (and then of course HQPDControl)?  I ask cuz I have my listening library (a 6TB 2 channel library) currently on a USB 3.1 connected disk drive and it is accessed by JRIver and Roon.  Both of those players see (or have created) cover art for almost all my stuff, but as I read the above three cases I worry about things like wav files art showing up, as wav does not inherently store cover art in the metadata.  I am very willing to do some metadata gymnastics to make sure all my folders have the right info for local HQPlayer library viewing (something I have not bothered to do in all my years of using HQPlayer). 

[Ales Prochazka]

20 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Ales, what about when HQPlayer is local?  What is the best case scenario for album art showing up in HQP (and then of course HQPDControl)?  I ask cuz I have my listening library (a 6TB 2 channel library) currently on a USB 3.1 connected disk drive and it is accessed by JRIver and Roon.  Both of those players see (or have created) cover art for almost all my stuff, but as I read the above three cases I worry about things like wav files art showing up, as wav does not inherently store cover art in the metadata.  I am very willing to do some metadata gymnastics to make sure all my folders have the right info for local HQPlayer library viewing (something I have not bothered to do in all my years of using HQPlayer). 

6TB?

So it will be extremely interesting 

How does it work:

In HQPlayer Desktop, I run function "Library / Add" or "Library / Scan tree".
HQP creates a "library.xml" file with metadata loaded from music files and  information about the path to these files and cover.jpg or folder.jpg files (if they exist in album directories).

When HQPDcontrol runs "Syncing the HQPlayer Library" function, the data from the "library.xml" file is uploaded to the database on the Android device.
HQPDcontrol has no cover art downloaded at this time.
When HQPDcontrol needs to show cover art, it first looks into the local cache whether the image has not been downloaded.
If not, it will send HQPlayer a cover art request for this album.
On the Android device, over time, more and more disk space is used for the cover art files.
What is the size of "library.xml" now?

[ted_b]

It's 9.13meg

[Ales Prochazka]

Ok, Ted.

1. What do you mean by "HQPlayer is local"?
2. To make all the necessary data available in the "library.xml" file, it is ideal to run Scan tree function in HQP version 3.20.2. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make a backup of the current library and try everything first on a few albums. It could show weaknesses in metadata or cover art.

[ted_b]

Ales,

1)By local I really meant the music files are local to HQPlayer, no network path is needed, and therefore is different than when you said:

"If the library in HQPlayer Desktop in Windows is created via a network path (\\nas1\media\...), there are three cases: "

2) what leads you to think I didn't? 

[Ales Prochazka]

Ted,

The problem with the network paths on Windows system you mentioned was resolved in version 3.20.2 (I hope).

From the point of view of HQPDcontrol program is irelevant, how HQPlayer sees the music file disk.

[Allan F]

9 hours ago, ted_b said:

I am very willing to do some metadata gymnastics to make sure all my folders have the right info for local HQPlayer library viewing (something I have not bothered to do in all my years of using HQPlayer). 

 

Ted, you may already know this, but if you add a jpg image of the album cover art to the album folder, naming the file Folder.jpg, HQPlayer should always pick it up. You can do this for wav format and any other albums with missing cover art in HQPlayer. After adding the files, run Library / Scantree in HQPlayer, which will create a path to the cover art in the library.xml file for all those albums. Then run Syncing the HQ Library in HQPDcontrol and it will pick up the album art too.

[ted_b]

Allan, hi.  Yes, I've been doing Folder.jpg for years for many of my album folders, and most software players like that approach.....but what I first was alarmed at was Ales's comments that adding that file caused HQPControl to NOT add cover art (cases # 2 and #3 as he calls them, both uniquely containing folder.jpg files)!  That is purely the genesis of my questioning here, and the reason I feel that maybe I have a LOT of work to do to make sure cover art appears if I wanna use HQPControl.  So your comment has me reallyyyyy confused as I thought that was a no-no. 

 

 

[Allan F]

The problem with the network paths on Windows system you mentioned was resolved in version 3.20.2 (I hope).

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

Allan, hi.  Yes, I've been doing Folder.jpg for years for many of my album folders, and most software players like that approach.....but what I first was alarmed at was Ales's comments that adding that file caused HQPControl to NOT add cover art (cases # 2 and #3 as he calls them, both uniquely containing folder.jpg files)!  That is purely the genesis of my questioning here, and the reason I feel that maybe I have a LOT of work to do to make sure cover art appears if I wanna use HQPControl.  So your comment has me reallyyyyy confused as I thought that was a no-no.

 

Ted, I can appreciate your confusion. Bear with me and I will try to explain. I was the one who couldn't get HQPDcontrol to display most of my album cover art. Eventually, I discovered that it would not pick up album cover art for albums which contained a Folder.jpg file in the album file, notwithstanding that the cover art was displayed in HQPlayer. The key factor here is that all my music files are stored on a NAS. Normally, when pointing to a NAS in a music player, it is done in the form akin to //Diskstation/My Music (my case) and that is what I did. I couldn't understand this behaviour and exchanged numerous emails with Ales. He found that there was a problem with HQPlayer's API, which was not passing the album cover art from my NAS to HQPDcontrol for those album folders because I had used the above format in referring to the NAS. It was the format of the path to the cover art file in library.xml that was causing the problem

 

Ales advised me to map my NAS as a drive with an assigned letter. I did that and replaced //Diskstation/My Music with M: and regenerated the HQPlayer library. After Syncing to HQ Library, the missing album cover art then appeared in HQPDcontrol. IOW, the problem with HQPlayer's API was bypassed when it saw a drive letter, and it worked as it was supposed to. This is the context of Ales' statement that "the problem with the network paths in Windows system...was resolved in version 3.20.2 (I hope)". He believes that Jussi has fixed the problem with the API dealing with a NAS. If your music files are directly connected to a server with HDD drives, the problem I experienced because of the //Diskstation/My Music format should be foreign to your situation.

 

Sorry to be so verbose and I apologize for the above not being as clear as I would like it to be. If you prefer, please don't hesitate to PM me if the above raises more questions.

 

Allan

[Ales Prochazka]

Thanks Allan.
Ted, I'm sorry for my strange answers.