HQPlayer Pro

[Miska]

Just as a note regarding Pro and metadata. For sources that contain ID3v2 metadata to destinations that can also contain ID3v2 metadata, the bare ID3v2 data is copied through.

 

In practice, this means that from anything else than FLAC to anything else than FLAC, ID3v2 goes through. FLAC metadata (Vorbis comments) handling is still incomplete and needs to be translated between Vorbis comments and ID3v2 which is not very straightforward because each have their own concepts.

 

For example if you convert from AIFF to DSF, you can have all ID3v2 info copied as-is to the DSF.

 

HQPlayer supports ID3v2 also for WAV and DSDIFF, although these are not standard. But I believe also JRiver does the same.

 

[Miska]

10 hours ago, ddetaey said:

I have tested with XISRC – SAMPLE RATE CONVERTER of Xivero.  Same problems/errors, so nothing to do with HQPlayer Pro.

 

Apparently there are one or more issues with DSF files upsampled to DSD512, file size?, ....

 

Some limitation of Roon maybe? I'm not sure how much they've done testing with DSD512 content which is quite rare. DSF in itself doesn't have practical size limits. But observing difference between file sizes crossing 2 or 4 GB boundary may indicate potential problems.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, lucretius said:

I too am having a problem with metadata, when converting a flac file (44.1k) to DSF file (DSD128).

 

FLAC contains metadata in different format than other files (Vorbis comments vs ID3v2) and the (never perfect) translation between two different metadata formats is still missing.

 

4 hours ago, lucretius said:

Also, loading one file at a time is tedious.  I would like to load a library of "masters" automatically.

 

Intention is to load album at a time. So you select source folder (album) and destination folder where you want that album to go.

 

You can also load as much as you want same way as with HQPlayer Desktop by using drag-and-drop to the  HQPlayer window, but then the result is not necessarily gapless anymore (the result may be a bit undeterministic).

[Miska]

8 hours ago, lucretius said:

I assume that the intention to load only one album/folder at a time is related to outputting files to only one folder at a time. 

 

It would be nice to be able to convert an entire folder structure (e.g. Masters\Artist\Album) to a similar folder structure (e.g. Converted\Artist\Album). Failing that, it would be nice to not have to keep changing the input folder even if one needs to change the output folder.

 

Maybe at some point, but not initially. I would assume most recording studios will produce one album at a time.

 

You can sort of do that already with drag-and-drop, but the result may be a bit unpredictable.

 

8 hours ago, lucretius said:

I could see the possibility of HQPlayer Pro incorporating all the functionality that is currently available in HQPlayer, so that one would not need two pieces of software (i.e. one player and one file converter).

 

These will likely diverge more and more over time, so there is no intention to try keeping the same functionality. Target use cases are so different (record label/studio production vs home listening).

 

8 hours ago, lucretius said:

Limiting the functionality of HQPlayer Pro to file conversion, then any chance of a VST2 and VST3 plugin?

 

No, because VST doesn't support DSD. And many VST plugins are even limited in what PCM sample rates they can process. For example 768k may not be supported.

 

[Miska]

15 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

If you add an album folder as the source and produce all your output files from that, why could the result be different than dragging and dropping all the individual tracks from that album onto HQPlayer Pro's playlist? (As far as the "gapless" aspect is concerned).

 

For unrelated DSD tracks, just like in HQPlayer Desktop / Embedded, pop/click prevention is performed. Unrelated tracks may also be in different format, like sample rate, etc.

 

HQPlayer assumes that individual tracks don't necessarily belong together or that they are not necessarily in the original order.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

Wouldn't it be possible to check the "Album" meta-data tag? If it is present and all the tracks have the same value for that tag, I think it would be safe to assume they all belong to the same album and are in the correct order.

 

I don't want to rely on existence of metadata, especially since commonly sources are WAV and DFF. (Pyramix for example outputs these, which would be one typical source)

 

[Miska]

35 minutes ago, copy_of_a said:

@Miska

yesterday I've tried to downsample (source and target PCM) with HQPpro (Trial).

There was no sample rate option to downsample... only options to upsample.

Is HQPpro only able to downsample or am I missing something?

thanks!

 

What rate did you want for output? Is it not listed on the rate drop-list in main window, even when you select "PCM N/O" output mode?

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

Jussi Using HQPLayer PRO 4 - is it possible for a 6700k rig with say a 970GTX GPU to upsample the following:

44.1k ASDM7 to DSD 256 polysinc xtr -2 -- record the file CUDA / Multicore enabled

2nd round of upsampling to DSD 512  polysinc xtr (non 2s) on ASDM7 full CUDA/Multi core enabled.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by second round?

 

If you mean first upsampling to DSD256 and then to DSD512, yes you can do it. But why not go straight to DSD512 with the filter you want? Note that filter selections don't apply to DSD-to-DSD rate conversions. There are just two algorithms at the moment for doing that.

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

The first track played fine and sounded pretty good with HQP Desktop down-sampling in real-time from DSD512x48 to DSD128. The second track refused to play though. It got stuck with the progress bar that normally shows when filters are being built as a result of change of sample rate within a playlist.

 

I don't know if this is related to how HQP Pro produces the files or with desktop having issues when downsampling from DSD512x48 to DSD128.

 

There may be an error message about what happened in HQPlayer Desktop's log file. Since all the source files should have same rate, it shouldn't go into reinitializing and even if it does, the progress bar is not shown between the tracks because GUI is not involved anymore during the playback. So something strange is going on. Log file would tell what it was really doing at that point.

 

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, copy_of_a said:

Source was 176.4kHz. Wanted to output to 44.1kHz. But the drop list only showed 176.4kHz and higher rates.

Yep, output mode was set to PCM N/O.

 

Then the selected filter is likely one that allows only up conversion, but not down.

 

[Miska]

6 minutes ago, kelvinwsy said:

No I thought I tried it 2 weeks ago. 

OK let me remember what i did

I played the track on HQPlayer Pro 4 and it went to the maximum I could do without stuttering and dropouts.

ASDM7 / DSD256 on 44.1k using polysinc xtr -2 and saved the file output.

I then went to the folder for the file output and used HQPlayer Desktop 3 and unchecked the Direct SDM box play thru and it played the file and upsampled it to DSD 512

Not at my PC now so I could have remembered wrongly.

Is what I described correct? 

Thanks

 

OK, but with Pro you don't need to worry if your computer cannot do it in realtime without stuttering. Just disable monitoring output by selecting free running mode, or alternatively use the "N/O" null output mode to save it to a file at what ever speed your computer manages to do.

 

[Miska]

Regarding earlier discussions, in case source and destination folders are the same, there should be now a new output format specific sub-folder created automatically. As usual, you can see how the output files will be named and where they are to be located.

 

Some other notable things include pre-generated input URI's on the source drop list. And CD-ripping has been fixed, it was broken in beta1 (not available on Mac, only on Windows and Linux).

 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, kelvinwsy said:

Is there a new Beta version or just the same version from 2 weeks ago. Do I need to download the new version?

 

Latest is from Jan 22nd. You can periodically check my web page, or alternatively follow Twitter or Facebook posts if you'd like to get notified about new releases.

 

4 minutes ago, kelvinwsy said:

Saves me the 1600USD I was planning to spend on adding a NVIDIA RTX 2080TI to my system.

 

Well, that RTX is still cheaper...

 

[Miska]

13 minutes ago, kelvinwsy said:

Jussi - do you think the RTX 2080TI Overclocked GPU with a 6700k can do DSD512 xtr  for 44.1k material  or direct to DSD512 on 48k material

 

At least my RTX2080 + 7700K can do 44.1k to 44.1k x512, 48k to 48k x512 and 48k to 44.1k x512. So the usually needed cases.

 

[Miska]

On 1/25/2019 at 2:57 PM, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

This is going to Grimm LS1's using DoP to DSD128. If I leave "Auto Rate Family" checked, HQPlayer Desktop advances to the next track without a problem, … but the DSD512x48 files are now downsampled to 3.07 mhz which is not what I want.

 

If I uncheck "Auto Rate Family" this is when the problem arises. The first track plays just fine as 5.6xxxx MHZ (DSD128x44.1); but it fails to advance to the second track.

 

Can you try to update to latest HQPlayer version and see if the issue persists?

[Miska]

On 1/25/2019 at 4:57 PM, Whitigir said:

So the beta is still an evaluation, and this is a live conversion but then get recorded onto the destined folder ? I thought this could be an offline conversion of Oversampling ?

 

i just want to make sure because my system on live conversion is limited with some filters

 

It depends what you want. You can have live monitoring output or without. You can have live monitoring switched on/off on the fly during conversion. Or you can choose not to have live monitoring possibility which also opens up also those output formats your DAC doesn't support.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, antonellocaroli said:

I have this problem what can it be?

 

 

segmentation error

 

before it worked, then he started giving this error

 

Hard to say.. You could try renaming ~/.hqplayer directory and see if it starts working again?

 

Has there been any OS updates around the time this started happening? You seem to be using Gentoo, and it is not at all guaranteed that the hqplayer4pro build works on anything else than Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, antonellocaroli said:

yes, it works again...

 

If you have the old renamed folder that was causing crash at startup still somewhere, could you send  it to me as a zip or tar archive over email so I could try to reproduce the crash?

[Miska]

10 minutes ago, Whitigir said:

How do I configure so that I can offline convert PCM into DSD without having to rely on the DAC ? 

 

I've tried to explain it in the manual. But essentially when you select the Null Output mode ("PCM N/O" or "SDM N/O") and then it is completely unrelated to the DAC. With DAC you can still convert faster by using the free running mode check box - this can be switched on/off at any time during the process.

 

13 minutes ago, Whitigir said:

How do I get it registered to use for longer than 30 minutes , please ?

 

I've given out few beta test keys. But other than that, wait for the non-beta, it should happen within Q1...

 

[Miska]

35 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

@Miska In another thread you mentioned that HQPlayer Pro can be used to record. How do you manage the recording from within HQPlayer Pro (obviously with a suitable input card)? 

 

In the source URI drop list you have list of pre-built input URIs, but you can also write your own. And you set output to a file you want.  Then you press "Play" to start processing.

 

You can also "record" from CD, but this is maybe more like file conversion. Effectively you just rip a CD to bunch of output tracks in chosen format.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

Shouldn't HQPlayer Desktop be handling these the same whether "DirectSDM" is enabled or disabled?

 

It means I need to switch settings to a config file that has DirectSDM enabled, whereas I would prefer to use the same config as I use for regular DSD files. I want the regular DSD files to be up-sampled by HQPlayer Desktop to 512.

 

No, with DirectSDM disabled the data goes through the DSP pipeline, similar way like always happens for PCM (for which there is no direct setting). So you have volume control and everything else active.

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, MhtLion said:

Does it sound better to play a converted/up-sampled DSD file using HQP Pro vs doing on-demand up-sampling through HQP desktop to feed a DAC?  I only skimmed through this tread, so I apology if this has been already answered. 

 

Both perform the same mathematical operations. Main difference is with output (audio device vs file) and some additional features.

 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, MhtLion said:

Thanks!  I suppose the benefit is that you can use a dedicated streamer without a PC.

 

I don't count that necessarily as a benefit...

 

[Miska]

34 minutes ago, MemoryPlayer said:

If I use SDM (N/O) option and free running checked, sounds as the DAC used is irrelevant!

Did you try 48X512 poly-sinc-mp and ASDM7EC?

 

Yes, since there is no monitoring output with null output (N/O), there are no output format limitations imposed by the DAC. Free running doesn't actually have effect with N/O cases since they are always free running.

 

7 minutes ago, MemoryPlayer said:

What happened with this thread after august 2019?

 

Most of Pro users are professionals using it for work, so they are not very active here.

 

[Miska]

21 hours ago, MemoryPlayer said:

I tested some 24/96 and 24/352.8 PCM files below 1 minute to DSD256 with several filters, but same ASDM7EC modulator with 4.5 Pro trial, and each saved DSF file have the same amount of bits with poly-sinc lp, mp, long, short and another ones... Why this happen if the algorithmics of filters are so different?

 

Same amount of bits -> same length. Did you compare if the bits are the same?