Network Playback, Buffers, Continuous Stream, etc...

[The Computer Audiophile]

Here's a good screen recording of Roon pulling a 24/96 track from Qobuz, then streaming it to an opticalRendu. You can see the receiving Ethernet speed hit 818 Mbps and the sending Ethernet is a steady continuous stream to the endpoint. 

 

 

[asdf1000]

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Here's a good screen recording of Roon pulling a 24/96 track from Qobuz, then streaming it to an opticalRendu. You can see the receiving Ethernet speed hit 818 Mbps and the sending Ethernet is a steady continuous stream to the endpoint. 

 

 

Just like Roon's CTO mentions how Roon works, in my screenshot I shared... Roon treats both Tidal and Qobuz the same in this regard.

 

I would assume he knows how Roon works.

 

But as you showed, it's easy to test/verify.

 

[octaviars]

On 10/27/2020 at 11:50 AM, Miska said:

Some six months ago I needed to increase Roon - HQPlayer stream buffering because Roon was not buffering enough and you would too easily get drop-outs on slower internet connections.

 

And in many cases when you deal with streaming there are no "tracks" to download, because it could be endless stream like radio, or a live stream from an event.

 

In my system with Roon/Qobuz the song is buffered as soon as I hit play. I can see the activity on my routers SFP port is high for a couple of seconds after that I can disconect the SFP from router to switch and the song will finish from my Roon ROCK machine via the switch to my endpoint.

Before I moved to Qobuz I had Tidal and that worked the same way have tried it on short songs, long song and it always worked this way in my sytem.

If I use Mosaic on my dCS network bridge to play Qobuz I get a continius stream instead.

 

 

[plissken]

7 hours ago, octaviars said:

 

In my system with Roon/Qobuz the song is buffered as soon as I hit play. I can see the activity on my routers SFP port is high for a couple of seconds after that I can disconect the SFP from router to switch and the song will finish from my Roon ROCK machine via the switch to my endpoint.

Before I moved to Qobuz I had Tidal and that worked the same way have tried it on short songs, long song and it always worked this way in my sytem.

If I use Mosaic on my dCS network bridge to play Qobuz I get a continius stream instead.

 

The stream still isn't realtime, there are just a lot more, but smaller, buffering operations.  This is the part that is perplexing. Why even have 100,200,500,1000 mbit internet connections if they aren't going to be used to their full advantage? Why have laughably affordable 10GBe in home connectivity if audio playback software is going to treat it like dial up from 1989?

 

But this all circles back to my original contention that this thread is based on: You aren't playing directly off the wire, your are indeed playing out of buffer, doesn't matter if it's a 1 second buffer of 10 minute buffer. These highs, the 'stereo' separation, PRaT, what have you all attributed to a switch or cable is just bonkers.

[plissken]

On 10/27/2020 at 12:11 AM, One and a half said:

I see this method now and again, but hesitate, since Windows has files open on other drives, interrupting that process is a bit of work to fix, so rather not yank the plug out. 

 

If you have a purpose built audio end point and the only library across the wire is the music library, or your only doing audio, then I think that is a bit of a moot point.

 

When you reinsert the plug Windows will do it's darndest to bring the mapped drive or UNC path back up.

[octaviars]

8 minutes ago, plissken said:

The stream still isn't realtime, there are just a lot more, but smaller, buffering operations.

 

Did I write that the stream is realtime?

 

I just wrote the differences between streaming Qobuz in Roon or via dCS Mosaic software. Roon buffers the whole song directly to disk in ROCK machine then plays to the buffer in my dCS endpoint and playing Qobuz directly in dCS Mosaic runs a buffer with a couple of seconds in it.

 

 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

26 minutes ago, plissken said:

You aren't playing directly off the wire, your are indeed playing out of buffer

It's impossible to do anything off the wire. Computers just don't work that way. 

[plissken]

23 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

It's impossible to do anything off the wire. Computers just don't work that way. 

 

I know, but you can't tell the audiophile switch/ethernet cable population that. Well you can but it's ignored. Reminds me of some other fact denying groups....

[plissken]

35 minutes ago, octaviars said:

 

Did I write that the stream is realtime?

 

I just wrote the differences between streaming Qobuz in Roon or via dCS Mosaic software. Roon buffers the whole song directly to disk in ROCK machine then plays to the buffer in my dCS endpoint and playing Qobuz directly in dCS Mosaic runs a buffer with a couple of seconds in it.

 

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure it's spelt out for anyone reading this that the continuous stream isn't like it is with analog playback. You are just seeing a smoothed graph of a bunch of 1 second copies.

 

 

[octaviars]

Well it is easy to see that it is not a continuos stream if you look at the router.

 

Activity at the port during start of playback in Qobuz via Roon, tops out at 200Mbps then no activity or very little during playback.

 

 

This is the activity filling the buffer when playing Qobuz in dCS Mosaic, peaks at 3.5Mbps during the whole song.

 

 

 

[davide256]

3 hours ago, octaviars said:

 

Did I write that the stream is realtime?

 

I just wrote the differences between streaming Qobuz in Roon or via dCS Mosaic software. Roon buffers the whole song directly to disk in ROCK machine then plays to the buffer in my dCS endpoint and playing Qobuz directly in dCS Mosaic runs a buffer with a couple of seconds in it.

 

 

 

 

 

That answers a question I had. Really wish Roon had a buffer to RAM option for PC/NUC systems

[plissken]

3 hours ago, octaviars said:

Well it is easy to see that it is not a continuos stream if you look at the router.

 

Activity at the port during start of playback in Qobuz via Roon, tops out at 200Mbps then no activity or very little during playback.

 

 

This is the activity filling the buffer when playing Qobuz in dCS Mosaic, peaks at 3.5Mbps during the whole song.

 

 

 

 

This is much easier for the non-tech person to digest.