Windows Media Player - ASIO

[BEEMB]

All,

 

I've not tried it yet ... but today I stumbled across this ASIO plug in for Windows Media Player.

 

Some of you may think I'm crazy for posting but this potentially opens up Vista Media Centre as audiophile playback software since it uses Media Player to playback audio. In my opinion Vista Media Centre is the most slick looking front end available.

 

I'll try it tonight - hopefully one or two of you may also be interested.

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/asiowmpplg/

 

Matt.

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Matt - Very cool, let us know when you can!

 

[BEEMB]

 

... so far, not so good ... all setup as instructed but click play and ... nothing ... click another song and CRASH!

 

 

 

 

[Lizard_King]

Intersting. I do not like WMP. I use J. River Media Center and my OS is XP.

 

[BEEMB]

 

Yeah, I never use Windows Media Player ... but Media Centre as a front end really appeals. It's audio is processed through Media Player so you cannot achieve a bit perfect output on Vista.

 

I've tried JRiver and agree the audio quality is great, similar to Media Monkey and Foobar - all sound the same I think.

 

But none of them have very good Front Ends for my Home Theatre PC. And, if I can get the above working then I can use Vista Media Centre which is far slicker looking that the Theatre Mode on JRiver which looks rather cheap I think.

 

Anyhow, I've e-mailed the developer for some help, so I'll update this if I get it working.

 

Shame !

 

[audioAl]

I just upgraded to Vista, I 2 will try the plugin. Vista gave XP a knock out. Sonics are so much clearer,Cheers!

 

[BEEMB]

 

AudioAl,

 

Let me know if you can get it to work - try as I might I could not ... I press play and nothing happens. Press play again and it freezes up. ASIO seems to stay open on exiting Media Player too - which doesn't happen with other media player software.

 

[njetty]

I'm not sure your statement is 100% true. If you are using your sound card as a digital output device (i.e. configure Media Center and select digital output over analog output) you are likely getting bit perfect output.

 

On the other hand, if you are connecting your computer using "analog output", I believe you are mostly correct. Windows Media player will send the audio in "shared mode". Vista will combine the audio with any other software/system process producing audio in shared mode. The audio is then resampled IF your fixed sampling rate configuration is different then the stream being played.

 

There is no "kmixer" in vista but you can be resampled if there is a frequency mismatch.

 

Your pursuit is of interest to me as it would be nice go Analog out directly from my Lynx2b to my two channel amp. Flipping between 24/96 and 16/44.1 audio in Windows Media player would result in resampling if you didn't also go out of the application and set Vista's Sampling frequency. Ugly! You also have to hope no other app or system service generates an audio stream while playing your music (unlikely).

 

So... We are left with a couple of options. ASIO, Kernal Streaming or WASAPI pluggin for Windows Media Player. This is the only way to ensure "exclusive mode" over the video card in Vista. Then we can be sure there is bit perfect output up to the DAC in your computer.

 

Keep me in the loop if you get the ASIO pluggin working. I agree that WMP is the best software for your library. My wife can actually use it on her own :-)

 

[BEEMB]

 

Confused .. which part of which statement may not be true ?

 

As you say, I am simply trying to use this plug-in to avoid any processing within Vista.

 

I'll keep you posted but so far it's simply crashing, or nothing happens at all. :-(

 

[daglesj]

I started using ASIO plugins with my PC gear and WMP a few weeks ago.

 

Lets just say it all appears to be working and the audio sounds as good as ever.

 

Its odd not having volume control at the PC source but hey...

 

[BEEMB]

 

Daglesj,

 

Really ? It works no problems ? Are you using the one from the link I posted above or another ?

Could you tell me which one and how you have configured it. Mine is simply not going to work.

 

 

Matt.

 

[BEEMB]

 

Njetty, I am sorry but your statement:

 

"I'm not sure your statement is 100% true. If you are using your sound card as a digital output device (i.e. configure Media Center and select digital output over analog output) you are likely getting bit perfect output"

 

is incorrect ... Vista will still play with those bits regardless of whether you're outputting digitally or using analogue connections.

 

 

[njetty]

Hi Mat

 

What is your sound card? Are you trying to do analog out from the sound card or digital out? I don't think you need this pluggin for digital out. Analog out would require ASIO to avoid Vista "shared mode" mixer and possible sample rate conversions. I'm pretty sure this is true. If others no better just chime in.

 

Thanks

Neil

 

[daglesj]

Yes the one you listed but it went to version 4.0 a few days ago, thats the one I'm using.

 

Using Vista 64 Home Basic with an X-Fi Fatality.

 

Also using ASIO4ALL on my XP laptop.

 

[njetty]

I guess I stand corrected. Now I really need this pluggin to work.

 

[njetty]

I took a quick look at J. River Media Center. I like the looks of it. What about ASIO or Kernal Streaming? Can you get bit perfect output using this player in XP?

 

[njetty]

Never mind. J. River Media Center has come along way since I last looked at it. It supports ASIO. Looks like a very stable product. Might be worth taking a deeper look at. $40 vs. WMP Free.

 

[godigital]

I tried the ASIOWmPlg plugin with no success. I am using a DacMagic connected to a PC running Windows Vista. The driver has installed correctly and shows up in the PlugIn configuration but no sound comes through. The moment I deselect the plugin everything works again.

Has anyone tried any other WMP plugins?

 

[Troy III]

I think that people should learn to read instructions, -allways!~

 

I use LynxTwo also - (To my opinion, the best audio converter(s) ever put together in one ½PCI card).

 

When talking about WMP, I'm absolutely sure that there is no other Player that will produce a better sound than this player, but what I value the most is that it provides the best software Equilizer ever written, I think it's even beter than some of the most expesive pro level hardware EQs.

 

For those interested I've recently recorded and uploaded a wet signal of the MJ song "Who Is It" from my WMP9 exactly as you should hear it coming out of my monitors. Those who might have the original CD version of the song can Play it back on their player (I suggest you turn off any aditional processing; EQ, pan expasion or bass enhancements etc) the original first! Than play back my file. You will notice at least 30% improvement. And if you go back to the original track after this, I promisse you will get the feeling that you are now listening it from some Lo-Fi system. This difference is the result of my costum preset on WMP EQ I compensated with some (I'm not sure) 40% or 60% of WOW and TruBass at 8%.

The wav file is "bbbb.wav" 44.1kHz@16bit and can be downloaded from: HERE

Hear it. Judge it... WMP EQ is even better than the one contained on my beloved Ozone plugin.

 

Configuring your system to have WMP ASIO PlugIn working on your system

 

All right. Here is how and what I did.

I had to:

 

1. enable my onboard sound from BIOS, and

2. install its drivers, so I could

3. select it from "sounds and multimedia" preferred device,

[4. uncheck: use only my prefered devices] instead of my LynxTwo.

 

And that was all.

The highest available latency is 1024. I did it to, just to make sure I'm not doing anything different from what is written in their config instructions given PDF. Soon after, I started my WMP9 and it worked like charm.

 

Later I got back to the settings, and selected the lowest latency possible, that is 32 samples only. Guess what?

-It holds on perfectly! (still listening, ~0 latency)

 

Strange things are:

-On My Lynx Mixer, all channels of REC/Play are armed, -nothing to worry about right now...

-I've also lost my volume control, on WMP! ( that's probably because my windows audio driver currently selected, is my onboard sound)

-I've lost my EQ too - and that's something I didn't like at all! Although SRS WOW seems to be still working, but I'm not sure why!?

And this would be all I can say right now...

 

Hope this helps somebody,

Regards.

 

 

 

 

 

[epiekarc]

Any Updates? I currently use J River for playback, only because it can handle bit perfect playback. I can't stand the user interface (just my opinion) and it seems to have a lot of bugs with Windows 7 x64 (they can't even figure out how to bring the program to the front of the screen when you click on it, you literally have to minimize any applications that are open in front of it). Any way, I'm so sick and tired of J River, I'd really like to be done with them. The one thing that I must have, is an iPhone app for music control (song selection). I always set audio output to 100%, and then allow my pre out to control volume. I would love to use iTunes, since an iPhone remote is already built, but of course they have to restrict audiophiles and make that impossible (on Windows). J River can't build there own remote, so it isn't very stable, doesn't allow you to play anything not in a play list and is quite unstable. Media Monkey has the same exact iPhone remote control manufacturer, so all the same problems.

 

I would really love to use Window Media Center, as there are many remotes already built, and work beautifully, but I can't seem to find any support on how to setup bit perfect playback. I already use Windows Media Center with My Movies (one of the best plugins I've found for full BD playback).

 

Currently I have a Lynx AES16 card feeding my ARC DAC7, so with J.River I'm using WASAPI exclusive mode to my Lynx card. It works and sounds awesome, it's just super frustrating trying to playback anything.

 

Price is really no option, I am almost ready to have someone build be a custom program or plugin to get this working. I hope somebody out there can direct me to a solution before I go mad.

 

Thank You

 

epiekarc

 

[JR_Audio]

I am sorry to hear that you have too many problems with J.River under Win7 64. I have used J.River Win7 during the complete CES, four days in row, the complete day, for demonstration and have had absolutely no issue with that. It sounded great, and it worked flawless.

 

For remote I have used an IR remote, because I haven't setup the iPhone app to control J.River, even though recognised under Mac OSX Amarra, that the iPone app to does “disturb” the sound because of the for and backward WLAN traffic and the not real time behaviour of Mac, so I prefer sound wise the IR control.

 

As for volume control. If you set the exclusive WASAPI mode correctly, to have Bit Perfect output, you will have no possibility to change the volume in the windows mixer, and this is good so, but you can set the volume control of J.River, to work for the app itself, and then you will have the possibility to change the volume, but surely, loose the bit correct behaviour.

 

Juergen