Many streaming video services (like netflix) will only send sound to the windows default sound driver, which effectively bypasses JRiver's DSP and audio engine. The new WDM driver allows you to fix that problem by routing the audio back into JRiver's audio engine. However, there are some quirks in the way JRiver handles playback in an internal browser engine that require special configuration, and this is a guide on how to do that.
The problem this method is trying to solve:
Any given Media Center zone can only be playing one thing at a time. So imagine there's only one zone (which is the default when you install JRiver). If you setup the WDM driver, here's what happens when you try to start netflix in JRiver: you click to start playing a show and the show starts to play for a few seconds until MC detects that something is trying to output to the WDM driver. That would cause JRiver to try and start WDM playback, which would either stop the video playback, or cause the WDM feed not to launch, so you'd either get no playback or no audio. By routing the audio to a different zone using zoneswitch you get around the one-thing-per-zone-at-a-time issue.
So I recommend setting up a second zone to receive the WDM audio. Once you have a loopback zone setup, if you try to start netflix in your normal playback zone here's how the logic flow looks:
Netflix in JRiver--->video--->normal playback zone
Netflix In JRiver--->audio--->WDM Driver--->IPC zone---> Speakers
Because the WDM zone is actually handling the audio output, it needs to be configured to output to your speakers; outputting to a different device would result in no sound, and outputting to the WDM driver would cause an infinite loop. So a copy of a working zone (without convolution or other latency producing effects) is the way to go. Note that you won't need to do this to watch netflix or other streming video in an external browser. This method is for getting correct playback of Netflix or Amazon streaming video on JRiver's internal browser or integrated API.
The method
Step 1) Set the JRiver WDM driver as your windows default audio device
Step 2) Make sure JRiver is configured to output to your actual soundcard/receiver and sound output is working the way you want it to.
Step 3) Go to the the following menu Player-->Zone-->Add Zone. In the dialog box that pops up name the zone something like loopback, and in the second box choose to copy your current working zone (it may be named "Player" if you haven't edited it). Click "ok"
Step 4) Now right click on the new zone under playing now, and click on the "ZoneSwitch" context menu item. If you already have zoneswitch rules, you'll need to add a rule that routes WDM driver output to the new zone; if you've never used zoneswitch before, do this: In the dialog box, press the add button. Then name the rule something like "loopback," and enter the following rule [Name]="IPC" Then tell it to play in the loopback zone and stop playback in your normal zone. Add a second rule, and name it something like "normal," and enter the following rule -[Name]="IPC" Then tell that rule to play in your normal zone and stop playback in the loopback zone.
Step 5) Now if you try to play netflix or another streaming video service from inside JRiver's internal browser it should work fine. Just make sure to start playback from your normal zone.
Some limitations of this method:
Volume control isn't easy to manage because the zone you're playing the video in won't be playing the audio so the normal volume controls may not work as expected. However, you can still adjust volume in the streaming video service's on screen volume control and it should work; it's just JRiver's volume control that can be hard to manage. Another good solution is to make sure to set the default volume in your loopback zone to the volume at which you normally like to watch tv shows or movies.
Any feedback or suggested improvements to this guide are appreciated.
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Topic: Guide to Using the WDM driver for streaming video inside JRiver (netflix, etc.) (Read 17597 times)