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[TheShoe]

Been having a lot of issues lately with Particles.

For some reason, the setup initially goes ok.  Then within mins, JRiver starts to change all the paths/files (I can tell by viewing the fields in the tag/advanced for each particle) to some random playlist.  this has the effect of either playing the wrong playlist or of just setting it to a non existent playlist.

If I manually correct the path/file, then JRiver wants to copy files around which just makes it even worse.

In short there seems to be no way to get it back to working.

Not sure what is going on - it's not consistent across all discs.

Is there an XML file where JRiver stores particle data?  Would love to see what is going on inside of it.

The other issue is the seemingly randomness of the particle file path being incorrect; no pattern to this, sometimes it is just wrong from the start.

[TheShoe]

after re-ripping the BD Audio, but leaving the particles as-is in JRiver, it seems to have corrected JRiver.

However - the m2ts file that is played has 4 audio streams.  If I select the 96/24 PCM track (stream 4) when the media type is "Video", it sticks.  If I change the Media Type to "Audio", it always wants to play the 48/24 track no matter what I do.

this disc has been a pain in the butt to say the least.

I've looked at the Playback Info tag but not sure what the format means.  No matter what I set that to (making some assumptions on the Stream piece), it plays back 48/24.

I don't have this problem with anything else...

How does one select the stream when the media type is "Audio" ?

[jmone]

On the particle errors - this has been an issue for years.  No idea why it occurs and why it (mostly) does not.

On BD Audio Discs.  You have a few options
1: Keep them Taged as Music Videos: You have full control of the streams but they are then not part of your "Audio" collection
2: Change or create an "Audio" view to Include Music Videos: (see pic) This then mixes the two in together but you still get the selected controls for Video and Audio as they play.
3: Convert Format:  Select you particles --> Right Click--> Library Tools--> Convert Format (Check Convert video to audio)--> Select Your Options and you will the Audio Extracted.  Note: You need to have prior selected what track you want when playing back OR set the Playback Info field for the track you want.

I have used all 3 methods.

Notes on Playback Info:  The format of Playback Info looks like "(1:2)(7:Streams)(3:0,2)(9:Subtitles)(4:None)".  The 2 on my test disc is the Multi Channel (and 1 is the 2ch).  Play a track of your Audio BD, use the Right Click --> Stream option to select the track you want, then copy the Playback Info to all the others in that album.

The only other idea I have is to ask JRiver to mod MC so that Playback Info still works and/or you can select Streams from the Audio Media Type.

[TheShoe]

Thanks - this is a "differently" authored BD Audio.  It's XTC's "Nonsuch".  The rest of the XTC catalog (Steven Wilson remixes) are just fine.  This one in particular has been a problem.  I do note that this m2ts has 4 audio streams as opposed to 3 in the other discs.

that said, for this one I'm just going to rip out the 5.1 96/24 LPCM audio and mux it into FLAC.

---

I do wish JRiver would pay attention to this - it's an awesome feature!  And one that is going to cost me in terms of disk space.  I am re-ripping my entire collection into folders and using the particles for what they do

The weird randomness of breaking file paths and corrupting particles is an MC bug for sure.

---

Do you know where the meta-data for particles is stored?

[jmone]

All the meta data is held in the Library.  Easiest way to see what meta data is held is select 1 particle then in the Action Window click on Tag.  You can then decide what fields you want to show as col etc (I use Playback Range, Playback Info, even Stack Files, Stack Top, and Filekey at times to see what is related to what).

I've also just added a basic Filename Updater feature to Swag of Tools that lets you update the incorrectly created Filenames for particles when they occur.

Unfortunately I don't have Nonsuch of BDA to check ....

[TheShoe]

do you have the file format for mpls?

edit: nm.  found some useful tools to view the mpls.

the best i can tell is that my BD Audio rips where there are <= 3 audio streams, setting the default in the particle via PlaybackInfo works.  With 4, i does not.  but only when mediatype==Audio. If I change it back to mediatype==Video, then MC plays back the desired audio stream based on PlaybackInfo.

strange...

for some reason MC also has issues converting multiple files.  If I select more than one at a time, it seems to just skip files randomly.  I think MC does not like XTC

[lepa]

I have tried to use particles many times through the years and always got frustrated when losing hours of work because link to physical file breaks. Easiest thing to break particle file is just add track number metadata for it. caboom! file not found.... 

[jmone]

I've got a (long) running thread on the Particle Issue with screen shots, a log, even a link to the video showing the issue.  https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,81508.0.html  - I've not had issues with adding tack numbers (or other meta data) but any examples would be good to add to that thread so it is all in one place.

On the other issues:
- I have for years just used # of Files to Convert at once to 1 for video.  There is really no speed increase to have it higher and it avoided a few issues (in particular like when we used dtsdecoder dll it was not thread safe)  The other one it avoids is when converting from one source file to many destination such as with particles the create of the new files (which all use the same filename) can get.... odd.
- If you really want full control of video file streams where you have set the Media Type to Audio then JR would need to make a change.  I'd still suggest that you just tag them as Media Sub Type = Music Video then amend the (or a) Audio View to include both Media Type = Audio OR Media Sub Type = Music Video as suggested above.

[TheShoe]

great idea!  really none of these are deal breakers.

thanks for all the tips and suggestions...

[TheShoe]

Lost an entire rip again due to Particles causing file errors.  Everything worked, then MC "lost" the correct MPLS.  Correcting it, MC seemed to delete MPLS files and the rip is now trashed.

Next, another disc has the correct start/end times for each particle but MC for this disc always wants to start the next track about 20 seconds early.

Seriously beginning to think particles are BETA at best...

EDIT:

Every RIP has this issue now - about 20 sec before the end-time of the particle, the next track starts

Maybe it's the latest version of MC?

[TheShoe]

This appears to be a defect:

I am playing back audio using particles from a bluray rip.

Each track that plays after the currently playing track will start a number of seconds equal to the Audio->Prebuffer setting.

For example, I have pre-buffer set to 6.  Track that is currently playing will end six seconds before it is over and the next track will play.

If I change pre-buffer to 20, then the current track ends 20 seconds early and next starts.

[jmone]

Tested on "Back to Black" Track 1 BD Audio ripped and particlised.  No issues with pre-buffer set to 6, changed it to 20 and it still played fine.  Audio is WASAPI Exclusive over HDMI from an nvidia GPU.

How did you try to "correct" the lost particles?

[TheShoe]

Tested on "Back to Black" Track 1 BD Audio ripped and particlised.  No issues with pre-buffer set to 6, changed it to 20 and it still played fine.  Audio is WASAPI Exclusive over HDMI from an nvidia GPU.

How did you try to "correct" the lost particles?

that is maddening.   i can repeat the error using your config exactly or to my exasound.  without fail the track ends at the track end time minus the pre buffer time and starts to play the next track.

as for correcting the particles - i edit the filename to point to the correct mpls file.  then it prompts me to copy a file and asks me if i want to overwrite telling me there is already a file with the same name in the destination.

i am going to back up the library and remove all plugins - java, madvr, lav, and see if a clean install fixes anything

...

[jmone]

Don't try to edit the file names for particles - it does not work as MC will try to move / overwrite the files.  Try my renamer in Swag of Tools.

[TheShoe]

Don't try to edit the file names for particles - it does not work as MC will try to move / overwrite the files.  Try my renamer in Swag of Tools.

will do and report back.   saw you made an update. 

hopefully i can solve this weird prebuffer thing.  i set it to w secs just to see snd that causes the songs to end 2 secs early.  very weird.

could it be other settings in audio options at play as well?

[TheShoe]

Complete restore of the plugins had no effect.  prebuffer still causes a problem for me.

I've tried several BD Audio rips now and all have the same problem.

If I set the end-time of the particle to + 20s (my pre-buffer) it plays the entire track.

Question for you:

For your BD Audio tracks where this worked fine for you, are they set as media type == AUDIO?

If I play the particles as media type == VIDEO, there is no issue (and no gapless playback either); it plays the entire particle and then starts the next albeit with a slight gap.

[jmone]

Nope, Media is set to Video / Music Video and that is what I tested.  Also, you do get a "gap" between video particles as the Direct Show graph is broken down and rebuilt.  We did have a conversation years about gapless video particles but it was too was pretty well only me who asked for it!  For me, anything tagged as Audio is actually an audio only file (eg if I used Convert Format to make a Flac Copy). 

[TheShoe]

thanks.

so i suspect that is the issue.  I have been ripping my BD Audio, using your swagotools to create particles, and then changing them to media type == Audio.

*sigh*  much of the music I have is gapless (prog rock fan afterall) and that gap kinda blows...

oh well.  particles at least will be great for Video and TV Shows in particular as you pointed out.

For music, I'll just convert the tracks to FLAC and be done with it.

i suspect not many people are doing this and it's unlikely to get attention.

[jmone]

you never know.  One of the Devs might take an interest.  There is a difference between the Audio playback engine and the Video one.  Playing video files using the Audio playback engine is kinda odd but I do see what you are going with it.