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[datdude]

Hi,

Recently I've been having some issues with Zone Switching. Most notably, when I play video (sometimes), instead of playing in one of my video zones, it will play in my music zone. This also problematic because I bitstream my video, and for whatever reason, I now seem to get a lot of 'playback could not be started' errors with my music, after accidentally attempting to play video in my music zone which has a completely different output type for audio. It's like MC is changing a setting in my music zone when accidentally attempting to play a video in it. The only way to be able to play back music in that zone again is to restore the library settings. A restart or MC and a reboot of the PC does not work. This is a separate issue from the zone switching but thought I would point it out too.

I think I have narrowed down the zone switching issue though. Music never has a problem. It always plays in the correct zone, no matter what zone is currently selected in playing now. I also have two separate video zones, one for 4k/HDR video, and one for everything else, since I have found that I need hardware acceleration on for 4k video, and off for everything else (otherwise I get frame drops in the former, and stuttering artifacts in the latter). If there was a way to control that via DSP, then that would eliminate the need for separate video zones.

In any case, it seems that when Playing Now is set as my music zone, and I attempt to play a video, media center does not switch to the correct video zone. However, as long as one of the video zones is selected in Playing Now, the correct video zone will be chosen, so zone switching partially works, but not always. The criteria for selecting either of the video zones is based on dimensions (in addition to also requiring the media type be equal to video). In my testing, if I eliminate the second video zone and then also eliminate the criteria for the dimensions in the Zone Switching rules, then playing back video always works, even if the music zone is selected in Playing Now.

I'm hoping this can be looked into. Searching through the forums, it appears that a few other people have experienced zone switching issues, but nothing came of it. Thanks!

[terrym@tassie]

I have found the best way to debug Zoneswitching is to step back and think about how it works.
Zoneswitching is based entirely on whether a search rule evaluates true for a particular set of criteria for a particular file. The precedence of the search rules can also be important.
So, in general terms, the most specific searches must be the ones at the top of the list and the least specific will be further down.


Zoneswitch also has a section that controls whether or not playback is stopped in other zones when playback is started in a zone.
This is the section that can often cause head scratching about why a zone is apparently not switching correctly.


If we apply the above to the situation you describe in your post you have 3 zones: 4k video, non-4k video and audio only. You only have to worry about precedence for the video rules, the 4k video rule should come before the non-4k video rule. We will always want to stop playback in the other zones when a rule becomes active.


The 4k video zone is the most specific so the rule to select this will come first in the list and it will also include a selection to stop playback in the non-4k video and audio zones.
The non 4k video rule will be next in the list and again it will contain a selection to stop playback in 4k video and audio zones.
Finally, the audio zone selection rule will stop playback in 4k video and non-4k video zones. (This is a very specific rule so it could equally come first in the list of rules).


Your rules should be quite easy to test by applying searches to the library as they are all quite specific, e.g., the audio search should only return audio files, the non-4k video search should only return video files and finally the 4k video search should only return 4k video files. Check the search results and make sure there aren't any surprises.


Hope this helps, if you are still having issues, it might be good if you post the details of the Zoneswitch rules you are using.


Terry

[datdude]

Thanks for the reply.

I've had it setup pretty much exactly as you describe, except I have one extra zone, but that one is hidden from the interface, since it only plays streaming music (WDM), and so never causes an issue sine it's never shown in playing now.
The issue, to be clear is when the Music zone is active in playing now that any video (4k or not) plays in the music zone. If either of the 2 video zones are selected in playing now, then the correct zone is selected depending on the video chosen to be played.

I think it is pretty clear that as soon as the parameter for the video dimensions is removed, the issue goes away, so that seems to me that there is a bug somewhere. There is no reason that a video should ever play in my music zone based on the rules I have.

I've attached a few screenshots of my rules, in case that helps.

[voodoo5_6k]

I had a seemingly comparable issue when trying to use MC for videoplayback. I don't know whether this came up in your search, so I'm putting the links in here.

It started here with a feature request for MC29...

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,131919.0.html

Then the idea came up to do it with zones (as the feature request was not going to be implemented). There, I encountered the issue (in MC28). I based my rule on the height property, but other than that, it is comparable, I guess.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,131919.0.html
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,132340.0.html

The issue persisted in MC29, and Matt thinks, he has found the issue. But I don't know, whether that's already implemented. I stopped using MC for video playback altogether and never tried again.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,132665.0.html

Matt's response regarding the root cause: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,132665.msg926243.html#msg926243

I hope it'll get fixed for you!

Edit: Corrected one link

[terrym@tassie]

Can I just check that you stop playback in all other zones for each of your rules e.g. for the HD rule is playback stopped in 4K, Streaming & Audio? It is not clear from the screenshots.
Following up @voodoo5_6k reply are you seeing the problem in TheaterView?

[datdude]

Can I just check that you stop playback in all other zones for each of your rules e.g. for the HD rule is playback stopped in 4K, Streaming & Audio? It is not clear from the screenshots.
Following up @voodoo5_6k reply are you seeing the problem in TheaterView?

I wouldn't want it to stop in the music zones in case there was music already playing, and I don't see why I would need it to?

The problem occurs in both TheaterView and standard view.

[terrym@tassie]

I think your best bet now is to post a MC log demonstrating the problem.

[datdude]

I think your best bet now is to post a MC log demonstrating the problem.

Ok.