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[Matt]

At the tail end of Media Center 14, we started playing with a custom JRiver audio renderer.  The goal was to use the same well respected audio output plugins and DSPs we use with our audio engine during television, video, & DVD playback.

With Media Center 15, we believe the audio renderer is ready for mass consumption.  I've been using it at home with really great results.  The final glitch, which is now solved with high accuracy, was a lip sync issue.

There are several reasons to use this feature:

• High quality communication with the soundcard, including ASIO, WASAPI exclusive, or Kernel Streaming
• ASIO is the _only_ way to get bit-matched / sample-rate-matched playback with Creative and Asus sound cards (popular in home theater applications)
• Enables the Room Correction DSP for adjusting for speaker levels, placement, and more
• Enables the JRSS Surround Sound mixing engine for 2.0 to 2.1, 2.0 to 7.1, 5.1 to 7.1, etc.
• Simplify player configuration since audio settings are only made in one place (v14 requires configuring audio and audio in videos independently)
  

.

For now, enable this feature in Options > General > Features > Video Audio Renderer.  Future builds will make it enabled by default and used by default.

Thanks for any feedback.

[JimH]

bump

[MerlinWerks]

Hi Matt,

Did you ever get a chance to see if AC3/DTS pass-through over ASIO was possible?

For your reference: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=56372.msg382810#msg382810

[gvanbrunt]

Many of us use Re-Clock (especially for PAL) to syncronize to the video clock and get rid of judder etc. I would be nice to do away with reclock entierly if MC offered this feature as part of it's audio renderer...

[d_pert]

Very happy to see this in development. I have a number of 2ch (AC3 2.0 or LPCM) AVIs of famous classical performances ... it would be great to be able to shape the sound the same way I am spoiled with when it's just an APE, FLAC or MP3 (i.e. my notorious IK ARC plugin)

However, I can't get this working in 14.0.155 ... have enabled Feature called Video Audio Renderer. Have messed with settings for AVI playback ... nothing I do (incl. defaults) makes it so I see or hear any activity in DSP Studio when playing 2ch video.

[d_pert]

You also said:

•ASIO is the _only_ way to get bit-matched / sample-rate-matched playback with Creative and Asus sound cards (popular in home theater applications)

Does WASAPI have the same benefit? ... I don't have ASIO on my current library system which uses a SoundMax (Analog Devices) chip on my ASUS P5K motherboard (S/P_DIF out). Can install ASIO4ALL but would prefer to avoid if WASAPI will do the trick ... when I get the rest of it working.

[Matt]

•ASIO is the _only_ way to get bit-matched / sample-rate-matched playback with Creative and Asus sound cards (popular in home theater applications)

Does WASAPI have the same benefit? ... I don't have ASIO on my current library system which uses a SoundMax (Analog Devices) chip on my ASUS P5K motherboard (S/P_DIF out). Can install ASIO4ALL but would prefer to avoid if WASAPI will do the trick ... when I get the rest of it working.

This is a pretty hardware specific thing.  With Creative X-Fi cards, and I think Asus Xonar cards, the only way to get them to change the card's sample rate to the sample rate of what you're actually playing so that there's no resampling done by the soundcard is by using ASIO.

With other cards, WASAPI or the new Kernel Streaming (v15) are both good hardware direct communication methods.

[HiFiTubes]

After enabling the renderer in Options, where can I setup ASIO for video playback.

I don't see my Lynx ASIO listed as it is in the Audio Playback options.

DC

[Matt]

After enabling the renderer in Options, where can I setup ASIO for video playback.

Options > Audio

[HiFiTubes]

I'm confused. Yes, I have Lynx ASIO in Options>Audio.

Video Playback just shows Directsound options (Lynx 7+8, etc.)

Nothing seems changed in 15; when I right click on screen to get to Video Playback options, which is new and seems like where I should select ASIO, I don't have an option for ASIO, just Lynx directsound outputs.

[HiFiTubes]

Okay, I see it is working but the offset is not working correctly.

I thought I still had to configure in Video settings; I see in the DSP it is working.

very nice!

DC

I edited this post last week, strange.

[d_pert]

I can't get this working in 14.0.155 ... have enabled Feature called Video Audio Renderer. Have messed with settings for AVI playback ... nothing I do (incl. defaults) makes it so I see or hear any activity in DSP Studio when playing 2ch video.

[Yaobing]

I can't get this working in 14.0.155 ... have enabled Feature called Video Audio Renderer. Have messed with settings for AVI playback ... nothing I do (incl. defaults) makes it so I see or hear any activity in DSP Studio when playing 2ch video.

While playing, check DirectShow filters and see if "JRiver Audio Renderer" is actually in the graph.

[HiFiTubes]

I have to do some experimenting tonight but I did experience some strange behavior the other day.

Using MC15 Video Audio Renderer, I set the output to ASIO for use with video playback my hifi system.

When I switched to my other zone, cheap Vizio speakers via DirectSound, I was getting dropouts, that is until I switched back to MC14. Pretty sure this zone is just set to use DirectSound for audio; maybe the problem is unrelated to ths new feature, but it works fine in MC14 (maybe settings need to be triple checked).

I assume this is zone specific and we still get to choose the output device like in ASIO4ALL. So you choose the output protocol in the Zone, and then in the Video Playback options you can pick which WDM device to route to?

[The Mastermind]

The Video Audio Renderer option seems to have vanished on build 15.0.32. Is it now enabled by default? Because if it is, it isn't working for me, I see no activity nor get any response when I change my DSP settings.

[mojave]

The Video Audio Renderer option seems to have vanished on build 15.0.32. Is it now enabled by default? Because if it is, it isn't working for me, I see no activity nor get any response when I change my DSP settings.

Did you follow the directions in the release notes? It works for me.

12. Changed: DSP Studio Filter feature for video playback is removed.  Users needing to use DSP studio in video should use JRiver Audio Renderer directly.  JRiver Audio Renderer is selected in Tools > Options > Video > Audio for Video, DVD, & Television > Playback device (set it to "Same as device used in audio playback").

[The Mastermind]

I managed to miss that bit.

Thanks, that sorted it.

[BerntR]

This is great news to anyone using Audilense or similar for FIR based digital crossovers and sound correction!

There is also an extension of selectable number of output channels in the audio rendering which is equally great. Will for instance a selection of 16 output channels work for DVD video playback as well or are there perhaps some traps further down the rendering graph that may prevent the 16 channels from getting all the way to the sound card?

[Matt]

Will for instance a selection of 16 output channels work for DVD video playback as well or are there perhaps some traps further down the rendering graph that may prevent the 16 channels from getting all the way to the sound card?

Hi Bernt.  Nice to see you on the JRiver boards.

Any format conversion or DSP (16 or 32 channel output included) should work fine for DVD, HDTV, or any other video using this feature.

[d_pert]

This is great news to anyone using Audilense or similar for FIR based digital crossovers and sound correction!

There is also an extension of selectable number of output channels in the audio rendering which is equally great. Will for instance a selection of 16 output channels work for DVD video playback as well or are there perhaps some traps further down the rendering graph that may prevent the 16 channels from getting all the way to the sound card?

Yes indeed!

[d_pert]

Hi Matt,

(not sure where I should post this)

Seeing as BerntR has applauded the progress toward FIR-based room correction for video etc., I thought I'd try another round of MC15 experiments with my IK Multimedia ARC System. Glad to see I'm not the only one in the universe interested in "real" room correction systems and MC! Whew!

Summary: using "Output" in DSP Studio for anything other than "Source" settings makes certain VST plugins not actually affect the chain unless actually highlighted and displayed in the DSP Studio.

You've given this time before, I know ... but I have new evidence and observations to report ... which give me reason to believe the problem may lie in the DSP Studio Output Format module, and how it interacts (?) with certain plugins upstream.

Recalling that IK ARC works perfectly in multiple VST hosts in 24/96 mode (i.e. Cubase), except MC14 DSP Studio, and putting UAC-related stuff aside (am forced to run MC14/15 in elevated mode), the main issue is that the "effect" of the plugin does not get "heard" (does not actually affect the audio chain) unless the DSP studio is actually opened and the plugin panel is displayed.

WELL >>> I've discovered that this only happens when I also activate Output and set Bitdepth/Sample rate to somthing other than Source: i.e. I have always had Bitdepth set to 24 and Sample rate set to 96kHz throughout my tests. I feed my DENON reciever a 24/96 s/p_dif signal.




 

[gappie]

d_pert: with a change that i say something that is besides the point... just something that popped up in my mind.. i guess the order of the plugins could be important. have you tried changing the order of the plugins in dsp. you can by pulling them around?

 
gab

[Matt]

Summary: using "Output" in DSP Studio for anything other than "Source" settings makes certain VST plugins not actually affect the chain unless actually highlighted and displayed in the DSP Studio.

I think this must be plugin specific, because I just tried a handful of VST DSPs and couldn't reproduce it.  The effect is always preserved and heard on a restart of the program without opening DSP Studio. (I tried with and without format conversion and other DSPs enabled)

It's possible some plugins require their user interface to be created even if it's not being shown.  This seems like bad design, but maybe they just expect this?  Maybe you could get the plugin author to test using Media Center?  We'd be happy to work with them.

Thanks.

[d_pert]

Thanks Matt - as always you're willing to give time and accommodate.

Gappie - cool idea but I learned from Matt a while back that the order of stages in the DSP Studio is not a direct representation. The Output Format is always last in the chain, no matter where it appears in the list, however DSPs are orderable.

Anyway, I guess I'll actually just forget about it from here and just run at 16/44.1 ...

The benefit of outputting at 24/96 to my compatible DAC is theoretical guesswork anyway, given that I don't even know if the stage(s) prior to "Output Format" themselves output at 16 bit despite internal 24/32/64 bit processing. I know that in a DAW VST host, the host reports the project bitdepth and the plugin(s) take their connection(s) one-to-the-next from that parameter. And of course the only "benefit" would be that the processing added (after the source) is applied with a higher bitdepth, definitely of secondary importance. But I've never known if the bridge between a final DSP output with internal 32bit processing and the Output Format set to 24/96 creates a 24 bit transfer between those two stages. Matt?

And just out of interest, what kind of VST is in MC15? Is it original? Is it an adaptation of the ubiquitous Hermann Seib freeware VSTHost? Is there even a "host" in the usual sense?

[d_pert]

Actually, maybe this is a reasonable request for a tweak to MC15 before it's RTM'd:

Lock the "Output Format" module in the DSP Studio at the bottom of the stack, with a little grey line separating it from the ones above to indicate that it's not reorderable and is always at the end of chain.

Not exactly a glamourous new feature, but clarifies a fine detail that comes up now and then.

[gappie]

Actually, maybe this is a reasonable request for a tweak to MC15 before it's RTM'd:

Lock the "Output Format" module in the DSP Studio at the bottom of the stack, with a little grey line separating it from the ones above to indicate that it's not reorderable and is always at the end of chain.

Not exactly a glamourous new feature, but clarifies a fine detail that comes up now and then.

actually that would be a nice idea.. would make things a bit clearer. after what you said about the order i could also recall reading that the output format was last, a long time ago. just checked my dsp in my zones a bit.. ive dragged it around to different places, and god knows why.. 

 
gab

[mojave]

The Channels section of the Output Format seems to be before the other plugins and at the beginning of the chain. I have two multi-channel VST plugins for bass management and EQ. They only use the number of channels that they are given. If I have Source Number of Channels or 2 Channels selected for music, then I cannot move the bass to channel 4 using the plugins. I have to use 5.1 channels with "No mixing (unused channels silent)" in order to be able to redirect sound out to the other channels.

[d_pert]

Hmmm!

[gappie]

wouldnt it be nice to know where is what in in the sound route. the fact that the order can be changed shows that there might be some sense in it. to make sense of it requires a sensible representation of the order in the dsp.