Topic: 96k playback, buffering problems (Read 7301 times)

nilbor · « **on:** January 19, 2011, 01:00:32 pm »

96k playback is failing for me on release 15.0.172.

I have tried upsampling from 44.1k to 96k and that runs fine and stable (very nice indeed). Then I added some 96k albums and these are very unstable. These albums can play for a few minutes, but then starts buffering. This causes music to stop for 30seconds or more (much more) while it says it is buffering. I have tried all different codecs, but the problem remains the same. I have also tried to turn off all upsampling (all sources to 96k) but that makes no difference either.

The strange thing is that when the problem start, it persists for all 96k songs, but as soon as I start playback of a 44.1k song it is rock solid and fine again, but only for 44.1k songs. To me this indicates that the problem is with the player (MC) and not the network, NAS, host computer, NIC, drivers etc.

Any advice?

Matt · « **Reply #1 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:07:48 pm »

What type of files, and from what type of drive, are you playing?

Thanks.

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:08:31 pm »

What codec causes problems?

nilbor · « **Reply #3 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:15:42 pm »

This is a mac mini 2010 with 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD, running bootcamp win7, 64 (drivers have recently been updated). Music is streamed over Gigabit network from a NAS, all files are flac.

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:17:58 pm »

Try playing files from the local drive. It could be a virus checker problem.

nilbor · « **Reply #5 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:28:51 pm »

seriously?? You mean the virus checker handles 96k coded flac files differently from 44.1k files?

Matt · « **Reply #6 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:31:32 pm »

Copy the file to a local drive and test that. Wifi pulling large amounts of data causes troubles for some types of soundcards, I think because the NIC stays busy in interrupts.

JimH · « **Reply #7 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:35:13 pm »

Quote from: nilbor on January 19, 2011, 01:28:51 pm

seriously?? You mean the virus checker handles 96k coded flac files differently from 44.1k files?

Yes. It could slow things down enough that larger files wouldn't work, but smaller files would.

You need to try a few different things to find out what is causing the problem. Copying some files to your local drive and playing from there is just one test.

nilbor · « **Reply #8 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:36:44 pm »

You're right. Playing it from local drive is stable (at least initially). I am not using wireless (using cat5e Gigabit network). Do you have any suggestion for how I could debug it or make it work? Do you think it is the NAS or the NIC?

Matt · « **Reply #9 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:42:30 pm »

Just to be sure, you're not playing from memory are you? Disable that option, if you have it enabled. You want slow and steady network access, not a huge network hit when a song first starts.

This gets more complicated because the network usage pattern for a huge file might be such that the NAS drops the connection or spins down the drive.

nilbor · « **Reply #10 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:48:37 pm »

I am not running for memory, I disabled that option for the time being

JimH · « **Reply #11 on:** January 19, 2011, 01:49:38 pm »

Are you using a virus checker? Which one? Try uninstalling it. Disabling may not be effective.

nilbor · « **Reply #12 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:01:41 pm »

I am using MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials). Turning off "real time protection" in MSE does not make any difference.

For what it is worth, I am also streaming DVD (video) from the same NAS without any problem (well, I have seen a few stuttered scenes during some hours of watching).

nilbor · « **Reply #13 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:02:59 pm »

reading your post again, I will try to uninstall it

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:04:35 pm »

I think it was glynor who had a problem with MSE. Take a look at the thread called "Weird Problems". The link is in my signature.

nilbor · « **Reply #15 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:06:35 pm »

ok, will do that.

For the record, uninstalling MSE did not make any difference

JimH · « **Reply #16 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:09:47 pm »

If you have another PC on the network, try playing from it. That would tell you whether the problem is the NAS or the network.

nilbor · « **Reply #17 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:22:02 pm »

ok, I am playing it fine with another player on my laptop with wireless access to the NAS.

If I restart the mac mini, it runs fine for a minute or so an then the problems starts again.

I will try to download another player on the mac mini and see of I get the same problem with that player.

nilbor · « **Reply #18 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:33:37 pm »

ok, I have now tested playback of these 96k flac files on the mac mini with another player, streaming them from the NAS and this is stable, no problems there. I have played for 5+ minutes without any stuttering or buffering, hence this seems to be isolated to the MC player.

nilbor · « **Reply #19 on:** January 19, 2011, 02:43:06 pm »

One additional set of data (don't think it makes any difference, but still). The other player I tried, downsampled the sound to 44.1k (as seen on the display of my W4S DAC-2 driven in USB mode).

I don't expect the issue to be related to the DAC given that everything works fine when I upsample 44.1k to 96k.

Matt · « **Reply #20 on:** January 19, 2011, 03:17:42 pm »

What's an example filename on the NAS?

Is it http://, UNC, or a mapped drive?

nilbor · « **Reply #21 on:** January 19, 2011, 03:25:17 pm »

In my setup it is a mapped drive, example:
M:\music\Diana Krall\Quiet Nights\1-Where Or When.flac

HiFiTubes · « **Reply #22 on:** January 21, 2011, 10:26:08 pm »

Quote from: nilbor on January 19, 2011, 03:25:17 pm

In my setup it is a mapped drive, example:
M:\music\Diana Krall\Quiet Nights\1-Where Or When.flac

Any update. My network system and MC setup is about the same as yours. 192kHz playback (which I don't often use) buffers every 30 seconds even the DPC checker shows super low system latency with WASAPI [event].

Matt · « **Reply #23 on:** January 21, 2011, 11:55:29 pm »

Quote from: nilbor on January 19, 2011, 03:25:17 pm

In my setup it is a mapped drive, example:
M:\music\Diana Krall\Quiet Nights\1-Where Or When.flac

When playing a filename like that, Media Center doesn't even know (or care) if the file is coming from a NAS or a local drive. We use the same Win32 file I/O APIs.

You might try another sound card just to see if an interaction between the USB usage for the DAC and the NIC could be a problem. Playing with a different program, which talks to the sound card differently and at a different sample rate, would tax the system differently. You could also try Disk Writer in Media Center, although it runs faster than real-time so the test would be a little weird.

Sorry to not have a better suggestion. I'm stumped.

HiFiTubes · « **Reply #24 on:** January 22, 2011, 12:00:25 am »

Is there any kind of DPC checker for Apple hardware, or does Apple gear not even deal with this kind of thing?

I was chatting with Clint at W4S actually, are you using Kernel Streaming? I remember him saying something about that being the only way top use JRiver. We didn't get into the why....yet.

nilbor · « **Reply #25 on:** January 22, 2011, 05:12:10 am »

Thanks for the tip, as I had a Halide Design Bridge around I tested 96k using this and this works fine. I.e. I am using the Bridge as output device (USB), connecting to the W4S DAC-2 Coax 1 input and this runs stable. Hence, this is W4S driver related, not related to MC, NAS, network, Mac mini etc.

I will contact W4S with an update of this, hopefully they will be able to provide an updated driver soon.

JimH · « **Reply #26 on:** January 22, 2011, 07:29:06 am »

Quote from: nilbor on January 22, 2011, 05:12:10 am

Thanks for the tip, as I had a Halide Design Bridge around I tested 96k using this and this works fine. I.e. I am using the Bridge as output device (USB), connecting to the W4S DAC-2 Coax 1 input and this runs stable. Hence, this is W4S driver related, not related to MC, NAS, network, Mac mini etc.

I will contact W4S with an update of this, hopefully they will be able to provide an updated driver soon.

Thanks for the update. Please let them know we'll provide a license for testing. They could write me. jimh at jriver.

HiFiTubes · « **Reply #27 on:** January 22, 2011, 01:22:48 pm »

But have you tried WASAPI [Event] mode with the W4S?

I'm confused by so you say you did use another player with the W4S DAC successfully over NAS.

If WASAPI [event] or kernel don't work, try rolling back to build .108 and testing with regular WASAPI.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #28 on:** January 22, 2011, 01:58:00 pm »

I'm having issues with 159 with any output mode other than direct sound. I've seen this buffering thing a couple of times. But I've had more issues with noise (the last 5 second screech claimed at least two lives of my cat Vo's nine) on track switching. This is to a HRT Music Streamer II.

nilbor · « **Reply #29 on:** January 22, 2011, 04:25:16 pm »

I tried with WASAPI Event Mode and Direct Sound (and standard WASAPI I think) and there was no differce. When trying it with the other player, this player downsampled 96k to 44.1k (the DAC-2 said it received 44.1k even though the source was 96k).

I didn't restart the application or computer when switching between the different codecs, but that should not be needed as far as I understand.

nilbor · « **Reply #30 on:** January 23, 2011, 05:56:51 am »

With reference to previous post:

Given that everything works excellent when using the Halide Design Bridge, which use the standard USB driver, I don't see that this can be anything else than a problem with the W4S driver. If anyone else see other possible causes of this, it would be good to know.

JimH · « **Reply #31 on:** January 23, 2011, 06:35:35 am »

Dark,
Try the DAC Settings page on the Wiki. The "Flush buffer" option might help.

nilbor · « **Reply #32 on:** January 23, 2011, 08:15:41 am »

hmm,
Unchecked "Output Format" in DSP Studio to turn off upsampling (previously I chose "No Resampling" in Resample menu) and now it works better. It seems to be stable when I do that, but the drawback is that I disable upsampling of 44.1k and that I really do not like (to my ear 44.1k music sounds better upsampled to 96k).

To summarize:
1. Output format resampling to 96k is stable for Halide Design Bridge (USB - SPDIF bridge) for both 44.1k and 96k sources.
2. Output format resampling to 96k is stable for W4S DAC-2 USB for 44.1k and not for 96k sources.
3. Unchecking (turning off) output format resampling plugin and playback of 96k sources is stable in W4S DAC-2 USB

Does this mean that there is a bug both with the "Output format resampling" and the W4S driver? Seems to be something with the proprietary USB driver that makes the resampling plugin a little unhappy...

nilbor · « **Reply #33 on:** January 23, 2011, 08:21:31 am »

Update,
20s after I sent the update is started troubling again (after I switched to theatre mode). This means that unchecking the plugin does not make any difference. Sorry about that, I got so excited when it seemed to work I couldn't wait to share the news ;-)

HiFiTubes · « **Reply #34 on:** January 23, 2011, 08:49:24 am »

Have you tried Foobar upsampling to 96kHz and playing files on your mapped drives? This would be a good test.

HiFiTubes · « **Reply #35 on:** January 23, 2011, 09:11:34 am »

And just to clarify, you have tried Kernel Streaming?

...as Clint mentioned that was the protocol they advise to use.

DarkPenguin · « **Reply #36 on:** January 23, 2011, 09:41:23 am »

Quote from: JimH on January 23, 2011, 06:35:35 am

Dark,
Try the DAC Settings page on the Wiki. The "Flush buffer" option might help.

I upped the hardware buffer, put a 1/2 second of silence in for hardware sync and switched to wasapi event style (which sounds like a finishing blow in a japanese fighting game). Seems to work.

Thanks!

nilbor · « **Reply #37 on:** January 23, 2011, 12:26:13 pm »

Kernel streaming doesn't work either. And quite frankly, if it were the only mode working I wouldn't be very impressed.

nilbor · « **Reply #38 on:** January 24, 2011, 03:42:20 pm »

Update: Kernel streaming works if you enable "Output format" in DSP Studio, select 24 bit source and disable all upsampling.

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Author Topic: 96k playback, buffering problems (Read 7301 times)