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Settings and Experience With JRiver and Boulder 1021

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thresholdman:
Does anyone have any good experience with the Boulder 1021 and JRiver? If so can you provide your configuration settings?
I know of at least one person who tried the earlier mac version unsuccessfully and switched to a different product. I've sold my PS Audio Perfect Wave Dac II. The PS Audio gear was working very well with the JRiver and JREMOTE.  I love the JRiver products and would like to use this combination with the Boulder 1021 when it arrives. 

AMP:
I have a 1021 which I have used with JRiver/JRemote as well as a number of other control points with minimserver.

JRiver / JRemote works very well and is one of my favorite control configurations for the 1021. Boulder's most recent software has cleared up a number of bugs and fully implemented OpenHome renderer support. Unfortunately, JRiver doesn't support OpenHome but that's of little issue as the JRiver control point is one in the same with the UPnP server. The only function which isn't supported is gapless playback as the 1021 doesn't support SetNextAVTransportURI which is the method which JRiver supports. Gapless works fine when using a control point which implements OpenHome playlist support (Kinsky, PlugPlayer, BubbleUPnP, etc). I'm a Boulder dealer and have requested support for SetNextAVTransportURI in a future software release (specifically for gapless support with JRiver).

In my configuration the 1021 will not play files from the JRiver server in their native format (mostly 16/44.1 AIFF files). It works fine if I select the "Audiophile" UPnP server configuration which transcodes to 24 bit WAV. I haven't tested again with the latest software on the 1021.

When you get your 1021 you'll want to verify that it has the most recent software. You'll want to have Host version 7212 or later.

AMP:
One more thing to add....

Although I'm primarily a mac user I'm using Windows 7 to host the JRiver UPnP server. I have tested the mac version of the UPnP server and it works fine, but I haven't yet implemented it as my primary server.

thresholdman:
I got the 1021 updated to the new software version. However, when using JRiver it will only play one song at a time. Do you have any device.

AMP:

--- Quote from: thresholdman on September 19, 2013, 08:26:19 pm ---I got the 1021 updated to the new software version. However, when using JRiver it will only play one song at a time. Do you have any device.

--- End quote ---

I'm assuming that you mean that the 1021 is only showing one track on its display rather than the contents of the entire playlist. This is normal behavior.

There are three components to a UPnP system:

1) The renderer is the playback device (the 1021 in this case).
2) The server is the device which holds the media files and ships them to the renderer.
3) The control point is the device which talks to the server to find out what media is available and talks to the renderer to control playback. In a typical configuration the control point grabs the catalog from the server and then based on input from the user the flow goes something like this:

- User selects one or more tracks via the control point interface.
- Control point contacts renderer and tells it to load and play the first track in the list.
- Renderer plays track and when finished asks the control point for the location of the next track.

JRiver uses uPnP / DLNA to talk to the 1021 and with this protocol stack the "control point" is responsible for handing the next track to the renderer (the 1021) when the current playing track completes. UPnP has an extension which allows the renderer to pre-fetch the next track in advance of the current one finishing, but this is an optional feature and is not supported by the 1021. This is why the 1021 doesn't support gapless playback when JRiver is operating as the control point as playback of the current track has to complete before the 1021 gets info on the next track. I've spoken at length with Boulder's software developer and requested that this feature be added, but there's little chance that will happen until sometime next year.

The other playback mechanism supported by the 1021 is called OpenHome and this is a set of extensions that layers on top of regular uPnP. This is an open-source standard which was developed by Linn and allows for the 1021 to be shipped the contents of the entire playlist at once which results in the entire list being shown on the display (and also enables gapless playback). The benefit here is that the control point is out of the loop at this stage and does not have to be in constant communication with the renderer to enable track advance. JRiver doesn't support the OpenHome extensions.

If you've used PlugPlayer as a controller then you will notice that the 1021 shows the contents of the entire playlist and this is because it recognizes the 1021 as an OpenHome renderer. Personally, I'm not a fan of PlugPlayer since it's incredibly buggy and unreliable.

Keep in mind that the three components are completely independent. You can use the JRiver server with a different control point (plug player, Kinsky, BubbleUPnP) and it will work fine. I really like JRemote so I use JRiver as the control point quite often even with the gapless limitation. The other control point which I really like is BubbleUPnP and it does support OpenHome and full playlists.

Now, there's another glitch.... I discovered a bug in the 1021's OpenHome support in which it returns incorrect information back to the control point about what it has in its playlist. This doesn't appear to be a problem with PlugPlayer and eLyric as they are both so broken that they have an equivalent bug in the opposite direction which cancels out most symptoms. Unfortunately, BubbleUPnP supports OpenHome correctly and gets very confused by the 1021's behavior. I've provided a ton of documentation to Boulder on this issue, but they likely won't have a fix until next year.

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