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Author Topic: Gapless  (Read 2423 times)

georgB

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Gapless
« on: March 24, 2014, 09:33:34 am »

I play gapless with foobar on my PS Audio PWD over the PS Audio Bridge, but i find no way to do this with JRiver.
I have a JRiver license and like it, but i canīt play gapless with it...  ?
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JimH

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2014, 09:35:42 am »

Tools/Options/Audio/Track Change.
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georgB

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2014, 10:16:25 am »

Tools/Options/Audio/Track Change.

Gapless is configured there - but i doesnīt work... Maybe the difference is that JRiver is streaming via dlna and Foobar via upnp???
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6233638

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2014, 11:22:32 am »

The PS Audio Bridge does not support gapless playback.
I think Foobar does a hacked "gapless" mode which encodes everything into a single audio stream rather than sending each track individually.
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georgB

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2014, 02:18:47 am »

Maybe, i tried it out yesterday. To play gapless you have to choose all tracks from an album to play. But during playback one can choose every single track and it will play gapless. It would be a great feature for JRiver too, because all the Dacs out there would be able to play gapless. I Like JRiver but i use foobar because of this feature.

The PS Audio Bridge does not support gapless playback.
I think Foobar does a hacked "gapless" mode which encodes everything into a single audio stream rather than sending each track individually.
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AndrewFG

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2014, 07:06:11 am »

a hacked "gapless" mode which encodes everything into a single audio stream rather than sending each track individually.

In theory any UPnP server (including MC) could be "hacked" so that it pushes a master feed single stream comprising several tracks joined one after the other. And such an approach would indeed allow gapless play (and even cross fades) between tracks.

But such a "hack" would introduce several new problems as follows:

1) The master feed stream could last indefinitely long, so the server must not furnish a Content Length header. The consequence is that it is impossible for the renderer to support Seeking.

2) Sooner or later any TCP HTTP session will die, and UPnP has no mechanism to detect and differentiate between an unintended drop out versus a user intended wish to break off the stream. The consequence is that in case of network errors, the user has to manually reinitiate playing by hitting the Play button again.

2a) It is possible that some renderers might not be able to handle indefinite streams (perhaps suffering from a buffer overrun). And this could cause the HTTP session to be killed frequently as described in 2) above..

3) There is only one push command at the start of the session, so there is only one opportunity to send meta data. The consequence is that it is impossible for the renderer UI to display meta data for individual tracks being played.

In short such a hack would offer you a trade off between the plus side of gaining gapless play and cross fading, and the minus side of losing Seek, error recovery and meta data display. For my part such a trade off does not interest me at all...

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6233638

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2014, 08:21:26 am »

For my part such a trade off does not interest me at all...
Yes, but your renderer probably does support gapless playback, or it doesn't matter for the music you play.
 
I can definitely see why some people would want it if they hardware lacks gapless support, even if it's a trade-off.
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AndrewFG

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2014, 08:57:19 am »

Yes, but your renderer probably does support gapless playback, or it doesn't matter for the music you play.

Indeed ;)

For my main listening set up I have MC outputting directly into my AV Receiver via HDMI.

IMHO if you really want the best control and feature set then you should use HDMI outputs as I do, whereas if you want plug and play over Ethernet (everything playing to everything) then you should use standard UPnP. But I don't see any point in hacking UPnP to try to make it approach something that it is not (yet) designed for...

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georgB

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2014, 09:56:17 am »

1) i use monkeymote as controller on my ipad ->seeking is no problem
2) i have no experience with this case
3) The only thing is that my DAC doesnīt show any album art, but on monkeymote everything works fine incl. metadata for every single track...

In theory any UPnP server (including MC) could be "hacked" so that it pushes a master feed single stream comprising several tracks joined one after the other. And such an approach would indeed allow gapless play (and even cross fades) between tracks.

But such a "hack" would introduce several new problems as follows:

1) The master feed stream could last indefinitely long, so the server must not furnish a Content Length header. The consequence is that it is impossible for the renderer to support Seeking.

2) Sooner or later any TCP HTTP session will die, and UPnP has no mechanism to detect and differentiate between an unintended drop out versus a user intended wish to break off the stream. The consequence is that in case of network errors, the user has to manually reinitiate playing by hitting the Play button again.

2a) It is possible that some renderers might not be able to handle indefinite streams (perhaps suffering from a buffer overrun). And this could cause the HTTP session to be killed frequently as described in 2) above..

3) There is only one push command at the start of the session, so there is only one opportunity to send meta data. The consequence is that it is impossible for the renderer UI to display meta data for individual tracks being played.

In short such a hack would offer you a trade off between the plus side of gaining gapless play and cross fading, and the minus side of losing Seek, error recovery and meta data display. For my part such a trade off does not interest me at all...


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sskings

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2014, 04:39:16 pm »

I would love it if JRiver could add this 'hack' as an option. Yes there would be limitations. But for those of us using JRiver to control the countless Renderers out there that don't support SetNextTransport this would be a god send.

Please. Please. Could you add it as an option.

Thanks. Steve
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AndrewFG

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2014, 04:52:31 pm »

1) i use monkeymote as controller on my ipad ->seeking is no problem
2) i have no experience with this case
3) The only thing is that my DAC doesnīt show any album art, but on monkeymote everything works fine incl. metadata for every single track...

You need to read my post more carefully. If the Control Point and the Server are within the same application then obviously the CP can communicate internally with its own Server without having to use any UPnP methods. So obviously in that case the CP can internally tell its own Server to seek, and the Server can internally pass meta data to its own Control Point UI.

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AndrewFG

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Re: Gapless
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2014, 05:01:07 pm »

I would love it if JRiver could add this 'hack' as an option.

PS before his accident Matt was indeed thinking about doing this...

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