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[fitbrit]

From my reading and experimentation, I have come to see that zones will not be switched automatically, within a playlist or view, when a track playing in zone A ends and the next track meeting the criteria for zone B starts.
Is this correct?

I want to be able to switch zones based on the sample rate of the tracks, so that 352.8 kHz DSD files get played through USB, whereas all others go through another playback device. I'd like to choose a bunch of tracks from a playlist and have MC switch the zones automatically to the designated playback device/DAC as appropriate on a per-file . Any advice on how to achieve this?

[justsomeguy]

+1

[mojave]

Can you give your whole signal chain for Zone A and B?

Zone A:  JRiver > USB > DSD DAC (model, please) etc.

[6233638]

You're correct, it is not possible to have a single playlist that can switch between multiple output devices on a per-file basis.
 
Not that I don't want to see this - I do, and I have suggested it many times because I use separate playback devices for stereo and multichannel content for example - but there are more fundamental issues with Zone Switch that I would like to see addressed first.
 
Here's another recent topic which covers similar ground: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96137
 
 
I want to be clear that it's not that Zone Switch in its current form is bad, and I don't think there is anything else like it right now - but I would love to see it improved to the point that it requires zero interaction from the user and it "just works".
 
Right now it maybe handles 50% of what I want to do, and the other 50% requires some manual intervention to avoid conflicts, playing to multiple devices at the same time, or work around other issues. There are still times when I have to switch off Zone Switch entirely to route files to the Zone I want.

[kstuart]

It doesn't matter what his specifics are, I can give you mine:

track 1 - stereo FLAC
track 2 - multichannel SACD

stereo goes to my stereo-only USB DAC (Bifrost w/Uber upgrade)
multichannel, by necessity, must go to sp/dif bitstream to A/V receiver.

Matt has previously mentioned that this is a "not currently supported" feature, and some of us would like to have it.   (My random playlists must exclude all multichannel files, until such point as a such a feature is implemented.)

So, +1 to the OP.

UPDATE: and  +1 to 6's post at the same time as mine.

[fitbrit]

Can you give your whole signal chain for Zone A and B?

Zone A:  JRiver > USB > DSD DAC (model, please) etc.

For the sake of argument:

Zone A (for all except 352.8 kHz DSD material)
JRiver > AES output > Berkeley Reference DAC or dCS Vivaldi

Zone B (for SACD rips/DSD etc at 352.8 kHz)
JRiver > USB output > Berkeley Alpha USB (to AES converter) > Berkeley Reference DAC or dCS Vivaldi

[mojave]

For the sake of argument:

Zone A (for all except 352.8 kHz DSD material)
JRiver > AES output > Berkeley Reference DAC or dCS Vivaldi

Zone B (for SACD rips/DSD etc at 352.8 kHz)
JRiver > USB output > Berkeley Alpha USB (to AES converter) > Berkeley Reference DAC or dCS Vivaldi

The Berkeley Alpha USB only supports up to 192Khz. Is it doing DSD over DoP via AES output? The Berkley Reference DAC still only has one AES input so how are both Zone A and B connected simultaneously?

The reason I'm asking about the hardware is that figuring out Zoneswitch is a moot point if the hardware/playback chain can't even support it.

[fitbrit]

Downsampling to 176.4 is acceptable, but the AES output of the computer cannot do this - the USB can.
I might have TWO Alphas.
Or be using the Vivaldi which has 4 AES inputs.

The desire for this functionality is not moot at all; there are so many other possible combinations of things that I might want to do, uninterrupted in a mixed characteristic playlist.

[mojave]

You can't  have  two Alphas because the Berkley only has one AES input. You can't have two Berkley DACs becomes you can't connect them to one amplifier. You can use the Vivaldi, but would have to manually select the inputs every time. This means regular use would revert back to playlist that can currently be handled by ZoneSwitch.

I'm still trying to figure out how this would really work from a hardware perspective.

[kstuart]

I'm still trying to figure out how this would really work from a hardware perspective.

I assume you understand my simple example ?

[fitbrit]

You can't  have  two Alphas because the Berkley only has one AES input. You can't have two Berkley DACs becomes you can't connect them to one amplifier. You can use the Vivaldi, but would have to manually select the inputs every time. This means regular use would revert back to playlist that can currently be handled by ZoneSwitch.

I'm still trying to figure out how this would really work from a hardware perspective.

You're missing the point - the details do not matter. If I want to play my 5.1 music through my HDMI connection to an AVR and my 2 channel music to a DAC, and these tracks are in a mixed playlist, I cannot do it. The identity of the tags in question does not matter. It could be [media subtype] or [sample rate] or [date imported] if I want it to be; it's not really anyone's business but my own. The point is that it cannot be done presently. I like the Zoneswitch functionality as it is, since it is better than not having it by far. I have a problem that I want to solve - for a third party as it happens, (check your private messages) and the current implementation cannot fully help. Therefore, I asked for a solution. No demands, no requests, just a simple "does anyone know a workaround" type question.
As it happens, I would like to see this feature implemented one day, but I know how things work around here; it may well be looked into if enough people ask for it, and are nice about it.

[glynor]

The core problem with this is the way MC handles Playing Now.  Each Zone has its own Playing Now list, which are independent, and filled at the time when playback starts.

This is, of course, essential and useful if you need to actually play both zones simultaneously.  But, it conflicts with the idea of switching playback zones back and forth mid-Playing Now list.

So, I don't think the problem is one of wanting to implement something.  I think we can all agree that Zone Switching would be more useful with something that accomplished this.  The problem is how to implement this cleanly.  I don't have a good answer.

[mojave]

It doesn't matter what his specifics are, I can give you mine:

track 1 - stereo FLAC
track 2 - multichannel SACD

stereo goes to my stereo-only USB DAC (Bifrost w/Uber upgrade)
multichannel, by necessity, must go to sp/dif bitstream to A/V receiver.

Alright, you say this is a simple setup. What is the USB DAC connected to and what receiver to do you have?

[mojave]

You're missing the point - the details do not matter. If I want to play my 5.1 music through my HDMI connection to an AVR and my 2 channel music to a DAC, and these tracks are in a mixed playlist, I cannot do it.

The point is that the hardware doesn't let you in the first place.  If the hardware let you do what you want with a mixed playlist, then it becomes a software issue for JRiver. Right now, you have to have two sets of amps and two sets of speakers for it to work. Why should JRiver change their ZoneSwitch for a hypothetical issue that can't work in real life?

All of the current situations where it does work don't seem to be setup right from a hardware perspective.

For example, some use a two channel DAC and connect the analog outs into their receiver. They also use HDMI into their receiver on a second zone. Almost all receivers will convert the analog input to digital for DSP and, at the minimum, volume attenuation. They then convert it back to analog using the same DAC chips that are used for HDMI. So now you have someone that ends up with the same output, but uses a separate DAC for 2 channel that has to undergo an additional A/D D/A conversion step. It makes no sense. Just use HDMI for both 2 channel and multi-channel.

Some people do keep the signal chain separate for the 2 channel DAC vs the receiver. They might use a source switcher after the signal is analog or use a switchable buffer or pre-amp. In this case, they have to manually switch every time they change from 2 channel to multi-channel so they still can't listen to a playlist of mixed content.

[6233638]

All of the current situations where it does work don't seem to be setup right from a hardware perspective.

Well here's one example:
Multichannel: 5.1 via WASAPI into Sound Card for Virtual Surround > Optical Output into DAC
Stereo: 2 channel via ASIO into Sound Card > Optical Output into DAC

The stereo zone has a reduced volume to keep playback at an equal level because Media Center doesn't have the option to maintain a constant playback level across formats.
Using ASIO bypasses the virtual surround processing so that the sound card isn't upmixing stereo to 5.1.
Disabling JRSS and sending 2.0 in a 5.1 container would sound weird because it would still be going through the virtual surround processing.
 
So it all gets sent to the same device and there is no input switching, but playback for stereo/multichannel content still has to be routed to separate zones.
DSP Presets are not an option because the current implementation is broken, and because that would require manually tagging files instead of it being rule-based.

I can't think of a better way to do this, since my requests for Dolby Headphone support have been shot down or ignored every time, and since Output Format is fixed to the top of DSP Studio, it isn't possible to use a VST plug-in for virtual surround.

And if we had the option to group zones together like this, so that you have a single playlist that spans multiple zones, I would add at least one additional rule which sends any file that's tagged as a podcast or which has a Web Media URL tag to a separate zone that has VideoClock disabled, because I usually play those videos back faster than 1x speed.


And I can think of many other uses for separate zones linked together based on file properties too.
It's a similar idea to DSP Preset tagging, only it's much more flexible since you only have to modify the rules to make a change instead of creating a new preset, manually tagging all your files with it, and modifying tag-on-import rules.
There would still be a place for DSP Presets, where the change in that preset is specific to the file, rather than where it is being played, but until they have been overhauled they are completely useless to me right now.

[mojave]

Well here's one example:
Multichannel: 5.1 via WASAPI into Sound Card for Virtual Surround > Optical Output into DAC
Stereo: 2 channel via ASIO into Sound Card > Optical Output into DAC

That's a good example.

I was able to use the Dolby Headphone VST to downmix to two channels. I then tried to send to a second instance of JRiver via the WDM driver for 2 channel output. It played fine, but whenever I disabled the Dolby Headphone plugin in a zone in one instance, it also disabled it in the different zone in the other instance of JRiver.

The only way I could come up with for it to work would be to use Convert Format twice:  once to use Dolby Headphone and the second time to downmix 5.1 with muted surround channels to stereo using JRSS. Now you can play the converted files along with the stereo files in a single playlist with USB output to your DAC. Then you could try the Binaural Surround VSTs from Blue Ripple. Hmm, I can't remember now if VST's work yet in Convert Format and don't have time to test right now.

[6233638]

I was able to use the Dolby Headphone VST to downmix to two channels. I then tried to send to a second instance of JRiver via the WDM driver for 2 channel output. It played fine, but whenever I disabled the Dolby Headphone plugin in a zone in one instance, it also disabled it in the different zone in the other instance of JRiver.

The only way I could come up with for it to work would be to use Convert Format twice:  once to use Dolby Headphone and the second time to downmix 5.1 with muted surround channels to stereo using JRSS. Now you can play the converted files along with the stereo files in a single playlist with USB output to your DAC. Then you could try the Binaural Surround VSTs from Blue Ripple. Hmm, I can't remember now if VST's work yet in Convert Format and don't have time to test right now.

Well as I said, that is one example. I could come up with ten other examples which would use this Zone Grouping system just as easily.
 
You cannot use a VST to do virtual surround in Media Center, because Output Format is fixed to the top of DSP Studio, it controls the signal sent to the playback device and mixing is linked to the channel output, so if you are playing to a 2 channel DAC it downmixes the 5.1 source to 2.0 before it reaches the VST plug-in.
 
And you can maybe kind-of hack it in by disabling Output Format, having the VST plug-in mix that down to 2 channels, send out a 5.1 signal to a virtual device and then route it back into MC and drop the additional channels before sending a 2 channel signal to your DAC, but that is a ridiculous setup which is going to be very unreliable.

It doesn't actually get around the fact that I would still need two separate zones configured to handle 2.0 and 5.1, since I want an untouched output with 2.0, while 5.1 gets virtual surround.
The system that I have in place works, it's just that I am stuck managing separate playlists for stereo and multichannel content, and manually switching tabs depending on where a file plays.

 
I do use the WDM driver for things like live video streams, where being able to mix it down to mono, filter out certain frequencies, and apply dynamic range compression are far more important than actual audio quality, but the WDM driver is not suitable for high fidelity reproduction right now in my opinion. It's far too prone to drop-outs for one thing. (pops and clicks during playback)
 
I have also tested a number of VST plug-ins for virtual surround in other applications (where output channel config is the last step, and separate from mixing) and the only one which produced good results in my opinion was Dolby Headphone.
I have contacted Blue Ripple Sound about their binaural surround VST because I am sure it will do a good job (their OpenAL game driver is great) but that is a very expensive product and there is no way of getting that to work properly in MC due to everything I have described above.
 
And I've already gone out and bought the sound card after exploring all these options. Of all the virtual surround products that I have tested - which is a lot of them - Creative's SBX Surround gave the best results regardless of price or complexity of setting them up. Of the ones I'm aware of, the only things I haven't been able to try have been the Smyth Realizer and that BRS Plug-in.
I would love to have the option of using Dolby Headphone though, because while I prefer SBX for games/movies, the results with DH2 were quite good for music.

I haven't had much luck getting VST plug-ins to work with MC's conversion options. Some of them do work, but it's been very hit-and-miss.
And I don't want to be converting files. I could do that externally in another program right now. (and have done, when doing comparisons)
I have another zone which does play 5.1 natively, so I don't want to be creating even more duplicates in the library. I want to be able to send one file to either zone and have it play correctly.
This is also why DSP Preset tags don't work. I can't have a preset set to downmix 5.1 files a certain way, when those 5.1 files can also be played in a zone which shouldn't be downmixed.
 
I've gone over a lot of possible scenarios trying to figure out if there was a good way to get this sort of functionality without it, but I really don't see a good solution other than being able to group zones together so that they share a common playlist, having Zone Switch route the files from that playlist to the appropriate sub-zones.
 
What I envision would be similar to linked zones, except rather than having a shared playlist that plays to all sub-zones simultaneously, it switches between them.

[fitbrit]

The core problem with this is the way MC handles Playing Now.  Each Zone has its own Playing Now list, which are independent, and filled at the time when playback starts.

This is, of course, essential and useful if you need to actually play both zones simultaneously.  But, it conflicts with the idea of switching playback zones back and forth mid-Playing Now list.

So, I don't think the problem is one of wanting to implement something.  I think we can all agree that Zone Switching would be more useful with something that accomplished this.  The problem is how to implement this cleanly.  I don't have a good answer.

Thanks, glynor. I have seen what you say first hand and understand the issue. One way to achieve this would be to "look ahead" in a playlist and see when the switches need to occur based on the rules specified. Then a behind the scenes reshuffling of Playing Now would have to be done, switching from one zone's playing now to another's at the right time, based on the order of tracks on the playlist. If users have to press a remote control button to switch inputs so be it - it's better than having to manually change zones AS WELL as pressing the remote button. On the other hand, my AVRs auto-switch when they detect something playing on an input in the absence of any other signal, so a ZoneAutoSwitch would work really well in my setup.

[6233638]

Sorry Glynor, I somehow skipped over your post.
Here's a quick mock-up of what I'm imagining:
 

 
Rather than "Link Zone", you would select the "Group Zone" option.
The Zones don't have individual playlists, that happens at the group-level.
But you would be able to configure each Zone individually, and Zone Switch operates as normal. The only real difference would be that the group shares a Playing Now list and can be collapsed in the tree.

[csimon]

As we all know, this does crop up every week or so with the same problems being aired and nothing ever changes, JRiver thinks the current implementation is perfect and doesn't need changing (or it's not a quick and easy thing to fix in one hour, so it's not going to be done), no matter how many people request or it keeps reappearing in threads.

"Revamp of zones" March 2015: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96137.0 (quote from this - "each group would therefore have a Playing Now queue associated with it.")

"MC20 Feature Requests" August 2014: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=90662.msg623229#msg623229 (#12 Per-file zone switching, #20 zone groups, including a link to a discussion from Oct 2013 on the subject)

Countless more threads if you search for them.

I now understand that the reason my requests and observations of how limiting and awkward MC is in various ways that a lot of people want fixed and struggle with, have not been considered is because they were listed all in one post when they should have been separate. I shall correct this for next time around. I'm not selfiish in wanting things changed, these are all genuine things that many people find MC awkward and not up to scratch and stop it from becoming a product that could possibly compete with all the other established systems.

[fitbrit]

As we all know, this does crop up every week or so with the same problems being aired and nothing ever changes, JRiver thinks the current implementation is perfect and doesn't need changing (or it's not a quick and easy thing to fix in one hour, so it's not going to be done), no matter how many people request or it keeps reappearing in threads.

I don't think this is a fair assessment. I have seen Matt say that he is proud of the way zones work, but he hasn't said that Zoneswitch is perfect as far as I can recall. As glynor points out, it is not an easy fix because it's built on the infrastructure of the current playing now implementation. Further, mojave is arguing that it might be a big resource hog for JRiver to work on it when there could be a very niche demand for it (due to other hardware limitations). Both of these are valid points and need to be considered carefully.
I would like to see a per-file Zoneswitch, for sure. However, to be fair we had no Zoneswitch AT ALL not so long ago. I try to keep that in perspective.
This feature would certainly improve MC, but IMO would not attract as many new customers as, say, better thought out TheaterView views out of the box.

[kstuart]

I now understand that the reason my requests and observations of how limiting and awkward MC is in various ways that a lot of people want fixed and struggle with, have not been considered is because they were listed all in one post when they should have been separate. I shall correct this for next time around. I'm not selfiish in wanting things changed, these are all genuine things that many people find MC awkward and not up to scratch and stop it from becoming a product that could possibly compete with all the other established systems.

There are two ways in which software is created and maintained:

1) A business is created.  This means that programmer hours are a cost.  Like all costs, they must be justified to owners or executives.  So, programmer hours are only allocated where they will increase sales.  This means dramatic features that can be marketed.  Porting to other platforms obviously increases sales and market share.

If there are bugs, then the normal procedure at all software businesses, is to work on them in order of the number of people that are affected.

2) A college student or group of college students (or sometimes a group of techies who work at boring jobs) create an open source of freeware program, volunteering their free time.

When these volunteer groups are one person or small groups, they end up working on what appeals to them (regardless of how they might rationalize it).

When these volunteer groups get large - and volunteers are assigned tasks by managers, one might think that this would be the one situation where you would get the most objective allocation of time.

But, what actually occurs is the same thing as a business (i.e. 1) above).  The workers emotionally invest in the wonderfulness and greatness of the group.  They then promote the software and try to "maximize sales" - even though it is free and no money is made.  But the more users, the more status and prestige.

You can see this in the actions of the BBC - which is subsidized by a mandatory fee in the UK.  Nevertheless, they promote programs, and even spoil viewers with "Next Time" scenes in between the end of programs and the end credits (as if the previous 55 minutes was not enough to get you to watch the next episode!).

[JimH]

I now understand that the reason my requests and observations of how limiting and awkward MC is in various ways that a lot of people want fixed and struggle with, have not been considered is because they were listed all in one post when they should have been separate. I shall correct this for next time around. I'm not selfiish in wanting things changed, these are all genuine things that many people find MC awkward and not up to scratch and stop it from becoming a product that could possibly compete with all the other established systems.

Aside from your somewhat sour complaining, I don't see the same public outcry you do.

Many aspects of MC could be improved.  It accounts for a lot of the work we do.

I'm not convinced.

[glynor]

Sorry Glynor, I somehow skipped over your post.
Here's a quick mock-up of what I'm imagining:
 

I've thought essentially the same thing, and it is the cleanest implementation I can imagine. I don't think it is a trivial programming job, unfortunately.

I think it'd be cool if they could pull something like that off, and I might bother to set up Zone Switching on my own system.  I wouldn't put this very high on my list of suggested big projects, though.

[6233638]

I've thought essentially the same thing, and it is the cleanest implementation I can imagine. I don't think it is a trivial programming job, unfortunately.
I think it'd be cool if they could pull something like that off, and I might bother to set up Zone Switching on my own system.  I wouldn't put this very high on my list of suggested big projects, though.

I could be wrong—and probably am—but it seems like 90% of the work for this has already been done, since Zone Switch and Linked Zones already exist.
This seems like a minor modification of existing functionality: copy the Linked Zones functionality and remove the part that makes them all play the same file.
 

I'm not convinced.

I hope this example demonstrates why it would be a useful feature.

No Zone Groups: Clicking play on a movie plays it in an unknown Zone.
In this case, the 5.1 Zone is currently selected, but it turns out this was a 7.1 movie so it plays in the wrong tab and I have to manually switch to it.
 


Zone Groups: The Video Group, which contains the 2.0/5.1/7.1 Zones, is the currently selected tab.
Playing the movie routes it to the 7.1 sub-zone. Playback just works.
 

 
It is also worth mentioning that I typically have the tree hidden when using MC, so that first example actually produces worse behavior: because the tree is hidden, there is nothing at all to indicate which Zone playback has started in, so I have to cycle through all my tabs until I find the right one. (I normally have 9+ tabs open in the left pane)
 
 
And with the additional flexibility that Zone Groups would bring, I'd be adding at several more Zones to that Video Group, to have specialized handling for certain files.
For movies, I always want to be using an exclusive audio output so that system sounds cannot play over it.
For other videos (e.g. YouTube-sourced videos) I might actually prefer being able to hear system sounds while playing them.
That Zone might also have VideoClock disabled so that I can play them at 1.5x speed rather than 1x, and Adaptive Volume enabled by default because they are typically not professionally produced - those are things which I would never do with movies.
 
As I said previously: this would open up a lot of flexibility to the way people can use Zones/Zone Switch, while making the user-facing side of it simpler.
You could group together ten different Zones with specific types of file handling, but the user facing side is just a single "Video Group" tab that all your videos play in.
 
Right now I have to limit my usage of Zones, because it would become unmanageable. It's already a problem even just splitting out "stereo" and "multichannel" video into two separate Zones.