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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 20 for Windows => Topic started by: riboge on October 28, 2014, 10:01:02 am

Title: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: riboge on October 28, 2014, 10:01:02 am
Is there a way to play Tidal via JRiver?  Is or will there be a plug-in or some such?  This service launched today.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Arindelle on October 28, 2014, 11:20:15 am
Should work with the new WDM driver. Can't test it here (France), but you get 7 days free so give it a shot.

BTW thanks, as I had never heard of another FLAC streaming service other than Qobuz  - same price too it appears (US and UK only at present)

note: 25 million albums compared to Qobuz at 14 million (march 2014 figures) - and where is Pono? .. aren't they supposed to launch this month too ...
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: riboge on October 28, 2014, 01:32:10 pm
Yes, it plays with the WDM driver thru Media Center if you start it in Tidal app on your device (pc) or at listen.tidalhifi.com via a Chrome browser, but you cannot get it to play directly from MC as with last.fm.

You can add the website to MC as connected media.  It brings up the site login but will not load their web player, which apparently will not work with MC's browser. 

[edit] I found I could switch to the Chromium engine which is the core of Chrome.  With this it will go to the player page and you can make a player selection.  But when you push play it goes to an error screen saying it lacks Adobe Flashplayer and you can go no further.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on October 28, 2014, 08:29:28 pm
Signed up to give it a try. The selection seems reasonably good so far, especially when you consider that it's CD-quality.
 
Playback works well fed into Media Center via the WDM driver - though the app does not have an option for exclusive output which is disappointing.
 
Their app UI on the PC is horrible though. It's an Adobe AIR app with a very ugly design, and general usability is far below what I'm used to with Media Center... so I'm probably not going to continue with a paid subscription.
 
It's a shame there aren't any services which have all the albums you want, but have an app which lets you customize the views as well as Media Center does.
 
 
However there are one or two things that I do like. I like the tabs which let you switch between Studio Albums/EPs, Singles, and Albums which feature tracks from that artist.
 
I've been thinking about creating a similar view in Media Center to try and get things back under control (I recently started ripping a ton of singles, live albums, and remix albums) though there are a few things that would have to be changed for that to work well.
 
I also like that there is a notification which pops up when the track changes. That's something I'd like to see Media Center support now that both Windows and OSX have native app notifications.

and where is Pono? .. aren't they supposed to launch this month too ...
Aren't Pono selling tracks rather than streaming?
Title: Re:
Post by: Trumpetguy on October 29, 2014, 01:03:12 am
Tidal is more or less Wimp HIFI launched outside Scandinavia. And as far as I understand, they plan to move away from Adobe air.
I have used wimp hifi since the start, and with the new wdm driver it works really good.

Now, tidal is not only lossless, the main benefit is that they re-ripped the entire catalog from studio masters a year ago. No transcoding from various sources of dubious server material.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: WeatherB on October 30, 2014, 05:04:48 pm
OK...I tried a similar thing. TIDAL doesn't seem to work in MC20. So, I may need to try this through WDM. But what is a WDM? How do I know if I have it or need it? I would love to operate TIDAL through MC20, but I can't seem to get over this hurdle  ?. All help and details would be greatly appreciated!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on October 30, 2014, 08:52:24 pm
OK...I tried a similar thing. TIDAL doesn't seem to work in MC20. So, I may need to try this through WDM. But what is a WDM? How do I know if I have it or need it? I would love to operate TIDAL through MC20, but I can't seem to get over this hurdle  ?. All help and details would be greatly appreciated!
If you install the latest version of MC20 (currently 20.0.30) it will also install a WDM Driver.
This is a virtual sound device and will show up as "Speakers (JRiver Media Center 20)" in the Tidal app.
 
As long as Media Center is open, when you play audio to this device, it gets routed through the Media Center audio engine.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Eric05 on October 31, 2014, 10:24:54 am
Quote
and where is Pono? .. aren't they supposed to launch this month too ...

Pono is on its way... I was a kickstarter backer, I'm waiting for my pono player, it'll arrive soon. We receive emails saying that pono store will be open soon ! For US first, then Canada and UK and then Europe...
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: garysi on November 01, 2014, 08:34:38 am
I've installed Tidal and upgraded MC to .30.  I am using dirac as my default sound output to my DAC.  I may not be doing this correctly, but how can I get Tidal to play through MC if I cannot make the WDM my default sound source(Dirac is)?    Any help would be appreciated, as I am a newbie at some of this.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on November 01, 2014, 08:37:13 am
I've installed Tidal and upgraded MC to .30.  I am using dirac as my default sound output to my DAC.  I may not be doing this correctly, but how can I get Tidal to play through MC if I cannot make the WDM my default sound source(Dirac is)?    Any help would be appreciated, as I am a newbie at some of this.
You make the WDM driver your default, and configure Media Center to output to the Dirac driver.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Phil LD on November 01, 2014, 11:14:14 am
Hi, I'm Phil from Lossless Digital. We are currently developing lossless.com. And we are devoted to integrate it with JRiver as we possibly can't do audio handling on Windows any better than JRiver does. The service though is still in development and not open to the public yet. If you are interested you can sign up to be notified when it will be.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: soarsz on November 01, 2014, 01:11:55 pm
how does one make the WDM driver the default driver?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on November 01, 2014, 04:03:54 pm
You set it in Windows.  Please read the first post of the WDM thread.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: WeatherB on November 02, 2014, 09:51:57 pm
6233638:

Thank you. Works like a charm now!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: djwobbrock on November 11, 2014, 02:13:49 am
I have been running Tidal for the last 5 days, and I was getting stuttering using WDM driver through MC20.27.  The stuttering was in the first 5 seconds of every song.  I increased buffer size incrementally to test, from 100, to 250 and eventually 500, this lost the stuttering in the first 5 seconds, but I still had random blips throughout the track.  I had Tidal set to the MC20 WDM driver.  When I set Tidal to use the IFI HD USB ASIO driver, the playback is smooth throughout the track.  I have experimented with the for the last two days, and have resigned myself to using Tidal without any of the sound improvements that may be offered using MC20 w/WDM drivers.  Problem seems to have something to do with buffering through MC20.  Too bad I already did the upgrade to MC20, which was done solely to us it with the Tidal streaming service.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on November 11, 2014, 02:21:25 am
I have been running Tidal for the last 5 days, and I was getting stuttering using WDM driver through MC20.27.  The stuttering was in the first 5 seconds of every song.  I increased buffer size incrementally to test, from 100, to 250 and eventually 500, this lost the stuttering in the first 5 seconds, but I still had random blips throughout the track.
I only had the stuttering at the beginning of the track, but no buffer size got rid of the initial stuttering when going through the WDM driver. I abandoned it and resorted to using Loopback instead.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: djwobbrock on November 11, 2014, 02:25:26 am
I contacted Tidal Support, and supposedly they fixed any stuttering/dropouts over last weekend.  I did lose the stuttering in the first 5 seconds today, but couldn't remove the intermittent blips with any buffer settings.  So much for MC20 and WDM!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: djwobbrock on November 11, 2014, 02:33:15 am
I only had the stuttering at the beginning of the track, but no buffer size got rid of the initial stuttering when going through the WDM driver. I abandoned it and resorted to using Loopback instead.

Does Loopback play through MC?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on November 11, 2014, 02:46:33 am
Does Loopback play through MC?
Yes, but it's manually activated rather than automatic, and you need a "spare" sound device.
 
I use the on-board audio on my PC which is not connected to anything.
Play music to that, then in Media Center use File → Open Live to activate loopback, which captures audio going to your default Windows sound device, and plays it through the current MC output.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on November 11, 2014, 06:05:14 am
Did you try a very small buffer?

From the instructions:
Quote
You may need to adjust the buffer size down in Options > Audio > Device settings.  I used 10ms.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on November 11, 2014, 06:28:30 am
Did you try a very small buffer?
Yes, I tried all combinations of device buffer sizes and latency.
I think the issue is that the Tidal app breaks the connection to the device on track change, and the WDM driver stutters when initializing.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: djwobbrock on November 11, 2014, 07:57:21 am
Did you try a very small buffer?

From the instructions:

I just tried the quality setting in Tidal, from HIFI 1440bps, tried High quality, still got stuttering, when I went to Normal, no stuttering, playback was smooth, but the sound was sucked out because of a lower bitrate.  The purpose of Tidal streaming is of course CD Quality 1440bps!

So where do we go from here?  Is it the WDM driver, or MC20 causing this!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: bob on November 11, 2014, 02:46:51 pm
I just tried the quality setting in Tidal, from HIFI 1440bps, tried High quality, still got stuttering, when I went to Normal, no stuttering, playback was smooth, but the sound was sucked out because of a lower bitrate.  The purpose of Tidal streaming is of course CD Quality 1440bps!

So where do we go from here?  Is it the WDM driver, or MC20 causing this!
More likely internet latency...

Try setting the
Tools->Options->Audio->Advanced->Live Playback Latency
to 500ms
also perhaps
Tools->Options->Audio->Audio Device->Device Settings->Buffering
to .50 seconds or so.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on November 11, 2014, 02:49:37 pm
... tried High quality, still got stuttering, when I went to Normal, no stuttering, playback was smooth,
That could be just not enough Internet bandwidth available or heavy usage of Tidal servers.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: djwobbrock on November 11, 2014, 03:38:38 pm
More likely internet latency...

Try setting the
Tools->Options->Audio->Advanced->Live Playback Latency
to 500ms
also perhaps
Tools->Options->Audio->Audio Device->Device Settings->Buffering
to .50 seconds or so.


I get no skipping or stuttering with MC20 and the IFI HD USB Asio driver, only get skipping and stuttering when using MC20 and WDM driver.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: djwobbrock on November 11, 2014, 03:40:04 pm
That could be just not enough Internet bandwidth available or heavy usage of Tidal servers.

60mbps is not enough bandwidth?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: bob on November 11, 2014, 04:09:23 pm
60mbps is not enough bandwidth?
I said latency.
Did you try the suggestion?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: djwobbrock on November 12, 2014, 04:15:35 am
I said latency.
Did you try the suggestion?


Yes tried that for sure!  I downloaded the newest IFI ASIO driver V2.20 that has a custom ASIO Control Panel, more latency and buffering settings, Control Panel can be left open, and adjusted when playback is stopped.  All of the ASIO settings have stuttering either in the start of the track, or intermittently at random during playback.  Currently using IFI USB HD Audio (Wasapi), with default setting, 100ms buffering and playback latency at 50ms, with no problems so far!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Trumpetguy on November 12, 2014, 01:43:40 pm
I just tried the quality setting in Tidal, from HIFI 1440bps, tried High quality, still got stuttering, when I went to Normal, no stuttering, playback was smooth, but the sound was sucked out because of a lower bitrate.  The purpose of Tidal streaming is of course CD Quality 1440bps!

So where do we go from here?  Is it the WDM driver, or MC20 causing this!

I get the same thing. With Spotify (320kbps), no stuttering the first seconds and no audible skips during playback. With Wimp HIFI (which is the same as Tidal lossless), I do get these artifacts. I thought that was linked to the higher bandwidth needed, but I have no idea where the bottleneck is. I usually have 9ms ping time and at least a 50/50 Mbps fibre speed. Maybe the Tidal servers are over-loaded?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on November 12, 2014, 01:51:27 pm
Maybe the Tidal servers are over-loaded?
That would be my guess.  You might try their forum to see what others are saying.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Trumpetguy on November 17, 2014, 04:11:00 am
I was using Spotify with 320kbps stream yesterday, and no stuttering during 2 hours listening and skipping a lot between tracks.
I'm starting to think the problem with Tidal/Wimp HIFI is linked to how these applications buffer before playback starts. I have noticed that buffering often, if not always, buffers for several seconds. Sometimes (e.g. at work, where Internet connections have a ping time of >350ms) buffering goes on for 20, maybe more seconds.

If this happens on every track, no wonder the 10s WDM buffer (is that the right term?) will not work. It was recently increased from 5 to 10s. Maybe a 1min or more buffer can solve the problem? Can some user configuration be made possible in a build so that we at least can try it?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on November 17, 2014, 08:58:39 am
There are two issues really.
 
1. Tidal seems to break the connection to the device when changing tracks.
2. JRiver's WDM driver stutters when initializing.
 
 
The two combined means that you get stuttering every time the track changes, rather than only at the beginning of playback.
If #2 were fixed, #1 would no longer be an issue.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on November 19, 2014, 10:42:17 am
I contacted Tidal Support, and supposedly they fixed any stuttering/dropouts over last weekend.  I did lose the stuttering in the first 5 seconds today, but couldn't remove the intermittent blips with any buffer settings.  So much for MC20 and WDM!
There is a thread on this problem (Tidal, not JRiver) over on computeraudiophile (http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f22-networking-networked-audio-and-streaming/official-tidal-hifi-streaming-issues-thread-22260/).
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 1966 Triumph on January 29, 2015, 02:12:14 am
Hi guys, I'm glad I found this thread as I am considering Tidal and want it to play through JRiver if possible as well. 

Anyways, I have JRiver MC 20.0.62 and when I go into my Windows 8.1 PC under >Control Panel >Sound I don't see anything that says "WDM".  I do see "JRiver Media Center 20" though and can set that as a default playback option.

I have 2 questions please:

1. Are "WDM" and "JRiver Media Center 20" one and the same or am I either looking in the wrong place or missing the "WDM" driver altogether?

2. I have a McIntosh D100 DAC that is connected to my PC via USB and under >Control Panel >Sounds I have the "McIntosh USB Audio" selected as the default playback device option ~ is that correct or should it be "JRiver Media Center 20" instead?

Thanks in advance for the feedback I just wanted to make sure I am getting the most out of it.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Lespaul on January 29, 2015, 02:53:56 am
Yes, "JRiver Media Center 20" is the WDM driver.

Here is how you should setup the outputs:

1. In Tidal, select "JRiver Media Center 20" as the output device.
2. In MC, set your McIntosh as the output device.

This way, all music in Tidal will play through MC and output to your DAC.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 1966 Triumph on January 30, 2015, 01:41:30 am
Yes, "JRiver Media Center 20" is the WDM driver.

Here is how you should setup the outputs:

1. In Tidal, select "JRiver Media Center 20" as the output device.
2. In MC, set your McIntosh as the output device.

This way, all music in Tidal will play through MC and output to your DAC.


Ok, so Tidal is set to "JRiver Media Center 20" and in MC is set to the "McIntosh ASIO",

So my last question would be ...

What about in Windows >Control Panel>Sound ... it is currently set to the "McIntosh USB" as the default output device.  Do I leave it set like that or do I set "JRiver Media Center 20" as the default output device there as well?

Also, I just wanted to say thanks for the pointers above!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Lespaul on January 30, 2015, 02:56:19 am
If you set output in MC to "Default Audio Device", it will use whatever device you have selected in Windows.
In this case that device needs to be "JRiver Media Center 20" so all audio gets played through MC. If you do it like this you can leave Tidal output device to default.

In any case, if you specify an output other than "Default Audio Device" in MC, it will ignore any setting you have set in Windows.

You can have both MC and Windows set to McIntosh as long as you don`t have "Open device with exclusive access" checked in MC.
If you do, MC will prevent any other sources from accessing its output, so no sound except what you are playing in MC.

"Open device with exclusive access" can provide better quality as it will bypass the windows mixer.

(Edited response based on feedback from natehansen66)
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: natehansen66 on January 30, 2015, 05:13:24 am
Lepaul - Triumph wants his Tidal audio routed thru JRiver (if I understand correctly), so suggesting he sets the audio device in MC to the default, and the Windows device to his Mac is wrong. The Windows device needs to be set as the JRiver audio device.........the same device chosen in Tidal. MC needs to be set for the actual DAC/output device.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Lespaul on January 30, 2015, 06:30:02 am
natehansen66, you are right of course, will edit answer:)
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: natehansen66 on January 31, 2015, 08:55:27 am
lol I was thinking you just had that backwards. I was thinking maybe I just hadn't had enough coffee  ;)
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: kstuart on January 31, 2015, 02:46:24 pm
Insightful article on Tidal:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2015/01/30/15-reasons-never-ever-buy-streaming-service
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 1966 Triumph on February 02, 2015, 02:18:51 am
Lepaul - Triumph wants his Tidal audio routed thru JRiver (if I understand correctly), so suggesting he sets the audio device in MC to the default, and the Windows device to his Mac is wrong. The Windows device needs to be set as the JRiver audio device.........the same device chosen in Tidal. MC needs to be set for the actual DAC/output device.

natehansen66, you are right of course, will edit answer:)

Thank you both for your help, truly appreciated!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Lespaul on February 02, 2015, 03:08:08 am
Insightful article on Tidal:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2015/01/30/15-reasons-never-ever-buy-streaming-service


Very good points there. I think they will struggle to stay afloat, but I really hope they manage to stick around. Competition is always a good thing.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on February 02, 2015, 03:10:56 am
Yeah, it went really poorly for Beats when Apple bought them up for $3B. ::)
I'm sure that Jay Z is expecting that Google/Microsoft will be interested in a similar deal for Tidal in the near future.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: flyfish2002 on February 04, 2015, 09:16:25 am
Hi.

Long-time MC user.  I just installed MC 20 on a music-dedicated laptop in my home office:  Windows 7; 4GB RAM; 128 GB SSD for OS only.  All music is FLAC on a NAS. 

I am also a TIDAL subscriber, so I selected MC as the default sound device for the laptop and selected MC 20 in TIDAL.

I am getting quite a few pops/drop-outs/tics while playing TIDAL thru MC 20 both at start and during track playback.  When using MC 20 and the FLAC files on NAS, no issues.  When playing TIDAL to my DAC, no issues.  Only have issues when I run TIDAL thru MC 20. 

I have adjusted latency and pre-buffering to a variety of combinations to no avail.  As I write this, I am working from my home office and there is no one else at home to compete for bandwidth.  I have a large "pipe" into the house via AT&T U-Verse and a gigabit network.  For music, all cabling is CAT6a shielded - no wireless.   

Given this is a home office head phone set-up, the sound is much preferable using MC 20 due to the features and adjusts I can make.   

Any advice?

Brent
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Matt on February 04, 2015, 09:35:32 am
Hi.

Long-time MC user.  I just installed MC 20 on a music-dedicated laptop in my home office:  Windows 7; 4GB RAM; 128 GB SSD for OS only.  All music is FLAC on a NAS. 

I am also a TIDAL subscriber, so I selected MC as the default sound device for the laptop and selected MC 20 in TIDAL.

I am getting quite a few pops/drop-outs/tics while playing TIDAL thru MC 20 both at start and during track playback.  When using MC 20 and the FLAC files on NAS, no issues.  When playing TIDAL to my DAC, no issues.  Only have issues when I run TIDAL thru MC 20. 

I have adjusted latency and pre-buffering to a variety of combinations to no avail.  As I write this, I am working from my home office and there is no one else at home to compete for bandwidth.  I have a large "pipe" into the house via AT&T U-Verse and a gigabit network.  For music, all cabling is CAT6a shielded - no wireless.   

Given this is a home office head phone set-up, the sound is much preferable using MC 20 due to the features and adjusts I can make.   

Any advice?

Brent


Set Options > Audio > Advanced > Live playback latency to 500 milliseconds.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: flyfish2002 on February 04, 2015, 10:50:54 am
Live Playback Latency is 500
Pre-buffering is 4
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: flyfish2002 on February 04, 2015, 11:24:45 am
These settings seem to do the trick....I had the latency at 500, but the pre-buffering at 10.  Dropped pre-buffering to 2 and kept latency at 500 - no pops/drops/tics.

Thank you.

Brent
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Trumpetguy on February 04, 2015, 12:58:55 pm
Just a notification to Tidal/Wimp users about a current, known Wimp PC app bug (which I would expect is also a Tidal bug):

If you set "JRiver Media Center 20" as playback device in Wimp (not Windows default audio device) AND "JRiver Media Center 20" is not your default Windows audio device, MC will not pick up the audio from certain tracks. This is not an MC issue. According to Wimp technical support, the PC app will look like it is playing but not make any sound when you have that particular audio device setting, specified HIFI quality playback and the track being played back is currently not available in HIFI quality (where wimp will the silently try and play a lossy version of that track).

The workaround from tech support is to set JRiver Media Center 20 as default audio device and specify the default device in the Wimp app. Which is not a good solution on computers that - for some reason - wants to reserve the default device for other purposes (e.g. USB headset on your office workstation).

Alternatively - simply skip that album until it is available in HIFI. The annoying part is that there is no way to know in advance whether a track is available as HIFI or not, you will have to try.

And this might not be an issue with Tidal at all....
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Acesn8s on February 18, 2015, 10:16:28 am
These settings seem to do the trick....I had the latency at 500, but the pre-buffering at 10.  Dropped pre-buffering to 2 and kept latency at 500 - no pops/drops/tics.

Thank you.

Brent

No matter which latency and pre-buffer settings I use...including these...I continue to hear a brief stutter at the beginning of a tune and periodic scratches.
This only occurs using Tidal through JRiver 20.70; no problems playing Spotify, Pandora, etc through WMD and no problems playing Tidal bypassing JRiver and going directly to my Teac UD-501.
Resampling Tidal to 352kHz sounds more resolving than the TEAC's standard 192kHz, but the stutters and scratches make this unacceptable.

Any more solutions, then?

Thanks!





Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: 6233638 on February 18, 2015, 11:42:27 am
No matter which latency and pre-buffer settings I use...including these...I continue to hear a brief stutter at the beginning of a tune and periodic scratches.
This only occurs using Tidal through JRiver 20.70; no problems playing Spotify, Pandora, etc through WMD and no problems playing Tidal bypassing JRiver and going directly to my Teac UD-501.
I think the issue with the stutter at the start of each track is that Tidal is actually stopping and re-opening the device every time the track changes - and the WDM driver always stutters when it starts.
So it's an issue with the WDM driver that Tidal exacerbates due to the way it handles playback.
 
I've never been able to get the WDM driver to have smooth playback without any pops/clicks. (buffer underruns I'd guess)
I hadn't used the WDM driver for a while and ended up using it to test something else a couple of days ago (unrelated to Tidal at all) and it was still giving me random pops/clicks during playback no matter the buffer sizes/latency in use.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: flyfish2002 on February 18, 2015, 12:06:24 pm
With the changes from this thread, my pops & stutters are very minimal - often a complete listening session without any issues.  I can live with this...

My one issue is when I run TIDAL thru MC 20 and control via Gizmo on Android tablet, no track info or picture shows up.  I am limited to starting, stopping and pausing.

Is this the current normal as we work thru this?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Micromecca on February 18, 2015, 12:44:06 pm
I found I could switch to the Chromium engine which is the core of Chrome.  With this it will go to the player page and you can make a player selection.  But when you push play it goes to an error screen saying it lacks Adobe Flashplayer and you can go no further.

Install the flash player for Chromium from Here (http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/)
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: mojave on February 18, 2015, 01:44:59 pm
After having some pops/clicks during Tidal playback I allocated the processor resources for best performance of background services. Until I did this, I still had issues even with Live Playback Latency at 500 ms.  I now have perfect playback and use the following buffers:
Tools > Options > Audio > Advanced > Live Playback Latency > Minimum
Tools > Options > Audio > Audio Device > Device Settings > Buffering > Minimum Hardware Size (on work PC) and 10 ms (on home HTPC)

Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Acesn8s on February 19, 2015, 09:08:40 am
After having some pops/clicks during Tidal playback I allocated the processor resources for best performance of background services. Until I did this, I still had issues even with Live Playback Latency at 500 ms.  I now have perfect playback and use the following buffers:
Tools > Options > Audio > Advanced > Live Playback Latency > Minimum
Tools > Options > Audio > Audio Device > Device Settings > Buffering > Minimum Hardware Size (on work PC) and 10 ms (on home HTPC)



Much appreciate the advice, but no solution yet for me.

I run a dedicated recent Dell laptop with the unfortunate Windows 8.1 as the hub in my main audio system, retrieving ripped music from an external hard drive and streaming Tidal, Sirius-XM, Spotify and more into a TEAC UD-501 hi-rez DAC, then on to a hybrid integrated amp and either full resolution floorstanders or a headphone amp and various cans.

The TEAC can handle most anything JRiver can resample, but alone it will upsample only to 24/192kHz. The point, for me, of WDM as the "Holy Grail" is to resample the highest quality stream I can obtain, which is Tidal, to at least 352kHz.

I have followed every proposed cure on this thread; none removes all the stutters and scratches from WDM, which do not occur when I bypass JRiver.

Perhaps the management can address what appears to be an inherent  incompatibility between Tidal and MC 20.

Note: JRiver literally changed the way I listen to music, which is why this ongoing glitch is so frustrating.

Thanks!

Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: mojave on February 19, 2015, 11:07:24 am
Are you playing Tidal through the web browser or through their application? I'm using the application. Have you increased the Tidal Album Cache Size? I set mine to 1000 MB and have verified that entire songs are downloaded. I can disconnect my network access and playback continues just fine.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Acesn8s on February 20, 2015, 07:56:19 am
Are you playing Tidal through the web browser or through their application? I'm using the application. Have you increased the Tidal Album Cache Size? I set mine to 1000 MB and have verified that entire songs are downloaded. I can disconnect my network access and playback continues just fine.

Playing through Tidal app; reset cache size per your suggestion.

No improvement, but thanks.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Acesn8s on February 24, 2015, 08:23:43 am
Here is a form response from TIDAL, providing no solution:


Hello,

Thank you for contacting TIDAL customer support.

At this time TIDAL is not a partner with JRiver and our products are not officially supported. We are aware that there is a workaround to get TIDAL to stream on JRiver. Please check our regularly updated list of hardware and partner companies to see when a JRiver partnership is announced with TIDAL.

https://tidalsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201724751-Which-Home-Audio-Players-Partner-Companies-will-TIDAL-be-available-on-

Best Regards,

Colin
TIDAL Support
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on February 24, 2015, 08:39:20 am
Gee, that's encouraging.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: mattu123 on March 12, 2015, 09:27:07 am
Has anyone tried Bubble UPNP's integration with Tidal?  I'd need to resurrect an android device - otherwise would just try it out.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Matt on March 12, 2015, 09:40:46 am
We're in the early stages of an integration with Tidal.  However, all their songs return no playback URL and they haven't been able to help us figure out why.  So we're stalled for the time being.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Arindelle on March 17, 2015, 10:53:24 am
Tidal just released in France and have a 30 day free trial so I'm testing. For some reason the desktop software is not connecting with the server. Anybody else had that issue? The web browser does stream in Flac, as do my phone and tablet. Not sure I like there UI as much as Qobuz or Spotify but whatever ...

Also for info, through their web (browser player) I have had no issues using the wdm driver at all ... just plug and play (using live latency @10 ms and buffer at 50 ms in an audio only streaming zone. Am using JRIver as renderer, though. Are you people using DLNA renderers maybe?
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: demoleon on March 17, 2015, 07:16:19 pm
Has anyone tried Bubble UPNP's integration with Tidal?  I'd need to resurrect an android device - otherwise would just try it out.

I have been using BubbleUPnP for playing both my JRiver library and Tidal music (and my Google Play Music account.)  So far it works great.  I can use my Android tablet to browse Tidal and play to a JRiver zone.  It is nice to have one app to play my JRiver library, Google and Tidal.  Looking forward to trying the new Android Gizmo but not sure I'll switch from BubbleUPnP as it is so convenient to just use one app.

John
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: AndyU on March 18, 2015, 04:30:00 am
We're in the early stages of an integration with Tidal.  However, all their songs return no playback URL and they haven't been able to help us figure out why.  So we're stalled for the time being.

Good news. Thanks for giving it a shot. 
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: holzmann on March 20, 2015, 09:37:17 am
I just registered to bump this. JRiver was made to put all of our music in one place and let us hear it better than ever. TIDAL is the streaming future IMO (forget Pandora and Spotify as yesterday's news) and I bet that discerning audiophiles who like JRiver also like TIDAL and vice-versa. A lot of customer commonality! I can only urge JRiver and Tidal to become official partners, work together, and get TIDAL to work seamlessly through JRiver MC.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on March 20, 2015, 09:59:00 am
Anyone who wants Tidal should bug Tidal about it.  We've spent a lot of time working on it, even had some help from Tidal, but it appears that their interface doesn't work in the U.S.  They seem puzzled by this.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Arindelle on March 20, 2015, 11:06:21 am
Anyone who wants Tidal should bug Tidal about it.  We've spent a lot of time working on it, even had some help from Tidal, but it appears that their interface doesn't work in the U.S.  They seem puzzled by this.

I have one of those 30 day trial going (from France) -- their desktop app wasn't working; wrote a ticket and they debugged/updated it today. The web browser worked right away. What is different about US internet from european internet?! seems weird; maybe a different interface or client app? just for the US? Otherwise try again with the modified desktop client -- with the time lag it, if it is not different, you should have it today in the US.

Here's a screen shot ...

(http://i.imgur.com/D51QvVR.png)

(very spartan the Tidal config UI, but JRiver driver shows up --- Qobuz has much more fine tuning capabilities like buffer and latency

I'm wondering if it has something to do with device configuration. Try WASAPI generic out from the realtek (or other mobo out) bit-depth on automatic - avoiding ASIO or special bit-depth configurations; no convolution filters etc. just to rule somethings out empirically?

euh not meaning to patronize guys but just in case for new users, remember that the JRiver UI or at least the media server has to be running, otherwise there will be no sound as the default device set in WIndows is the JRiver 20 driver

I'm far from an expert on these things, but I have set up separate audio zones in over 10 peoples computers here for Qobuz and Tidal and no issues once the output was WASPI  (a special driver using ASIO for PSAudio DAC didn't work, but the realtek using WASAPI on automatic did for the same DAC). Seems pretty strange that they would have different set-ups in geographically.

Only one person I know had problems that I couldn' sort, but he has a home-made digital preamp, 4-way monoblocks, lots of cross over filters etc. Take with a grain of salt, but
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: mojave on March 20, 2015, 11:30:30 am
I have one of those 30 day trial going (from France) -- their desktop app wasn't working; wrote a ticket and they debugged/updated it today. The web browser worked right away. What is different about US internet from european internet?! seems weird; maybe a different interface or client app? just for the US? Otherwise try again with the modified desktop client -- with the time lag it, if it is not different, you should have it today in the US.
Jim is talking about integrating Tidal within JRiver. Direct access to the files and browsing them just like you do the rest of your library. Even having a playlist which includes some local files and some Tidal files.

The Tidal app works perfectly fine in the US with the WDM driver.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Arindelle on March 20, 2015, 11:32:49 am
Jim is talking about integrating Tidal within JRiver. Direct access to the files and browsing them just like you do the rest of your library. Even having a playlist which includes some local files and some Tidal files.

The Tidal app works perfectly fine in the US with the WDM driver.
ah ok thanks for the clarification :)
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Matt on April 06, 2015, 03:32:41 pm
We got the playback URLs working today!

I think we'll have a 'Play Tidal Radio...' feature in a coming build that plays the top tracks from the entered (or selected) artist.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Awesome Donkey on April 06, 2015, 06:47:53 pm
Great news! Good work guys!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: mojave on April 06, 2015, 07:13:41 pm
Awesome!
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on April 06, 2015, 08:00:25 pm
It's not done yet.  Tidal's representative now says we need to get their approval before we can release anything.  It doesn't seem worth the trouble.
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: Trumpetguy on April 07, 2015, 06:11:19 am
From a MC user's perspective, it is  ;)
Title: Re: Tidal Music Service via JRiver?
Post by: JimH on April 07, 2015, 08:49:51 am
There will be no Tidal Music in MC.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=96774.msg667641#msg667641