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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 26 for Windows => Topic started by: janneviberg on September 01, 2020, 03:29:26 am

Title: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: janneviberg on September 01, 2020, 03:29:26 am
Hi there!

I've been using MC19 for a number of years running Windows 8.1 on a CAPS-server and it has worked just fine. Bought MC26 lately and installed it on my new laptop (Windows 10, I7 cpu) and that worked fine as well.

Last week I bought a new DAC that supports DSD-playback (Yulong DA8 II) and connected it to my laptop using Yulong's ASIO driver and started to play some DSD-files. It sounded fine for about 10 seconds, then it stopped. Had to restart MC26 again and retried; it played for 31 seconds then stopped again. Retried and retried and at some point it managed to play the entire song, 1min30sec. Tried to use WASAPI driver instead but the same problem occured.

Switched to my CAPS-server and connected it to the DAC. Exactly the same problem, MC stops after a while and I have to restart it to play again.
This morning MC19 on the CAPS-pc managed to play an entire playlist (4 songs only) twice before it stopped in the middle of  a song...

This only happens with DSD-playback. Hi-Res flac-files etc plays fine.

Any idea how to solve this?

Thanks,
Janne
 
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: Awesome Donkey on September 01, 2020, 04:06:10 am
Are you connected to the DAC via USB? If so, is DSD bitsteaming enabled?
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: janneviberg on September 01, 2020, 05:20:27 am
Hi there!

Yes, it's enabled.

And the music source is a local disk on the pc so no network involved.

Any other idea? Funny I get the exact behaviour on both computers with different MC-versions...
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: Awesome Donkey on September 01, 2020, 06:27:21 am
Are you using the 64-bit build of Media Center 26 for Windows? If so, you might try the 32-bit build instead (as Media Center 19 is 32-bit only). Sometimes 64-bit ASIO drivers aren't available or they don't work correctly thus it might be a good idea to see if it might work correctly with the 32-bit build of Media Center instead.
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: dtc on September 01, 2020, 08:17:34 am
The Windows 10 driver v 1062 is for both 32 and 64 bit systems according to their website. Do you have the latest driver?

You need ASIO for native sample rate DSD, but WASAPI will handle DSD with DoP. I do not see anything on their website about DOP, but it is worth a try.
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: janneviberg on September 01, 2020, 09:10:02 am
Thanks for your suggestions!

I'll check both my driver version and if the 32-bit version behaves differently!

Thanks,
Janne
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: janneviberg on September 02, 2020, 02:26:58 am
Didn't get to test the different versions yesterday but tried to play some new files on my "older" pc (MC 19 + Windows 8.1). Unfortunately the music stopped quite often and I noticed:

1. When starting to play you obviously press the Play button in MC. The icon of that button changes to "pause" when MC starts to play.
2. When the music suddenly stops the "pause" icon is still active and none of the buttons can be used until Stop is pressed. Trying to click another song in the playlist doesn't work either.
3. After it's stopped I can press Play again and the music plays for sometimes 10 seconds, sometimes 2-10 minutes before it just stops again.

When it plays it sounds really great!

Any clues?


Thanks,
Janne
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: janneviberg on September 02, 2020, 02:35:24 pm
Hmm, another thought came up. Could it be that my "music-pc" isn't powerful enough?
It's an Intel Atom N2800 1.8 mhz cpu w 4 gb of ram installed running Windows 8.1.

Right now MC19 has managed to play 5 songs in a row without stopping. All of them dsd64. Yesterday when it stopped "all the time" I only had dsd128 files to try with.

Any thoughts? I would really like it to handle 128s as well. Thought this could point to a too slow pc rather than problems with MC and/or ASIO driver to my new DAC...
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: dtc on September 02, 2020, 03:39:28 pm
DSD does not take a lot of CPU as long as you are not converting it to PCM.  I just retired a 2009 Atom Netbook with a JMark of 450 and it did 1x and 2x DSD, as long as you are using a local drive. You might want to play with the audio buffers to see if that makes any difference.
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: janneviberg on September 03, 2020, 03:15:21 am
I'll try that!

I'm actually playing from a NAS.

Thanks,
Janne
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: janneviberg on September 07, 2020, 03:36:09 am
Hi there!

Now it finally seems to work! I can play DSD128-files  without (almost) any problems :)

The solution was to install an older ASIO-driver from Yulong; 1057 instead of 1062.

Thanks for all tips;
Janne
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: dtc on September 07, 2020, 07:37:11 am
Good news. Usually new drivers work, but I have had the same experience of having to roll back. Glad it is working. Enjoy the music.
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems [Solved]
Post by: janneviberg on September 07, 2020, 08:46:01 am
Hi again!

Unfortunately I was a bit too quick in my previous mail... Playing still stops with DSD128; DSD64 is OK.

Maybe the older ASIO-driver made it possible to play a little longer before the unwanted stop but it still stops :-(

I'm out of ideas now...

//Janne

Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems [Solved]
Post by: dtc on September 07, 2020, 09:05:50 am
Does Wasapi work?
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems [Solved]
Post by: janneviberg on September 08, 2020, 02:20:08 am
No, same problem. Yesterday I tried to play (using ASIO) from a playlist with 10 DSD64 songs followed by the same songs in DSD128. It played fine until the 5th second of the 12th song where it just stopped. Pause-icon still active in MC so it looked as if it was still playing but nothing happened. BUT, it had played one DSD128 correctly; i.e. song #11...
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: JimH on September 08, 2020, 08:19:35 am
Unfortunately I was a bit too quick in my previous mail... Playing still stops with DSD128; DSD64 is OK.
This suggests that the limitation is either bandwidth or CPU.

Is it connected with USB 3.0?
Title: Re: MC19 + MC26 dsd playback problems
Post by: dtc on September 09, 2020, 11:09:04 am
Hard to know what is going on. I would try changing pre-buffering and play silence at startup.  You can also try playing from memory.  And place the 2x DSD tracks on an internal drive.  Is there anything else running? What is the CPU usage?