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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 19 for Windows => Topic started by: JH on April 04, 2014, 08:54:03 am

Title: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: JH on April 04, 2014, 08:54:03 am
Sound goes through DAC and speakers. But once I start JRiver, only music played through JRiver goes through DAC and speakers and nothing else (e.g., music from YouTube) does. Does JRiver become the only source for sound once it starts? All other sound goes to the dinky little laptop speaker. When "exclusive mode" is unchecked (within Win 7 control panel - properties) JRiver refuses to play? How do I change this?
Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: Hendrik on April 04, 2014, 09:40:54 am
You have MC configured to use exclusive mode, which requires it to be the only output device available.
If you want your other PC audio to be used in parallel to Media Center, the easiest solution is to go into Options -> Audio, and under Audio Device (at the top), select a device with the "Direct Sound" tag behind its name.

Direct Sound is the most flexible way to handle shared audio, and won't need any special setup.
You could also use WASAPI, but it'll need quite a bit more special configuration, and without exclusive mode the advantage of WASAPI isn't really there anymore, anyway.
Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: JH on April 04, 2014, 10:31:01 am
Thank you. Selecting "direct sound" instead of selecting the choice with my DAC+WASAPI solved the problem. But I am wondering what I am losing by not selecting my DAC+WASAPI.
Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: AndrewFG on April 04, 2014, 10:54:48 am
But I am wondering what I am losing by not selecting my DAC+WASAPI.

You will be losing audio transparency and resolution (dynamic range). This is because Windows is mixing the "clean" audio samples from MC together with audio samples from all other applications, and it is scaling the various inputs and outputs according to the Windows master volume control settings.

Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: Otello on April 04, 2014, 11:08:52 am
What about disabling "ASIO Driver" in Options/General/Features?

This way JR should release the device when you click on Stop even in exclusive mode.
Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: JH on April 04, 2014, 11:31:39 am
I have changed back to DAC+WASAPI. I have found that clicking STOP allows me to play other sound through the DAC but PAUSE does not. It works but it is inconvenient because I can't go back to where I was after stopping (although not as bad as reloading a blu-ray disc).

Otello: I am not sure what "ASIO Driver" thing is as I am not technically well-versed. I guess I can experiment. Will it have any down side?
Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: glynor on April 04, 2014, 12:54:37 pm
I have found that clicking STOP allows me to play other sound through by DAC but PAUSE does not. It works but it is inconvenient because I can't go back to where I was after stopping (although not as bad as reloading a blu-ray disc).

That is correct.  Pause is effectively the same thing as playing silence.  When pause is activated, MC keeps its "lock" on the sound device.

However....

The latter thing doesn't make sense.  MC has a very nice auto-resume feature, which works pretty much brilliantly to start video back up right where you left off.  It is off by default for short files and audio files, but you can turn it on (either globally or on a file-by-file basis).

Please refer to:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Bookmarking

And ask if you have further questions.

Also...

Otello: I am not sure what "ASIO Driver" thing is as I am not technically well-versed. I guess I can experiment. Will it have any down side?

This isn't relevant (I think he thought something else was going on), and can be ignored.  What you are seeing is non-buggy and expected behavior.
Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: JH on April 04, 2014, 02:14:43 pm
The bookmark feature doesn't seem to work for music files. "Resume playback using bookmarks" is set to Automatic. I think it is the default setting as I didn't do anything to set it to Automatic.

I can see that the bookmark feature is useful for long videos, but I only use MC to play music files. Normally, when you stop a 4-5 minute music file in the middle (although I usually listen to longer classical music), it's not a big deal if you don't remember exactly where you stopped the music. But this morning I was listening to an album (with 13 songs) for the first time and I wanted to go to YouTube to listen to some related music in the middle of listening to the album. But I heard nothing when I played a YouTube video, hence my original question about no sound. I stopped (not paused) MC, went to YouTube, and came back to MC but MC always went to the first song of the album.
Title: Re: No sound other than music played through JRiver
Post by: MrC on April 04, 2014, 02:17:49 pm
Bookmarking works for audio; however, the "Automatic" mode means Disabled for audio.  You have to specifically set Use Bookmarking to Yes for audio files.