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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 26 for Windows => Topic started by: Matt on November 19, 2019, 11:25:41 am

Title: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Matt on November 19, 2019, 11:25:41 am
Coming next build of Media Center 26, we'll have an optional waveform of the playing file for the position slider.

It was from this thread:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,119384.0.html

Here's a screenshot:
(http://files.jriver.com/temp/Playerbar.png)

Instructions
You'll need to analyze the files again to have the "Waveform" populate (I didn't make it re-analyze everything automatically).

You turn the feature on by right-clicking in the player.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Moe on November 19, 2019, 12:07:48 pm
Very cool.

Are the colors customizable via the skin?
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Matt on November 19, 2019, 12:13:03 pm
Very cool.

Are the colors customizable via the skin?

Not currently, but it would be a nice addition.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Hendrik on November 19, 2019, 12:13:26 pm
The default color could definitely need some work, too. It should probably stay in grey-tones like everything else up there. Skinnable colors would be mandatory, imho.
Also, the waveform could perhaps use a bit of smoothing? It doesn't look that good.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Matt on November 19, 2019, 12:32:04 pm
Coming next build as well:
Changed: Made the waveform colors customizable in the skin (WaveformBarA / WaveformBarB in PLAYERBAR / Display).

I only specified colors for the default skin and Noire, but we can build on it.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Moe on November 19, 2019, 01:04:11 pm
Quote
Changed: Made the waveform colors customizable in the skin (WaveformBarA / WaveformBarB in PLAYERBAR / Display).

Excellent addition, thanks Matt.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: kr4 on November 19, 2019, 03:06:07 pm
Coming next build of Media Center 26, we'll have an optional waveform of the playing file for the position slider.

You'll need to analyze the files again to have the "Waveform" populate..................................
Ugh. That's off-putting.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Awesome Donkey on November 19, 2019, 03:31:35 pm
Yeah, I started to notice Waveform tags being written when doing audio analysis a couple weeks ago. In my case I had to disallow it to write the tags to files (due to the large amount of files I have, and my manual mirroring/backup setup would be "uneven", so to speak), but it keeps them in MC's database it looks like, which is fine with me.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: mattkhan on November 19, 2019, 03:52:33 pm
Is the waveform a live view of the waveform or does it just display a snapshot based on the content in the source material?

This would be a nice addition to the analyser if it were a live view (and if the analyser allowed for zooming/scrolling/selecting channels to inspect) as then you could see the impact of filters on the waveform itself. I do this offline atm (plug alert: via https://beqdesigner.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ui/waveform/) but it would be a great/convenient feature to have something like this in MC.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: dtc on November 20, 2019, 02:31:47 pm


You'll need to analyze the files again to have the "Waveform" populate (I didn't make it re-analyze everything automatically because I could hear the dread already!).



HDCD required all files to be re-analyzed, including those that had already been analyzed for R128 and other volume characteristics. Now, it seems that both the volume and the HDCD analysis needs to be repeated.  It would be nice to be able to skip analyzing files that has already been done, that is to not do the volume and HDCD analyse if there were already values in the associated tags. It seems like that should be the function of the Skip Analyzed Files. There is already code to check the volume analyze and the HDCD check should be trivial. As more functions are added to Analyze Audio, the Skip Analyzed Files needs to be updated to reflect the new functions.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Scobie on November 21, 2019, 12:02:43 am
Quote
Is the waveform a live view of the waveform or does it just display a snapshot based on the content in the source material?

Don’t know how this would work but would be great if it was possible to have more than one display for comparative analysis purposes. Wouldn’t necessarily need to hear the output, just see the output waveform and dynamic range etc. for different versions of the same file.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: mark_h on November 22, 2019, 05:24:33 am
Love this feature  ;D
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: JustinChase on November 27, 2019, 12:48:07 pm

You'll need to analyze the files again to have the "Waveform" populate (I didn't make it re-analyze everything automatically because I could hear the dread already!).


When you open the analyze audio window now, this waveform field is the first field, and is very long and filled with abstract numbers, useless to humans.

Can we either move this field to later in the list, or change the values to a yes/no field to indicate it's been analyzed.  I tried moving the field, and removing the field, but each time I select analyze files, it's back, in the second space, moving everything else to the right.

Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: mark_h on November 28, 2019, 02:25:38 am
Given the recent reanalysis requirements I wonder whether a "Reanalyse" button should be added to audio analyse screen?  Right now you have to manually delete fields in order to kick it off - not everybody will be able to figure that out.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Hendrik on November 28, 2019, 02:38:12 am
Given the recent reanalysis requirements I wonder whether a "Reanalyse" button should be added to audio analyse screen?  Right now you have to manually delete fields in order to kick it off - not everybody will be able to figure that out.

Just untick "Skip analyzed files" and it'll re-analyze.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: mark_h on November 29, 2019, 02:15:39 am
How did I miss that?!  ;D
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: prodj77 on December 04, 2019, 11:00:28 pm
Awesome news!! I purchased for the first time JRiver v.25 on September and now I am waiting very excited the v.26 with the Waveform feature. Please keep working to add the feature to select diferent color for the waveform. By the way, the current position bar it's very thin and sometimes it's hard to click on it, I would like that you make it thicker. Thanks for your effort  ;)
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: justsomeguy on December 05, 2019, 02:05:28 am
Would it be possible or make sense to add an option to re-analyze the file automatically just prior to playback starting? Say if I have a list of songs in Playing Now, just before the current song finishes playing the next song begins automatically being analyzed behind then scene. Then it's ready to go when to current track finishes playing.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Matt on December 05, 2019, 09:07:16 am
Would it be possible or make sense to add an option to re-analyze the file automatically just prior to playback starting? Say if I have a list of songs in Playing Now, just before the current song finishes playing the next song begins automatically being analyzed behind then scene. Then it's ready to go when to current track finishes playing.

Just search for this and analyze all the files:
[Waveform]=[]

I did my library the other day.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: jkrzok on December 14, 2019, 05:31:54 pm
Just search for this and analyze all the files:
[Waveform]=[]

I did my library the other day.

As someone with close to 600,000 audio files can I just say ugh?

+1 for an auto-reanalyze option.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: ~OHM~ on December 14, 2019, 05:58:11 pm
if you have playlists just analyze those for now....and really your not missing anything anyway!
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Awesome Donkey on December 14, 2019, 08:41:55 pm
+1 for an auto-reanalyze option.

Please no, last thing I need is MC automatically re-analyzing my entire music library when I don't want it to. And that's exactly why it doesn't do that right now because some users, including myself, don't want that to happen (and there'd be complaints).

If you want it to re-analyze your library just select all and manually run audio analysis over again.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: dtc on December 14, 2019, 09:11:50 pm
Please no, last thing I need is MC automatically re-analyzing my entire music library when I don't want it to. And that's exactly why it doesn't do that right now because some users, including myself, don't want that to happen (and there'd be complaints).

If you want it to re-analyze your library just select all and manually run audio analysis over again.

My recommendation is if you want to do the analysis for the new wave form option, you should not have to re-do the volume/R128 and the HDCD analyses.  When  you run analyze you should be able to select which of these 3 entirely properties you want to do the analysis for. If you have already done the volume/R128 and the HCDC analyses, why should you have to redo them in order to do the new waveform analysis?  For a large library, this analysis can take hours. Redoing analysis you have already done seems unnecessary.  Recognizing if volume/R128 or HDCD analysis has already been done is trivial. Why not have options to skip them if they have already been done?

The old Skip analysis used to  skip files that have already been done and only do files that had not been analyzed. The idea is to extend that to all all 3 functions now in the Analyze option - skip everything that has already been done and only do the ones that have no data.

The argument seems to be that you only do this occasionally, so what the heck.  Well, if you have 600,000 tracks it can be a lot of extra analysis.

Given there are now 3 entirely separate functions in Analyze Audio, it seems like it would be good to treat them as separate functions when doing the analysis and not repeat analysis that has already been done in order to do new analysis like the new waveform option.

That lets you do what you want to without having to repeat everything.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: ~OHM~ on December 14, 2019, 09:29:42 pm
Please no, last thing I need is MC automatically re-analyzing my entire music library when I don't want it to. And that's exactly why it doesn't do that right now because some users, including myself, don't want that to happen (and there'd be complaints).

If you want it to re-analyze your library just select all and manually run audio analysis over again.
+1
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: dtc on December 14, 2019, 09:39:32 pm
Please no, last thing I need is MC automatically re-analyzing my entire music library when I don't want it to. And that's exactly why it doesn't do that right now because some users, including myself, don't want that to happen (and there'd be complaints).

If you want it to re-analyze your library just select all and manually run audio analysis over again.

As someone with close to 600,000 audio files can I just say ugh?

+1 for an auto-reanalyze option.

Note the word OPTION.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: jaxtherogue on December 20, 2019, 02:39:11 pm
Yeah, I started to notice Waveform tags being written when doing audio analysis a couple weeks ago. In my case I had to disallow it to write the tags to files (due to the large amount of files I have, and my manual mirroring/backup setup would be "uneven", so to speak), but it keeps them in MC's database it looks like, which is fine with me.

You'd think I'd know this by now- but how can I disallow writing tags to the files (temporarly, during the re-analysis)?
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: cncb on December 21, 2019, 03:03:11 pm
You'd think I'd know this by now- but how can I disallow writing tags to the files (temporarly, during the re-analysis)?

I think you uncheck "Update tags when file info changes" in the "General" options page but just try one file first to make sure.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: vulture_g7 on December 21, 2019, 03:15:46 pm
Is there a way for jriver to recognize if there's a waveform from a previous analysis or not? If yes, then maybe, an option to automatically re-analyze a song which is being played (if a waveform is not found) could be added. A core of a cpu doing this in the background while playing would take few seconds and that would only happen once per file.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Awesome Donkey on December 21, 2019, 04:12:38 pm
It knows if the Waveform tag has been written. But writing to the Waveform tag via audio analysis was added in MC26 so any previously analyzed files without the Waveform tag will need to be re-analyzed manually using the Audio Analysis tool.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Awesome Donkey on December 21, 2019, 04:15:37 pm
You'd think I'd know this by now- but how can I disallow writing tags to the files (temporarly, during the re-analysis)?

Easy.

MC's Settings > Library & Folders > ... Manage Library Fields... > find the Waveform field in the list, select it and uncheck Save in file tags (when possible) then press OK. That should prevent MC from writing the Waveform tags to the files (but the Waveform data will remain in MC's library itself when doing audio analysis, but it won't write it to the file's tags).
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: dtc on December 21, 2019, 05:23:19 pm
Easy.

MC's Settings > Library & Folders > ... Manage Library Fields... > find the Waveform field in the list, select it and uncheck Save in file tags (when possible) then press OK. That should prevent MC from writing the Waveform tags to the files (but the Waveform data will remain in MC's library itself when doing audio analysis, but it won't write it to the file's tags).

That will stop writing the Waveform tag to the file, but it will not stop the file write for the other tags. Analyze Audio will redo the R128/Volume tags and the HDCD tags and will, I am pretty sure, write those to the file. So to stop all file writes you need to turn off all those tags also, which is a bit of a job for the R128/Volume tags. This goes back to my comment that there should be an option for auto analyze to not redo all the tags that already have values in them.  It takes computation time and makes it very difficult to avoid file writes.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: vulture_g7 on December 21, 2019, 05:25:00 pm
It knows if the Waveform tag has been written. But writing to the Waveform tag via audio analysis was added in MC26 so any previously analyzed files without the Waveform tag will need to be re-analyzed manually using the Audio Analysis tool.

Good to know, so, how about adding said option? I mean, analyzing the file once while it plays wouldn't take much time and this way no need for manually re-analyzing everything. Anything played will be analyzed real-time once and that's all.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Awesome Donkey on December 21, 2019, 05:45:26 pm
That will stop writing the Waveform tag to the file, but it will not stop the file write for the other tags. Analyze Audio will redo the R128/Volume tags and the HDCD tags and will, I am pretty sure, write those to the file. So to stop all file writes you need to turn off all those tags also, which is a bit of a job for the R128/Volume tags. This goes back to my comment that there should be an option for auto analyze to not redo all the tags that already have values in them.  It takes computation time and makes it very difficult to avoid file writes.

Fortunately there's an option in MC25 and MC26 which turns off the analysis of HDCD. But yes, to disable the tag writing you have to do the same thing with the HDCD field, which is what I did too. This is due to the current size of my library and my backup methods, it's not feasible for me to allow MC to re-analyze all files for HDCD and the waveform - it'd just be time consuming. I'd have to re-analyze the library (which could take days), redo the backups, etc. At this point I can't add any new tags to my library (nor can I allow some files to have the new tags and others not) so when I first decided how to handle my library, I made decisions on what tags to have and not allow any others.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: mattkhan on December 22, 2019, 05:11:39 am
An incremental mode for analysis would be a good thing for this sort of situation
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Mike... on December 28, 2019, 09:51:28 am
Is it possible to have the waveform progress more fluently? Currenly, it only seems to jump every second.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: antenna on December 28, 2019, 08:49:01 pm
Yeah, I started to notice Waveform tags being written when doing audio analysis a couple weeks ago.

I haven't done the re-analysis yet, but when I do, my backup/archive system will experience a blip (understatement) of things to do.

But that is the purpose of that backup/archive system.   :)

This waveform feature, though a bit on the subtle side, is quite cool.

One of the things I've noticed regarding these types of waveforms over the course of an entire song....

When I look at the waveform for the original vinyl version of Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones) in Sound Forge, I notice the average sound level slowly increases throughout the song, echoing the gravitas of the lyrics of the tune.

But when I look at the waveform for the CD version of that song, it is pinned nearly to max level from start to finish.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: LilyAarseth on December 29, 2019, 05:20:01 pm
I was wondering, does the automatic analyzer skip 24-bit files? None of my high res audio files got waveform once it completed. Don't know if this is a bug or if I missed a tickbox or setting somewhere.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: dtc on December 29, 2019, 05:40:23 pm
I was wondering, does the automatic analyzer skip 24-bit files? None of my high res audio files got waveform once it completed. Don't know if this is a bug or if I missed a tickbox or setting somewhere.
It skips 24 bit files for the HDCD analysis.   I wonder if that is what is causing it to also skip the waveform analysis.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Matt on December 29, 2019, 06:31:28 pm
24-bit files work fine for waveform analysis.  I just made a 24-bit file, imported it, analyzed it, and played it and the bar showed properly.

But remember that we don't flag a file for re-analysis, so you will have to manually do it.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: LilyAarseth on December 30, 2019, 06:09:10 am
The HDCD skipping of 24-bit seems to be the cause as far as I can tell yes. Thank you for the help, it's analyzing and working like it should now, thank you for the insight!
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Matt on January 20, 2020, 10:25:01 am
Just made another little enhancement for the next build of MC26:
Changed: Made the waveform bar a little smoother on wide screens.

We were looking at the array of values we had stored using an integer index.  It made it a little lumpy on wide screens.  Now we use a decimal index so it will flow smoothly instead of stepping.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: cron0sRXR8 on February 01, 2020, 04:40:41 pm
..
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: contium on February 03, 2020, 05:29:58 pm
Would it be possible to add the option to analyze a track if the waveform when playback is started if the waveform is missing?
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Awesome Donkey on February 04, 2020, 03:42:05 am
It's very easy to select all your files and re-analyze them. Having an option to automatically re-analyze files for the waveform likely won't go over well with some users (me included), and I'm guessing that's why such an option hasn't been added as of yet.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: MikeO on February 04, 2020, 09:22:56 am
Bit like the Auto Lyric Lookup as an import option MC started to redo my library

I killed it 130k files would take a while

Is their a a way yet to hide the Tag value, its a big tag and rather ugly in JRemote

I agree its needed but out of sight, what value is there in seeing an array of numbers ?
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Avgatzeblouz on February 11, 2020, 08:55:24 am
Very cool feature. Can we have more channels displayed in the waveform ? Right now I guess it is summing all channels in mono, but it would be much nicer to have all the info regarding L/R and even surround/sub channels for multichannel files.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Awesome Donkey on February 11, 2020, 09:28:38 am
Don't think there's a lot of room there for multiple channels to be displayed. Plus it won't look right at all, IMO.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Avgatzeblouz on February 17, 2020, 04:33:08 pm
Well then, a bigger real estate for this purpose would be pleasing, me think. It is really nice to be able to see waveforms of all channels.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: Bernhard on February 18, 2020, 03:19:00 am
Waveform is a nice feature.
It would be absolutely great, if these taggings could be hidden, when using the JRemote app.  ::)
... or at least shifted to the end of the screen, because the very long waveform strings are confusing.
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: BigCat on February 20, 2020, 10:16:08 pm
OK, so I just installed latest v26.0.27.

Started running the (re)Analyze Audio to try out new Waveform feature. After about an hour I got this pop-up error message:

-----

"       Information

The JRiver player core has overflowed during format conversion.

64 converted blocks but only room for 0 blocks
44100 to 4100 Hz with -1.0 ms latency

Please report this error to JRiver as soon as possible so that it can be fixed."

-----

As there is no obvious mechanism for reporting it I added it here in the forum.

What does it mean? It wasn't clear if a particular file triggered the message, but I may be able to figure it out.

Let me know if I can help further. I will wait for word before I continue the analysis.

Thanks!
Title: Re: NEW: Waveform of playback
Post by: BigCat on February 20, 2020, 11:34:00 pm
Some other things re: Waveform Playback:

1) By default it seems to add the Waveform value to a tag in each file. As others have posted, this adds some additional file size. I copied the waveform value from a short 3-ish minute audio file to a text file. It added up to 2.14 KB. An 8-ish minute audio file's value was 6.67 KB. This isn't crazy, but something to keep in mind. I assume one could construct a predictable ratio such as "so many KB's per minute" additional file size.

Would it be better to keep this data in the JRiver database only? What are the pros and cons? If Options has it is set to "save in file tags (when possible)", does the data get saved in the database as well, thus taking up twice as much room?

2) While doing the analysis/reanalysis it would be cool if there was a pause button, in case one needs to use the computer for something else demanding.

Thanks!