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[tony55]

Hi all,

I'm new to media servers and players so I'm still trying to get a handle on things.

I have a problem with albums where songs play across tracks - audio is lost for a few seconds.  I am using DLNA over Wi-Fi to KEF X300A wireless speakers.  I see there is a setting for this for non-DLNA but I cannot find where it would apply to a DLNA renderer.

Is this something that can be fixed in MC or is it a problem within the KEFs?

KEF has it's own player app so I'm wondering if I will have to use it instead.  If that is the case, would it be possible to integrate the KEF app with the MC server?

Thanks in advance.

[JimH]

Does it happen when the format changes?

[AndrewFG]

Right click on the renderer and see if "SetNext" support is enabled. Changing this could perhaps solve your problem. But it could perhaps break something else..

[tony55]

Many thanks for the response guys.

I have only ripped to FLAC 24/96 and only a few CDs.  I plan to get a NAS soon so I am waiting to rip my CD collection after I get the NAS. Therefore, I cannot say if different formats are a problem.  If it would help, I can rip another CD in a different format.  I have also Disabled SetNext support.  Ignore Transport Events doesn't seem to matter whether it's on or off.

All help is greatly appreciated.

[AndrewFG]

Many thanks for the response guys.

I have only ripped to FLAC 24/96 and only a few CDs.  I plan to get a NAS soon so I am waiting to rip my CD collection after I get the NAS. Therefore, I cannot say if different formats are a problem.  If it would help, I can rip another CD in a different format.  I have also Disabled SetNext support.  Ignore Transport Events doesn't seem to matter whether it's on or off.

All help is greatly appreciated.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the media format. If your renderer supports gapless then SetNext will solve your issue. But if it does not support Gapless then there is no solution, and you need to disable SetNext..

[tony55]

Many thanks for the responses.

Okay, I have done some investigating via Wireshark.  I'm not a network guy but I have been able to navigate my way through the forest and have found what I believe is the fundamental issue.

I am getting a TCP Zerowindow warning from the KEF speaker when the music plays across a track.  From what I am reading in the Wireshark support website, this is the KEF telling the server (JRiver) to stop sending because its buffer is full.  The loss of audio lasts for a second or less.

I tried lowering DLNA Audio Format to MP3 High Bandwidth.  Still the same problem.  I have tried checking WMC Compatible, and/or Bitstream DSD, without any success.

Also, if I disable SetNext Support, the problem gets worse and the loss of playback audio is 3-5 seconds.  I see multiple Zerowindow warnings in Wireshark traces.

Any thoughts on MC settings that may help?

Thanks again to all.

[AndrewFG]

I have no idea what you mean by a "zero window" warning. Can you please explain?

[tony55]

This is a communication line in the trace that (according to what I am reading) is indicating the buffer is filling up on the Kef speaker.  In this case, the "Zerowindow" response from the renderer is telling the server to stop sending data until the renderer reports back that the buffer is ready to receive more data. One might surmise the data exchange between the server and the renderer is not being managed correctly.  As I understand it, a device that is receiving data and acknowledging receipt of the packets is also letting the device (server) supplying the data know how much room the receiving device (renderer) has left in the buffer.  So the sending device knows how much can be sent on the next data packet transmission.  This also works in reverse in that the server is also letting the renderer know how much space is left in its buffer before the renderer replies.  How all of this correlates to the loss of audio at the track change is beyond me.

Anyway, the reason I am suspecting an application setting is wrong is that audio dropout was worse with setnext support disabled. I got several back to back Zerowindow lines from the renderer to the server rather than just the one line of Zerowindow with setnext support enabled.  The odd thing was there were no lost packets according to the trace in either case.

Again, I am no expert here and I could be wrong about my assessment.  But I am thinking that this is more of a data management/communication issue between server and renderer rather than network issues.

I really like MC's audio capabilities so it is my hope to get this resolved before my trial period ends this week.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[AndrewFG]

^

Ok. What you are saying is that your player is not able to download the track as fast (bytes per second) as is needed for it to play that track; and for that reason you get drop outs.

This is certainly not something that can be solved by tweaking MC. It is a network bandwidth problem plain and simple. Are you using Wi-Fi or power line? If so then try using wired Ethernet instead.

If you really cannot improve your network, then your only possible compromise is to set MC to deliver a lower res version of the tracks e.g. set MC to transcode audio tracks to MP3 ..

[tony55]

As I stated in the 1/4/15 post, I have tried lowering res output to MP3 with the same results.  However, it was the highest MP3 res.  So I just tried the lowest MP3 res and still have the same problem.  And since there were no lost packets in the trace, I am thinking the content of the packets is where the issue is.  On which side the problem resides is something I would not know how to check for.  So I was hoping there may be a setting in MC that might do the trick.  Note that everything is fine when I connect directly via USB.  Wi-Fi and analog are the only other options so hardwired network streaming is not available.

Maybe I should try streaming from my Nexus 7 and bypass the MC server.  This would provide additional clues.  I also have the KEF player app loaded on the Nexus 7.  I will have to try that as well.

Thanks again for your help.

[AndrewFG]

I will PM you.