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[bbbats]

Hello all-
I know this should be directed to the Pono community but their website & service are the worst I have ever seen.  Love the player, hate the support (I have a ticket in to replace the Pono for clicking & popping noises between tracks-they've agreed to replace it but I haven't heard anything since I spoke to them Jan. 8 )...

I have 89 albums synced to my Pono (internal and chip).  Six don't show up on the Pono (2 internal & 4 on the chip).  I've copied them from the chip to internal & back again and they still don't show up.  I've removed and readded them...  I've synced and resynced...  I've redetected the device...  I've checked the file perms, they are not set to read-only, they play fine through PMW on my PC...  I've checked the LOST.DIR, I've bounced the Pono (several times)...  I don't know what else to check.  Can anyone offer any ideas?

Attached are two images.  The first is a screen grab of PMW indicating that Dark Side & Wish You Were Here are on the device (I also see them in Windows Explorer).  The second is a photo of the Pono showing that I HAVE NO PINK FLOYD ON THE PONO...?

This is really frustrating because Dark Side and Moving Pictures (5.1 DVDA) are two of my go-to albums to prove that THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between MP3s and Hi Def audio.  Please help!

Thanks,
-B

[JimH]

Is there any difference you can see in the tracks when you look at them and the tags for them in PMW?

[shieber]

Are you sure there is enough room for the tracks AND for the database file -- I found you need to leave some slack space onthe drive. IF you have enough space, then try this. Turn off player. Remove card and put in a reader and using Explorer, navigate to database.mpl and delete it. Eject card. Insert card in player. Restart player and let it rebuild it's database. that might do it.

[Frobozz]

I'm not sure if the PonoPlayer supports playing 5.1 files.
I just tried loading a 24/192 5.1 album on the PonoPlayer and it doesn't show up in the album list or artist list on the player.

My suspicion is that the player does not know how to convert a 5.1 file to 2 channel during playback.  If you want to play a 5.1 album you'll need to convert it to 2 channel before loading it on the PonoPlayer.  PonoMusic World can do that type of conversion.

[bbbats]

Thanks all for the replies and your help.

Jim- I see no differences between the tags in PMW and the tracks viewed in explorer.

Shieber- I deleted the mpl files and had the player recreate them.  The songs that are not visible on the Pono are listed in the database file.

Frobozz- You are right; the only files missing from the Pono are tagged <Field Name="Channels">6</Field>.  As an experiment,  I copied songs from 17 albums that are 5.1 or quadraphonic and the Pono recognized none of them   I have two-channel mixes of most of the albums and understand I can downmix in PMW/MC but it's a shame these aren't natively supported.  Does anyone know if that's a hardware limitation or something that can be fixed/upgraded via firmware?

Anyway, problem solved (ish).  Thanks again all.

-B

[bbbats]

Ok, I thought it would be fairly straightforward to downmix to 2ch but it's not and I need to ask the experts...  How do I downmix via PMW or JMRC (I'm on 19) while maintaining the highest fidelity possible (I don't care about file size or compression ratios)?  I tried Library Tools --> Convert Format but that output to 6 channels.  I'm guessing it's somewhere in the Audio-->Settings-->DSP & Output Format but I don't know.  Is there a doc?  Looks like the equivalent in FFMPEG is the command "ffmpeg -i 6channels.wav -ac 2 stereo.wav" but I want to get this right via MC/PMW.

Thanks,
-B

[Frobozz]

Select a 5.1 channel album
Right-click on it and select Library Tools >> Convert Format...
That will open a "Convert Format" window in the lower left corner action window area of PonoMusic World
In the Convert Format window select Options
That opens up the Audio Conversion Options dialog
In the Audio Conversion Options dialog set the destination and mode that suits your needs
I'd set the Destination to a new folder
I'd set the Mode to "Leave original file; add destination file to library"
In the Audio section select "Apply DSP (volume leveling, equalization, etc.)"
The click on "DSP settings..."
There you can set JRiver's multi-channel to stereo mixing options
Set Channels to "2 channels (stereo)"
Set Mixing to "JRSS(TM) mixing (recommended)"
Close the DSP settings dialog (using the X in the upper right corner)
Click OK in the Audio Conversion Options dialog
Now back in the Convert Format action window in the lower left corner of PonoMusic World, select the output format you want (likely FLAC Encoder)
Click the Convert button

That will give you a 2.0 channel version of the album converted and saved in the directory you specified in the Audio Conversion Options dialog.  The converted 2.0 channel album should be added to your PMW library.  At this point I'd select the converted album in PMW and rename it to something like "Sea Change [5.1 mix downmixed to 2.0 by JRiver]".  Since the album name is likely the same as the 5.1 mix you may need to browse to the album using the Files view (Music Library >> Files >> navigate to the folder) to be able to select and rename the new downmixed version.  Now it's ready to add to the PonoPlayer.

[Frobozz]

I should add that I needed to manually remove the 5.1 channel folder from the PonoPlayer. That folder and album wasn't listed in PonoMusic World.  So the only way to delete it was to do it manually.

Plug in the PonoPlayer and get it recognized by Windows
Navigate to the drive and folder on the PonoPlayer for the 5.1 album
Delete that folder

[bbbats]

Perfect, thank you.  Worked like a charm.  I haven't listened to the resulting audio yet but I'll play around with the settings to see what ends up sounding best.  Thanks again for your help.