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[lazy]

I'm having trouble with stuttering while playing .ape files. I have the files on a network drive connected via WLAN. Yes, I'm aware of the possible troubles with WLAN, but I can playback the same files with another player without problems, and MC uses a looong time to buffer before starting up. I reported something similar for MC 14 some time ago, and Matt fixed that, could it be related ? It seems that there aren't that many using .ape any more so maybe I'm the first to notice...

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Media Center 15.0.23 Registered -- C:\Programfiler\J River\Media Center 15\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Intel Core 2 2126 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2094 MB, Free - 921 MB

Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.13 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0002) , ASPI for Win32         DLL, Copyright ﾩ 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0002)

Ripping /   Drive Z:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 100
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive Z: Optiarc  DVD+-RW AD-5540A   Addr: 0:1:0  Speed:24  MaxSpeed:24  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices:


Interface Plugins:
  last.fm (Active)
  TiVo Server (Active)
  HTTP Remote Control (Active)

[JimH]

Test playback with local files.  I can't see how this could be an MC problem.   I use APE all the time across networks.  It's a quite common use.  And the filetype itself couldn't cause this kind of problem.  It has to be bandwidth related.

[lazy]

Yepp, I agree. But how come it works in other players ?

An additional piece of info: It plays ok for one or more songs (seems it is dependend of the length of the songs), and then starts stuttering. I'm using ASIO with large hardware buffering, 5 seconds buffer, prebuffering 20 seconds and play files from memory. Could it be some sort of buffer that doesn't get flushed ?

[lazy]

Hmmm... I played around with the settings a bit and found that if I lower the buffer to 0.50 sec it workes much better. Not perfect as MC starts to stutter after 6 - 7 songs, but that's much longer that before. It also seems that the network load drops significantly. AND after stuttering for one song it "repairs" itself again, something it didn't with the old settings. But it start stuttering again after awhile.

Another thing is that when it is stuttering and I try to stop playback MC will not respond and I have to kill it. If I let it "run" like this for awhile to see if it recovers, it is eating memory, ie some 900 000 kB...

[JimH]

Yepp, I agree. But how come it works in other players ?

An additional piece of info: It plays ok for one or more songs (seems it is dependend of the length of the songs), and then starts stuttering. I'm using ASIO with large hardware buffering, 5 seconds buffer, prebuffering 20 seconds and play files from memory. Could it be some sort of buffer that doesn't get flushed ?

Try other playback options (Direct Sound, WAVE Out).  Try using ASIO4ALL.  If you have Windows 7, try WASAPI.

What is the device it's playing to?

[lazy]

I'm using ASIO4ALL. I'll try other options and see how that affects playback. I do not have W7, so no WASAPI unfortunately.

I'm using a Trends Audio USB DAC UD 10, which passes the AES/EBU signal to a TACT RCS 2.0 which does the actual conversion.

[lazy]

Nope, it doesn't work any better with Direct Sound or Wave out. I can't get Kernel Streaming to work. ASIO with 0,1 buffer seems to work best at the moment. But MC is still stuttering.

[JimH]

Try this link on our wiki:
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/DAC_Settings

[lazy]

Thanks, but UD 10 supports only 16 bit/32:44:48 kHz.

The more I test the more it looks like MC has a problem with releasing memory in different situations.
As I mentioned earlier MC hangs after trying to stop after it starts stuttering and then eats memory. It also seems it is eating memory before it start to stutter, but releases some of it again, but not all.

[JimH]

We've seen a dozen of these USB devices.  They often have idiosyncracies.

Try flipping all the switches suggested in the wiki article.  This is not an MC problem.

Try MC15.  I believe it has one more option.

[lazy]

Well, I've tried 16 bit/44 kHz and 16 bit/48 kHz, which is the only two option that the UD 10 supports. I don't see any other options suggested in the article. I use MC 15 as should be obvious by the log I attached in the first posting. I'm also puzzled that you are so sure this is not a MC problem when MC ultimately hangs and eats up 900 000 kB of memory. I agree that it might be other root causes to this but MC should not use 900 000 kB when all you do is stopping playback.

[JimH]

Well, I've tried 16 bit/44 kHz and 16 bit/48 kHz, which is the only two option that the UD 10 supports. I don't see any other options suggested in the article. I use MC 15 as should be obvious by the log I attached in the first posting. I'm also puzzled that you are so sure this is not a MC problem when MC ultimately hangs and eats up 900 000 kB of memory. I agree that it might be other root causes to this but MC should not use 900 000 kB when all you do is stopping playback.

Disable any third party plug-ins, visualizations.  A virus checker can also cause problems.  I don't think you said whether you tested playback of local files (to eliminate the network as an issue).

[lazy]

Thanks for your patience Jim. I've turned off all extras. Still the same. I'll try local files. One question with regards to that, if I set it to repeat will MC reread the file at every new "round " ? Just so that I don't have to copy to many files.

[lazy]

One more thing, at startup of a song the play/pause button flashes madly between the two states and the display flashes buffering and position (or whatever...). This happens for every song in a playlist, but not for the first one (only opening, buffering etc. no flashing)

[JimH]

One more thing, at startup of a song the play/pause button flashes madly between the two states and the display flashes buffering and position (or whatever...). This happens for every song in a playlist, but not for the first one (only opening, buffering etc. no flashing)

That is not normal.

I suggested a couple of possibilities above.  Did you check?  Virus checker, for example.  Third party plug-ins.

[lazy]

Yepp, turned off everything. No plugins, visualizations and no virus check.

[JimH]

Please test files NOT in a playlist.

Test a few local files.

Try the option for ASIO diagnostics on startup and copy what it says.

[lazy]

Tested local files. It is much less stuttering, but there are occasions when it starts, and then it acts like before, ie hangs when trying to stop playback, flashing controls etc. etc.

I really don't understand what this is...

ASIO Diag says:

ASIO Playback starting
Device: ASIO4ALL v2 (0 channel shift)
Buffer Type: 18 (512 samples)
Output Format: 44100 kHz - 2 channels
Post Output Ready:0
ASIOStart Return Value: 0 (should be 0)
Plugin Open Return Value:0 (should be 0)
Buffer 0 Pointer: 32047104

[Matt]

Please turn off playing from memory, and test again.

[lazy]

Tried it now. Didn't make any difference. Unfortunately...

[Matt]

Are you  still seeing extreme memory usage?

You might uninstall, reboot, reinstall, then try without making any custom settings.  This isn't a report we're hearing from anyone else, and I'm kind of stumped.

(p.s. make a library backup before uninstall so you can restore (with all settings) later)

[sherbs]

I'm seeing similar to what's been described in this thread but with a mixture of mp3 and Flac.

New Win7 x64 system, Core i7 920, ATI HD 5800 series.

Playback will stutter and skip, frequently seems connected to something else going on such as a pop up being blocked, a web page download hiccupping, clicking a link in a dialogue box. Usually recovers but sometimes locks up the pc, requiring a reset. MC sometimes gets unresponsive, taking about 5 secs to react to clicking the next track button, stopping play etc. This is when I see the play button and track info in the play bar flashing rapidly.

So far experimented with different settings and watching CPU and memory usage, can't find a connection.

Downloaded free versions of MediaMonkey and WinAmp and these play the same library and same settings with no problems.

I'll start a separate thread if needed but my symptoms seem pretty similar with what's being going on with the APEs.

[Matt]

Playback will stutter and skip, frequently seems connected to something else going on such as a pop up being blocked, a web page download hiccupping, clicking a link in a dialogue box. Usually recovers but sometimes locks up the pc, requiring a reset. MC sometimes gets unresponsive, taking about 5 secs to react to clicking the next track button, stopping play etc. This is when I see the play button and track info in the play bar flashing rapidly.

Try WASAPI or WaveOut instead of the default DirectSound.

Also, update the soundcard driver.

Thanks.

[lazy]

I'm seeing similar to what's been described in this thread but with a mixture of mp3 and Flac.

New Win7 x64 system, Core i7 920, ATI HD 5800 series.

Playback will stutter and skip, frequently seems connected to something else going on such as a pop up being blocked, a web page download hiccupping, clicking a link in a dialogue box. Usually recovers but sometimes locks up the pc, requiring a reset. MC sometimes gets unresponsive, taking about 5 secs to react to clicking the next track button, stopping play etc. This is when I see the play button and track info in the play bar flashing rapidly.

So far experimented with different settings and watching CPU and memory usage, can't find a connection.

Downloaded free versions of another program and WinAmp and these play the same library and same settings with no problems.

I'll start a separate thread if needed but my symptoms seem pretty similar with what's being going on with the APEs.

Yepp, this sounds like exactly behavior I'm experiencing. MC is extremely sluggish when changing tracks or changing views or something similar. I've tried WaveOut, ASIO Direct sound but there seems to be no difference. Kernel Streaming doesn't work and WASAPI is not an option for me.

[lazy]

Are you  still seeing extreme memory usage?

You might uninstall, reboot, reinstall, then try without making any custom settings.  This isn't a report we're hearing from anyone else, and I'm kind of stumped.

(p.s. make a library backup before uninstall so you can restore (with all settings) later)

The memory usage is only occurring when MC hangs and I let it run/hang for some time to see if it gets out of "hanging mode"