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[Wull]

I can't seem to get this to work - followed instructions as per the thread but I just get no sound... think it has to do with the Tools>Options>audio device - in JRiver....

could somebody please give a detailed instruction on what that setting should be...

Did you manage to get it to work because I can't either??

In JR/Audio device set to my SC. In Windows sound devices set JRiver media center.

I'm running W7 64bit

I can see sound playing in the spectrum analayzer, but I'm getting no sound..  ?

When I 'Test' the JRiver media center in Windows sound devices 'Ipc opening' is displayed at the top of the screen.

[millst]

The only real problem i had was linked zones did not work well.
I was trying to play to the sound card and my wireless headphones at the same time.

Has anyone else try this?

I doubt it's going to work with linked zones. I asked a similar question in regard to the ASIO input a while back. Basically, that doesn't work and would require a major redesign. I'd guess the same architecture issues apply here.

-tm

[JimH]

I've got Spotify working with it now.  Great!

[rudyrednose]

Great news, thank you team !

Just in time as I was about to start digging info on the older audio loopback feature.  I guess my job is now much simpler :-)

[kstuart]

Just installed the latest version, using it with [USB external DAC] ASIO.

Installation went fine, however during testing it seems I can only hear left channel.

Confirmed (using a different DAC than his), so it's a bug.

Do you want WDM bugs listed here or in the usual build bug thread ?

Details:  If you click "Test" it lights up the left speaker icon and you hear the test tone, it then lights up the right speaker icon and you hear nothing.   If you click on the right speaker icon, you hear the test tone, oddly enough.

[JimH]

Split WDM Fine Points

[6233638]

Nice job. While this has actually made me realize that I'm already playing almost everything inside Media Center now, it seems to be working well and there are definitely some good uses for it.
It's certainly going to make things easier for people who were using Loopback a lot, or people with power amplifiers who need volume protection enabled for everything running on the PC.
 

Yes, the rule that will choose the WDM input is

Code: [Select]

[Name]="IPC"I personally recommend setting up a separate zone to receive WDM playback as that will make certain activities much easier/more seamless (e.g. running netflix in theater view).

As a tip for anyone else trying to get this working, I recommend that you move this rule to the very top of your Zone Switch list.
It did not seem to be working for me until I made that change.
 
Rather than switching based on the name containing "IPC" I prefer to use:

Code: [Select]

[Filename]=[live:////ipc"
While it is unlikely, this will guarantee that there won't be any false positives.
 

For example I prefer to use Spotify with the iPad app. Now I have a very stable solution to AirPlay from the app to Jrmc and take advantage of its dsp. In my case to apply a convolver for room correction. Also because the ability to setup zones and automatically switch between them, I can switch between this and playing my own jrmc library with JRemote with ease. So in short anything that I play can take advantage of jrmc dsp/audio path.

AirPlay → Airfoil Speakers → JRiver WDM seems to work rather well.
As a free alternative, there is Shairport4w, though this didn't seem to play nicely with the hardware AirPort devices on my network and was preventing them from being listed on iOS devices. (Airfoil Speakers has no such issues)
 
This means that any app on iOS can now send audio into Media Center for processing and output (e.g. convolution/room correction, EQ, declipping, or anything else you want to do) so guests can now play music that is stored on their device or via apps like Spotify directly to Media Center with zero configuration.

The only real problem i had was linked zones did not work well.
I was trying to play to the sound card and my wireless headphones at the same time.

You're correct that it doesn't seem to work in linked zones.
However, once you have playback going into Media Center via the WDM driver to a single zone, you can route that to other zones which are linked together by using Loopback.
 
What you may want to do is route audio from the WDM driver into a new zone (using the Zone Switch rule listed above) which uses the Null Output device.
Then link your other zones together and enable Loopback.
 
Tip: If you start Loopback (File → Open Live → WASAPI Loopback) you can press and hold on one of the "car radio" buttons (1-12 in Playing Now) to create a button which immediately starts Loopback.

[mwillems]

As a tip for anyone else trying to get this working, I recommend that you move this rule to the very top of your Zone Switch list.
It did not seem to be working for me until I made that change.

You're right, I can confirm it does need to be at the top; it's because the IPC/WDM feed registers as audio content and so will get picked up by rules that play audio.  Another (failsafe) way to do it that doesn't rely on placement of the rule is to affirmatively exclude IPC from other zones (which I did as a precaution).

[Filename]=[live:////ipc"

I haven't tried using the filename, but shouldn't the unclosed bracket above be a quotation mark (bolded for emphasis)?

[6233638]

You're right, I can confirm it does need to be at the top, unless you affirmatively exclude it from other zones that play audio (which I also did as a precaution).  It's because the IPC registers as audio content and so will get picked up by rules that play audio.
I haven't tried using the filename, but shouldn't the unclosed bracket above be a quotation mark (bolded for emphasis)?

No, the rule is "starts with" live://ipc

[mwillems]

No, the rule is "starts with" file://ipc

Got it, the closing quote was what was throwing me; had to brush up on my "search language"

[mutato]

Used it with Wimp streaming service today, works almost perfect. It seems to stutter just a bit every now and then. May not be the WDM driver's fault for all I know, though.

I'm using WDM driver with Deezer and am noticing frequent crackling sounds, as often as once every 10-20 seconds. From what I can tell it's happening at random (replaying portions of a song that made crackling sounds may not result in crackling sounds at the same exact point). Maybe some buffers are set too low? I'm using it with a DAC.

[Matt]

I'm using WDM driver with Deezer and am noticing frequent crackling sounds, as often as once every 10-20 seconds. From what I can tell it's happening at random (replaying portions of a song that made crackling sounds may not result in crackling sounds at the same exact point). Maybe some buffers are set too low? I'm using it with a DAC.

Increase buffering with Options > Audio > Advanced > Live playback latency.  See if that squares you up.

[mutato]

I've set both buffers to 250 ms and the crackling sounds remain frequent.

[Matt]

I've set both buffers to 250 ms and the crackling sounds remain frequent.

Well just try a bigger value as a test.

[mutato]

Well just try a bigger value as a test.

500 ms, still crackles.

[Matt]

500 ms, still crackles.

What happens if you increase the buffering in Options > Audio > Device settings?

[mutato]

What happens if you increase the buffering in Options > Audio > Device settings?

It's already at 500 ms. No difference 

[6233638]

It does seem to be quite sensitive to interruption at times.
I assumed it was because I have a handful of VST plug-ins running for declipping, dithering, and headphone listening - I don't normally use the declipping, but it helps with streaming services.

I've not run into those problems when playing content inside Media Center directly, rather than an external app via the WDM driver though.

[mojave]

I can't seem to get my WDM zone to automatically become the active zone. It will switch to it just fine using either the [Name] or [Filename] rule regardless of the order of the ZoneSwitch rule. However, the last zone active stays as the visible zone. This means that I have to manually click on the WDM zone in order for its volume control to work.

[mwillems]

I can't seem to get my WDM zone to automatically become the active zone. It will switch to it just fine using either the [Name] or [Filename] rule regardless of the order of the ZoneSwitch rule. However, the last zone active stays as the visible zone. This means that I have to manually click on the WDM zone in order for its volume control to work.

I get the same behavior, but from my perspective it's a feature; otherwise the integrated netflix would never work at all.  With the two zone system, when netflix starts in a regular playback zone, the audio gets re-routed to the WDM zone.  If the WDM zone stole focus the playing video would vanish, and I'd need to manually switch back to the main playback zone (and netflix may well have stopped playing by then because it tends to stop when it's not in focus).  

I assumed that the WDM didn't steal focus on purpose for exactly that reason, and I much prefer the current functionality to the alternative which would break any kind of use of the internal browser for streaming video.  It makes volume control a bit of a pain, but there are workarounds (gizmo, etc.).

It's already at 500 ms. No difference  

What happens if you try a very low number?  I couldn't get good playback with one system until I lowered the buffer to 20ms.

[6233638]

I can't seem to get my WDM zone to automatically become the active zone. It will switch to it just fine using either the [Name] or [Filename] rule regardless of the order of the ZoneSwitch rule. However, the last zone active stays as the visible zone. This means that I have to manually click on the WDM zone in order for its volume control to work.

That's how Zone Switch has always worked.

[mutato]

What happens if you try a very low number?  I couldn't get good playback with one system until I lowered the buffer to 20ms.

I think you may be on to something. I changed all the buffers back to the recommended values and then sorta forgot about it until I suddenly noticed: a significant decrease in crackling. I don't dare change the settings any further, seeing as it's working pretty much okay now.

[hoyt]

Right click the volume icon in MC select system volume and make sure it is not all the way down. The normal "System volume" (windows volume) no longer has any influence because you are bypassing the windows mixer. I was a bit puzzled at first because my volume keys on my keyboard and mouse were not lowering the volume and then the light in my head went off and I realized I had to use the application volume (youtube) and/or MC.

Any chance this might change?  I use a bluetooth remote (it's far more responsive than bothering with an app like Gizmo) and it changes the system volume.  This seems nice, but there's no way I'd use it as it stands because my DAC doesn't have a remote and the preamp I route my audio through has a remote that eats AAA batteries like no tomorrow.

Thanks,

--Ryan

[kstuart]

I can't seem to get my WDM zone to automatically become the active zone. It will switch to it just fine using either the [Name] or [Filename] rule regardless of the order of the ZoneSwitch rule. However, the last zone active stays as the visible zone. This means that I have to manually click on the WDM zone in order for its volume control to work.

What would help several different problems, would be:

* Another Selector in Zoneswitch - just exactly like the "stop zone" selector - but instead a "Switch Active Zone to this Zone When the Zone is Started".

Thanks !

[kensn]

Matt.. Well done. What a milestone!!

[Tristar71]

It should be set to whatever your speakers are actually attached to. For example mine is set to Sound Blaster Zx [WASAPI]
Device settings set the buffering to Minimum Hardware Size if that gives you any problems (clicks, stuttering, etc) raise it incrementally until it plays properly.
Also set Advanced/Live playback latency to minimum.

Right click the volume icon in MC select system volume and make sure it is not all the way down. The normal "System volume" (windows volume) no longer has any influence because you are bypassing the windows mixer. I was a bit puzzled at first because my volume keys on my keyboard and mouse were not lowering the volume and then the light in my head went off and I realized I had to use the application volume (youtube) and/or MC.

THank you for your reply - but still can't get anything out of any option....I'm using JBL Pebbles and that is a USB connection to the back of the PC... the soundcard outputs seem to be my optical and digital outs. still no sound with any of the options presented

[RoderickGI]

The Windows / Control Panel / Sound / Driver / Configure / Test function does not really work if you select 5.1 output; from some channels you hear the test beep and for some not; I suppose it is something to do with latency..

Very short sounds don't always come through, or come through truncated; a better test is to play known 5.1 content and selectively mute channels in JRiver.

I tested this thoroughly with my setup, as below in my signature, and using the motherboard audio S/PDIF optical out, sending DD AC-3.

The speaker test function only works for the Left, Center, and Side Left when using 5.1 channels, when I press the "test" button. Windows always delays the output in these tests, so it is necessary to run them at least twice to get sound output on all speakers, but running them multiple times still only plays those three speakers.

However, when I click on the individual speaker images, test sounds are played from all speakers. The response is quite slow though, and if I click the speaker more than once, even with a reasonable gap between clicks, I only get one sound output. This is the Windows delay being introduced perhaps, or the receiver taking some time to respond. I can clearly see MC play each sound in the Action Window, and until that window clears, and for a little while after, a new click won't produce a sound. I observed that this sometimes meant I missed Windows Event sounds, if two or more events followed in quick succession.

This is true on my main PC/client system which only has stereo speakers as well. Only the Left speaker plays on clicking the "test" button, but both play on clicking the speaker images. I do get clipping or broken sound output for the test sounds on this PC as well, but not on the HTPC.

However 5.1 media plays normally on the HTPC system, and stereo plays normally on my main PC/client. While the "test button" feature does appear to be broken, this certainly isn't a critical issue.

One other feature doesn't quite match my system requirements. I have Bose satellites for my front Left and Right speakers, and Bose monitor speakers for my Side Left and Side Right. The satellite work best when they are not set as full range, or at least I think they do, and I'd like to try them that way. The Side monitor speaker are full range, so should be set that way. However I can't set them this way. If I select the fronts as full range, I can set the sides as full range. If I deselect the fronts as full range, the sides are automatically deselected and can't be manually selected as full range. Again, not a big issue, but a little strange. I can leave my fronts set at full range for now though.

Finally, on the HTPC I was able to reduce the Buffering setting to "Minimum Hardware Size", but I couldn't reduce the Live Playback Latency to anything less than the default "50 Milliseconds (recommended)" setting, or I would get clipping or similar effects.

Oh, also Windows also reported that the 20.0.25.0 driver was not digitally signed.

None of this outweighs the brilliance of having a WDM sound driver for any and all Windows applications to use on the HTPC.

[Castius]

I am testing using this on a JRiver in client mode. It's a bit add to always have JRiver open/minimized.

Is there anything we can do to deal with that?

[)p(]

I am testing using this on a JRiver in client mode. It's a bit add to always have JRiver open/minimized.

Is there anything we can do to deal with that?

If you run mc as a server then when you close the app it will still receive the wdm routed sound and play it without a window open or minimized.

[Castius]

Yes but at work I run it as a client.

[)p(]

Yes but at work I run it as a client.

just disable the library and Dlna servers in options > media network. It will then act like a windowless client in the background when used with the wdm driver to play sound trough it.

[Trumpetguy]

Used it with Wimp streaming service today, works almost perfect. It seems to stutter just a bit every now and then. May not be the WDM driver's fault for all I know, though.

Options > Audio > Advanced > Live playback latency = 50ms: Some skipes and stutters
Options > Audio > Advanced > Live playback latency = 500ms: static noise comes and goes in right channel
Options > Audio > Advanced > Live playback latency = 250ms: All good (streaming from Wimp)!

With Live playback latency = 50ms, ASIO buffer sizes of 50 or 500ms did not make any difference.

EDIT: Only DSP in MC is "Headphones".

[mwillems]

Yes but at work I run it as a client.

He's talking about running the server widget, not the media server options (they're separate).  The media server widget is just a stripped down MC instance that lives in the tray; it doesn't necessarily have to serve anything.

[csimon]

I can't seem to get my WDM zone to automatically become the active zone. It will switch to it just fine using either the [Name] or [Filename] rule regardless of the order of the ZoneSwitch rule. However, the last zone active stays as the visible zone. This means that I have to manually click on the WDM zone in order for its volume control to work.

What would help several different problems, would be:

* Another Selector in Zoneswitch - just exactly like the "stop zone" selector - but instead a "Switch Active Zone to this Zone When the Zone is Started".

Thanks !

Requested in MC20 Feature Requests here! http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=90662.msg634413;topicseen#msg634413

[mwillems]

 

What would help several different problems, would be:

* Another Selector in Zoneswitch - just exactly like the "stop zone" selector - but instead a "Switch Active Zone to this Zone When the Zone is Started".

Thanks !

As long as it's an option and/or configurable I'm on board (+1).  I just don't want to lose the ability to not switch to the active zone for reasons described above.

[Groundhog]

Does MC20 and the WDM driver support relaying a web audio stream to another device?

I have a Windows PC running MC 20.0.25 with the Windows sound set to JRMC20 using the WDM driver. I can open a web browser and play music from the web through MC20 – it works just fine. Let’s call this machine PC1.

I also have a dedicated music server running Windows and MC 20.0.25. Let’s call this machine PC2. I can open a browser on PC2 and stream music from the web through MC20 using the WDM driver.

On PC1 in MC20, I can select PC2 as a zone and play music from my library on PC2. That works fine.

What doesn’t work for me is this scenario:
PC1: Windows sound is set to MC20 using WDM driver. MC20 current zone is set to PC2.
PC2: Current zone is set to Player.
On PC1, I stream music from the web.
On PC2, I see the Ipc file in the Player Playing Now content pane.
However, no audio is output from PC2.

Have I missed something in my setup? Or is this not supported?

Thanks,
-Brent

[Hendrik]

Forwarding the audio over the network is not supported. Although that might be an interesting idea...

[adlelare]

I noticed a quick update that got rid of some redundancy, but in the device options is "exclusive access" also redundant (or should i still use it) or have i missed something as it seems to me setting this up this way makes MC 100% exclusive but muchly improved as i don't have problems elsewhere.  TIA.

[mojave]

That's how Zone Switch has always worked.

Zone Switch always switches to the active zone for me except for the WDM zone. I tried to figure out what kstuart's issue was in this thread with no success.

[mwillems]

Zone Switch always switches to the active zone for me except for the WDM zone. I tried to figure out what kstuart's issue was in this thread with no success.

As noted above (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92593.msg637763#msg637763) I think it's by design, otherwise it would be very hard to effectively use the WDM for audio from video streaming through the integrated browser/netflix.

[Castius]

)p( thanks

I didn't think it would be a good idea to run server and client pointing to another server on the same system.
But you're right it works.

I wonder if we can add zones to the tray icons for media center and media server.
So we can switch input without opening media center.

It also takes a long time to switch from media center client to the server playing the audio.
Not long be enough time to wonder if it's going to work.

[ronkupper]

Great feature!

Another bonus -
Just tested and it enables measurements using REW through JRiver and Dirac Live!
Finally a simple way to validate Dirac's results and correct XO settings.

[sjhilton]

Hi Matt - I just wanted to say thank you for all your work on this. This feature has been worth the wait (and the price of the upgrade this year). It works perfectly on my system so far (using both Netflix and Spotify).

cheers,

Stuart

[Wull]

Did you manage to get it to work because I can't either??

In JR/Audio device set to my SC. In Windows sound devices set JRiver media center.

I'm running W7 64bit

I can see sound playing in the spectrum analayzer, but I'm getting no sound..  ?

When I 'Test' the JRiver media center in Windows sound devices 'Ipc opening' is displayed at the top of the screen.

Got it working. I had to enable just about all my sound devices in Windows playback devices before I could set jriver media center to the default device..

[rael71]

When I enable WDM JRiver in windows control panel I obtain a distorted sound, the same that I obtain when I enable PCM to DSD conversion as I explain this thread http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=91987.msg633009#msg633009; I have already played with buffer size but nothing changed.

[Trumpetguy]

This new feature brings on a whole new world of applications. I was hoping, just hoping, that it would work flawlessly with multichannel audio convolution (I use a 15 path 64k taps Audiolense filter). The old loopback was limited to fewer (two) channels, multichannel long filters caused stutter.

IT WORKS!!!!

Thanks again to the JRiver team, maybe Matt in particular for learning how to code drivers.

[6233638]

I'm finding that the default ~5 seconds of silence before stopping playback is too short. Increasing this to at least a minute would be preferable.
An option to simply enter how many seconds we want the connection to remain open would be good.
 
Since I'm routing the sound to separate devices, and Loopback seems to work well, I might even prefer that Media Center always keep the connection open.
 
 
I'm also finding that no matter how long I set the "play silence before for hardware synchronization" option, I'm still getting glitches for the first couple of seconds of playback.

[mwillems]

I'm finding that the default ~5 seconds of silence before stopping playback is too short. Increasing this to at least a minute would be preferable.
An option to simply enter how many seconds we want the connection to remain open would be good.
 
Since I'm routing the sound to separate devices, and Loopback seems to work well, I might even prefer that Media Center always keep the connection open.

I actually like the 5 second behavior quite a bit, and would prefer it, if anything, to be slightly shorter; but I definitely would support a configurable solution.  

My audio device will sometimes error if I try to playback something else while the WDM input is open in another zone (even with appropriate zoneswitch stop playback rules). As is, it's easy for me to just wait a couple seconds for it to "latch off" rather than having to manually stop it every time.  If the default were a minute, I would constantly be forgetting that it's still on, and throwing errors which disrupt theater view, etc.
 

I'm also finding that no matter how long I set the "play silence before for hardware synchronization" option, I'm still getting glitches for the first couple of seconds of playback.

I can confirm that I'm seeing the same thing, the first few seconds are always kind of odd. I think the driver ignores that setting entirely.

I think it does that to maintain AV sync:  when I start a Netflix movie using WDM, the video starts, but it takes a few beats for the driver to start playback in JRiver, so the audio starts up a little late and lags for a second or so, but then it suddenly "catches up" to the video and after that the sync is fine.  

So in order to avoid that glitch, the driver would either need to start faster (which it probably will in time) or the "catch up" would need to be more gradual (which would mean poor sync for longer, which wouldn't be ideal).

[6233638]

I actually like the 5 second behavior quite a bit, and would prefer it, if anything, to be slightly shorter; but I definitely would support a configurable solution.

What I'm finding is that if I'm watching a YouTube video and then it has to buffer for a few seconds before the next video in the playlist starts, or listening to a song which has silence at the end, the connection is dropped and restarts, which at best means a couple of seconds of audio glitching, and at worst I get the ASIO "format not supported error" and have to completely restart MC.

I think it does that to maintain AV sync:  when I start a Netflix movie using WDM, the video starts, but it takes a few beats for the driver to start playback in JRiver, so the audio starts up a little late and lags for a second or so, but then it suddenly "catches up" to the video and after that the sync is fine.

So in order to avoid that glitch, the driver would either need to start faster (which it probably will in time) or the "catch up" would need to be more gradual (which would mean poor sync for longer, which wouldn't be ideal).

You could be right. I think it might be better to simply mute the first couple of seconds to hide that glitch though.

[mwillems]

What I'm finding is that if I'm watching a YouTube video and then it has to buffer for a few seconds before the next video in the playlist starts, or listening to a song which has silence at the end, the connection is dropped and restarts, which at best means a couple of seconds of audio glitching, and at worst I get the ASIO "format not supported error" and have to completely restart MC.

I can see why you would find that irritating; a configurable "latch off" may be the best answer.

You could be right. I think it might be better to simply mute the first couple of seconds to hide that glitch though.

Yeah although that would basically bork system sounds or any other quick sounds that only last for a second or so.  I'm sure some folks wouldn't be sad to see system sounds go entirely, but that's another conversation...