BDP-1/2 Recommended Interfaces

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ThinkingPlus

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #60 on: 7 Jun 2011, 10:26 pm »
When you dragged from iTunes, did you mean the application or the directory?   You will need to copy the files from actual directory and not use the iTunes application.

Directory.  I was just trying to convey that the application I use on my PC to catalog my music was iTunes.  I copied the Apple lossless file folder direct to the SSDD.

Steph

ThinkingPlus

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #61 on: 8 Jun 2011, 12:34 pm »
So it appears that whatever tag information that the MPD server provides to clients is not part of my music files.  I now have both MPDroid and Droid MPD Client running on my phone.  They both act the same way.  Album view and artist view show no music.  If I go to folder view I can find the music, but can only play a single song at a time or create custom playlists by adding one song at a time.  I cannot add albums or, say, all the songs from a given artist.  I may try some other lossless formats and see if the tag information gets encapsulated such that the MPD server can see it and make it available.  So much fun.

James Tanner

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #62 on: 8 Jun 2011, 03:07 pm »
So it appears that whatever tag information that the MPD server provides to clients is not part of my music files.  I now have both MPDroid and Droid MPD Client running on my phone.  They both act the same way.  Album view and artist view show no music.  If I go to folder view I can find the music, but can only play a single song at a time or create custom playlists by adding one song at a time.  I cannot add albums or, say, all the songs from a given artist.  I may try some other lossless formats and see if the tag information gets encapsulated such that the MPD server can see it and make it available.  So much fun.

Hi

I am using the Galaxy Tablet with MPDROID and FLAC files with no issues :scratch:

james

ThinkingPlus

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #63 on: 9 Jun 2011, 05:56 pm »
Using FLAC format now.  MPDroid and Droid MPD Client both see albums and artists now.  I can still only play individual songs or whatever I add to a playlist.  Probably just the way the apps are written.  I wonder if there is a fast way to create a playlist for each album?  Bryston MINI seems to work the same way.  If I don't create a playlist I can't play anything.  Oh, well I should really roll my own, but don't have time to figure out how the Android OS and the MPD server works.
« Last Edit: 11 Jun 2011, 02:19 pm by ThinkingPlus »

Davesworld

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #64 on: 12 Jun 2011, 07:14 am »
 I see a lot of things here that need clarification.

1. Gnome is one of many desktop environments (my least favorite) NOT a program.

2. MPD is a program written for Gnome and uses Gnome widgets (GTK2) but does NOT need the Gnome desktop running in order to use it. I occasionally use it with KDE when testing direct hw mapping to spdif, bypassing any dsp and and Alsa plugins as I do with VLC and Mplayer etc. You could actually run MPD on Windows as long as an Xserver and putty is installed by using ssh -X.

3. Using .local as a domain name on a lan is a no no if you have Windows machines on the network. These days, .localdomain is the default, I use .internal here.

4. The person that made a big fuss about USB cables has of a magnitude more things to worry about, namely with fat or fat32 as a filesystem on the usb drives. Fat has no journal system to recover from errors and it is also prone to file crosslinking thanks to it's DOS heritage. NTFS, well, a journaled filesystem but not my first choice for serving up media files however it is much safer for storage as well as compatible with all newer Windows OS'es. 

Dave Studeman

Davesworld

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Rants and Raves.
« Reply #65 on: 12 Jun 2011, 07:54 am »
 Bryston seems to be among the first to observe that high end PC sound cards have been able to pass bit perfect digital out at up to 24/192, this has been true for almost a decade now. I should mention that there are still a lot that will not pass 88.2 and 176.4. The card chosen for the BDP-1 is one of the better ones as are many Envy24 powered solutions. I believe it's an ESI Julia? Please clarify Mr Tanner.

 Now for a rant. It seems like streaming devices are being treated as a new concept when they are more than a decade old and should be far more mature than they are. It seems as if all the energy was sucked away by Apple for iPod docking devices back in 2002 yet they still don't play decent file formats even now. Not long after, Turtle Beach discontinued the Audiotron. Prior to the iPod we were on the right track with centralized media storage and streaming devices that take the PC OUT of the living room, not put it there. I've been waiting since 2002 while quietly storing FLAC files on home brew headless servers. Bryston is the best example I have seen of a streamer. I'm also happy to say that someone finally found a good use for Apple handheld products by using them as a wifi remote control.

I actually do like Squeeze products, namely the Touch and Transporter but they are limited to 96khz clocking. At least the newest server software has a UPNP/DLNA plugin which works well. Tried a Reciva powered device, it won't do 24 bit and it reclocks everything to 48khz. Good thing for return policies.

 Gapless playback is a virtue of FLAC and part of it being lossless. CD audio is gapless, true lossles copies would also retain the gaplessness. Pink Floyd, Erasure, Journey, ELP and so forth all need gapless playback. This is s tiny example, there are thousands of pop and rock offerings that need it. Gapless playback in Linux is purely dependent on which audio backend is used to decode the file.

James Tanner

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #66 on: 12 Jun 2011, 11:23 am »
Hi Dave

Thanks - very informative :thumb:

Yes it is a Juli@ card but we modify it.

James

The Sound Card in the BDP-1 player is a ‘Julia@’ sound card and it is excellent in native configuration  - one of the best out there.  To improve its performance we modified it with a much better output stage (both the transformer and driving stage are removed) so it is NOT a stock unit. We also install a dedicated balanced low noise, low distortion AES EBU and BNC output section to integrate properly (impedance matching) with our BDA-1 DAC.
« Last Edit: 12 Jun 2011, 12:29 pm by James Tanner »

Davesworld

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #67 on: 12 Jun 2011, 03:28 pm »
Thanks James. Yes you certainly did not need some of what the julia had in it as you and your team obviously knew. With both boards it can be rather large physically but it sure is a pretty sound card.

 I've been enjoying your You Tube series. A person really would know what to expect from your product, namely the exact clocking speeds it will pass. I'm sure as the product evolves there will be more videos.

 I appreciate the hands on approach I see here, especially in regard to Internet Radio. As much as I love my hi res files I purchase, Internet Radio has been part of my life for a decade.

James Tanner

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #68 on: 12 Jun 2011, 07:19 pm »
Hi Dave,

I discussed your concerns with one of our software engineers and his input is below:


1) MPD is not  dependent on the desktop, it runs as a background process and has no connection to desktops, Gnome, KDE XFCE or even Windows. It does not use widgets, those are all in the “client” side. There are even command line clients for MPD.

2) .local for the domain has been both OK and preferred for zeroconfig multicast domain services for some time. Microsoft updated their recommendations back with Windows Server 2008, possibly much earlier. The conflicts were mostly sorted out over 5 years ago and it works that way by default on all Apple computers. You can waste a lot of time reading about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_configuration_networking

3) The file system on the content drives is not important particularly since they are used as a read-only device and no data is written so the journaling is more of an issue in the creation of the drives. Even there it’s not critical, for the most part FAT32 has worked well. If this were a “mission critical” application for a major enterprise these issues would matter more but its not.

skunark

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #69 on: 12 Jun 2011, 07:42 pm »
Worst thing about fat32 is that it will rename directories and files that violate the rules.  Since MPD will use the directory and file name for WAV and other formats, this is an annoying feature.

It would be a benefit for the BDP-1 to use btrfs or zfs filesystems for their checksumming features, even EXT4 would be an improvement here over FAT32.    It's rare, but I recently had to re-rip a Rolling Stones track because of a block failure.  The only reason why I discovered this is when I converted my music from ALAC to AIFF, i'm guessing I've never noticed it because MPD would just skip that track.   Having a filesystem with checksums for each file would offer the ability to test the integrity of the files during a backup.   Of course, this is more important for a computer and less important for the HDD connected to the BDP.




1audio

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #70 on: 12 Jun 2011, 09:55 pm »
James asked me to add a little light to these discussions.

Every file system has pros and cons. EXT3 and EXT4 are very good for reliability except that they will wear out a flash drive pretty quickly. ZFS is similar with the addition of its dynamic RAID functions. However we were all focusing on simplicity and compatibility. The ZFS formatted drive will be meaningless to a Windows PC. EXT3 the same. If you look through these forums you will see that the user sophistication ranges from those who could (and probably should) build it themselves to technophobes longing for dial phones. Its very difficult to meet the needs for both audiences. The box does support EXT3 and EXT4 but you need to format the drive. ZFS has some license issues (and is overkill in some respects) so its not currently supported.

Streaming means different things to different people and has lost a clear meaning here. Its far from new and has come a long way from the first RealAudio demos (which were ghastly). If by streaming one is referring to live streaming from the "cloud" or other "live" source then the stream has a real time aspect and is easily disturbed. If by streaming, you mean moving data from one computer to another to play, the content is not moving at real time (same for a USB drive, SATA drive or even a CD on a PC), it moves as blocks until a buffer is filled. Larger buffers are usually preferable so there is more tolerance of transmission problems and less activity in the host machines. A "live stream" has very little tolerance for errors or dropouts and usually doesn't support replacing any bad or missing data. (This will give a clue about these issues, UDP is usually used for streaming and TCP for block transfers: http://www.skullbox.net/tcpudp.php).






James Tanner

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #71 on: 14 Jun 2011, 11:46 am »
Hi Folks

Anyone using MPAD or MPOD with thier BDP - there are updates available at MAC APP store :thumb:

James

Alpha10

Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #72 on: 14 Jun 2011, 05:49 pm »
Hi Folks

Anyone using MPAD or MPOD with thier BDP - there are updates available at MAC APP store :thumb:

James

Thanks James, I have updated my iPods and the search seems to be much better than before, could be useful for those with a large music collection.

Cheers

Vipers

Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #73 on: 16 Jun 2011, 09:15 pm »
Now this may be a really silly question, but is there away to delete a current playlist in MPAD other than one track at a time, ie, like you can with Max? as this is the only thing that for me let's it down, so I guess I may be missing something somewhere  :?
Thanks.

James Tanner

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #74 on: 16 Jun 2011, 09:23 pm »
Now this may be a really silly question, but is there away to delete a current playlist in MPAD other than one track at a time, ie, like you can with Max? as this is the only thing that for me let's it down, so I guess I may be missing something somewhere  :?
Thanks.

Hi Vipers,

Hit the stop button TWICE

james

BrysTony

Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #75 on: 16 Jun 2011, 09:25 pm »
Now this may be a really silly question, but is there away to delete a current playlist in MPAD other than one track at a time, ie, like you can with Max? as this is the only thing that for me let's it down, so I guess I may be missing something somewhere  :?
Thanks.
Vipers,
At the top of the screen there is a +. If you touch it you will see two arrows in a circle. When the + is showing your selections will add to the current playlist. When the arrows are showing any selection will replace the current playlist thereby deleting it.
Tony

Vipers

Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #76 on: 17 Jun 2011, 06:44 pm »
Thanks guys, excellent service as usual  :thumb:

I thought there must have been away, Mpad really is a great app to control the BDP-1 :)

Marius

Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #77 on: 27 Jun 2011, 07:15 am »
Agreed!
Although its not finding al my covert-art it plays my albums in the right order!  :thumb:
Something the BDP1 on its own just doesn't seem to get right. Be it with the frontpanel or the Max interface.

I love the "play Album" button, which is just the way it should be I believe, no playlist (possible though) but selecting an album and hit the playbutton. No hassle.



Hope it gets even better.
Marius

Thanks guys, excellent service as usual  :thumb:

I thought there must have been away, Mpad really is a great app to control the BDP-1 :)

James Tanner

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Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #78 on: 27 Jun 2011, 10:24 am »
Hi Marius

You can create a playlist by hitting the playlist button on the bottom when then a playlist is showing(save current)  :thumb:

Also you can create a playlist in MAX and it will showmup in MPAD :thumb:

James

Marius

Re: BDP-1 Recommended Interfaces
« Reply #79 on: 27 Jun 2011, 11:15 am »
yes, fine interface it is.
For me the most important feature is playing an album with one click (not having to make a playlist first) and doing that in the right order. Mpad does that and more. Fine interface. Nothing special of course....

James, have you thought about the little ticks and pops that come out of the speakers when starting to play and at the end.? Sounds just like the needle entering the record...
Or should this go to another topic? Thought it might have to do with the interface. then again maybe not.


Marius

Hi Marius

You can create a playlist by hitting the playlist button on the bottom when then a playlist is showing(save current)  :thumb:

Also you can create a playlist in MAX and it will showmup in MPAD :thumb:

James