Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release

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unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2400 on: 27 Apr 2018, 01:42 pm »
Haven’t seen a release of the Moose since March 9. Am I missing something or are you working on somethnig big?

No you haven't, i hadn't started working on the firmware again till last week and yesterdays release is mostly bug fixes and a few tweaks.  I've been temporarily re-tasked to redevelop a new interface for the active crossover (BAX).

http://support.bryston.com/demos/BAX/

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2401 on: 4 Aug 2018, 09:52 pm »
Hey Guys,

Not sure what's next for Manic Moose. Things are working well, though I have a couple of feedback items.

1. Folder browsing is impressive, which shows 100% of my artist (thumb.jpg) and album (folder.jpg) images. If I had one wish here, it is that the BDP would pre-process the folder images for display. I am having to browse into a folder, then back out to trigger the "Folder build" and see the images. I suspect this is something you are still working on. It would be fine with me to wait along with the Bryston DB build for all of these to be processed at once.

For the Media Player's Default View and Artist View, there is really on one issues I'd like to highlight: album art.

2. The Artist view shows almost everything, but there are a small number of albums that never show the art work. I am at a loss to see a pattern and I've verified that the folder.jpg and embedded images are like the others (500x500 - 1400x1400, baseline JPEGs). I've tried re-embedding new ones and they still don't show in Artist View, so I am back to wondering if the folder path naming is the cause.




3. The Default View is missing about 1/6th of album art images when browsing. In the sample image below, I have browsed by genre into "Psychedelic Rock" and you can see a number of missing album art images. Browsing into other genres has similar results.




Interestingly, if I browse into the Kodaly Quartet (see issue #2 image) via the Default View - Album Artist, none of the album images are shown.

And, when I play back an album or browse by folder all missing art work described above shows up just fine.

Using:

S2.37 2018-03-09
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486


UPDATE with:

S2.37 2018-08-01
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486

1. Folder browsing is impressive

This is fixed. I can browse into the folder and it triggers a build and all of my artist (thumb.jpg) images appear for the artist, as well as all cover art for albums (folder.jpg). Nice work!

2. The Artist view shows almost everything, but there are a small number of albums that never show the art work.

This is fixed. I have complete album art coverage, including my classical collection. Nice work!

3. The Default View is missing about 1/6th of album art images when browsing.

This is (mostly) fixed. I have only a handful of albums missing, album art wise, but far greater coverage than before. Again, nice work!

Finally, this issue is still there:

Quote
With larger audio files, it causes stuttering on playback which stops the moment the background image has loaded/displayed in Media Player view. Not all the time and mostly with high-res files, but it's annoying with 192/24 files on a BDP-1.

For what it's worth, I am using a USB flash drive for all files and the one that hosts my 192/24 files is ALSO my swap device. Maybe I can switch the SWAP device to one on the other USB bus and see if that changes anything.

EDIT: That fixed the issue (moving the SWAP drive to another device, which is only hosting Redbook files).

EDIT 2: spoke too soon... problem is still there.

unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2402 on: 9 Aug 2018, 03:01 pm »
Hi Ken,

thanks for the feedback, could you post some examples of the paths not working? and whether or not the bdp_front_250/44.jpg files are being generated?  Does the skipping occur between tracks and/or at the beginning of playback?

Chris

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2403 on: 10 Aug 2018, 04:29 pm »












These images show both the MEDIA PLAYER view and the ssh command-line view of the same albums. Both are examples of albums missing album art thumbnails, when browsing by Genre, for example. The album art does display in the main MEDIA PLAYER window, while the music is playing.

One thing that seems to be common to all that are missing thumbnails: an ampersand character.

For the stuttering issue, it happens only at the start as it is loading/displaying the background image for the artist. As soon as the background image has displayed, the stuttering stops. Again, this is most common on high-res files (i.e. 192/24).

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2404 on: 10 Aug 2018, 04:36 pm »
Edit to the above: I am noticing that an AMPERSAND character in the Artist Name or Genre, has the same effect as in the Album title: no thumbnail image is displayed.

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2405 on: 14 Aug 2018, 09:11 pm »
FYI, Updated to:

S2.37 2017-11-23
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486
COPYRIGHT BRYSTON LTD. 2010

I rebuilt everything: cleared cache and reset bryston DB. When I load the Artists View, all I see is this (forever):




Addition: FYI, this problem has returned, as shown in the above image. It seems to happen if I play a song from the Artist View, switch to the Media Player Default view (i.e. view the playing album), then click into the Artist View again. Whatever previous Artist I was viewing shows loading, forever. The other Artists I can view, just fine.

unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2406 on: 14 Aug 2018, 10:24 pm »
K, let me know if today's release has the same problem, I'll check it out my self later tonight.

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2407 on: 16 Aug 2018, 02:29 pm »
K, let me know if today's release has the same problem, I'll check it out my self later tonight.

Everything is fixed (minus the stuttering issue, which is still there).

Complete art work coverage in all views and no more "Loading..." hangs.

Nice work!

unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2408 on: 16 Aug 2018, 03:37 pm »
I think the loading thing might be intermittent, i'm going to spend some time trying to reproduce it today.

onthefly

Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2409 on: 17 Aug 2018, 01:27 pm »
I'm currently running: S2.36 2017-12-18 & everything is fine.  Is this version current?

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2410 on: 2 Sep 2018, 03:55 am »
Doing some listening tonight with:

S2.37 2018-08-23
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486

Please.... please... remove the background image feature. Really.

OTM

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2411 on: 2 Sep 2018, 01:07 pm »
I don't mind the background image, but I wouldn't miss it if were removed.
In dashboardV2 for the last few beta releases I notice that only 30 Albums show up, using the scroll bar there are only blank
frames after that.

Edit
 :duh: had not cleared a search filter
« Last Edit: 3 Sep 2018, 12:51 pm by OTM »

unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2412 on: 4 Sep 2018, 08:42 pm »
Doing some listening tonight with:

S2.37 2018-08-23
Build: Manic Moose
MPD: 0.19.21 NEWS
Kernel: 3.16-0.bpo.2-486

Please.... please... remove the background image feature. Really.

Hi Ken,

I'll make the background an option to be turned off, off by default

Chris

gbaby

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2413 on: 4 Sep 2018, 11:57 pm »
Chris, I just shipped my BDP-2 for the BDP-3 upgrade. Will it comeback with S2.37?

unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2414 on: 5 Sep 2018, 07:42 pm »
Should come back with the recently release S2.38

Krutsch

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2415 on: 5 Sep 2018, 09:53 pm »
Hi Ken,

I'll make the background an option to be turned off, off by default

Chris




unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2416 on: 6 Sep 2018, 03:32 am »
I've added it, should be in a beta I plan to release Thursday (sept 6) night.  It disables the the request for all the fancy artist info stuff, if this is it it should stop.

Chris

Jozsef

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2417 on: 6 Sep 2018, 06:39 am »
Hi Chris,

I fired up S.2.38 on the BDP-2 with the slightly old Pale Moon 26.5 browser on Windows 8.1 and right away fell in love with the background image feature in the default view. It seemed like a delightful bit of decoration and added visual interest that I expected to miss if it were ever removed. The background image was in focus. However, when looking at it with up to date browsers on Windows, macOS and Linux, it's now clear to me that it was intended to be very blurred and essentially unrecognizable. I don't have much love for blurred images used in this way although I won't say I hate the feature but I definitely don't like it nearly as much. You can see that for me it would be wonderful if the option existed to present the background without the blur. BTW, I have no idea where the images come from but I actually don't mind that. It adds a little more fun to the interface.

If you add this option, I'll be eternally grateful!  :wink:

Edit: After playing with this for a few hours, I've recognized the obvious fact that the particular background image displayed is a very significant variable that determines whether the overall effect is pleasing or not so much. (I've been looking back and forth at the two computers and comparing with and without blur.) When set to the Crystal Theme, more of the image is visible and the overall effect with the blur can look very nice.

In the end, I would say that if you're very reluctant to add too many items to the customization menus, just adding the enable/ disable option as you intend to do would not be a bad compromise.

It occurs to me that allowing users to select an image much like a desktop or perhaps a series of them, might be a popular alternative.  In that case I suggest the blur should be optional.
« Last Edit: 6 Sep 2018, 09:34 am by Jozsef »

unincognito

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2418 on: 6 Sep 2018, 05:25 pm »
Hi Chris,

I fired up S.2.38 on the BDP-2 with the slightly old Pale Moon 26.5 browser on Windows 8.1 and right away fell in love with the background image feature in the default view. It seemed like a delightful bit of decoration and added visual interest that I expected to miss if it were ever removed. The background image was in focus. However, when looking at it with up to date browsers on Windows, macOS and Linux, it's now clear to me that it was intended to be very blurred and essentially unrecognizable. I don't have much love for blurred images used in this way although I won't say I hate the feature but I definitely don't like it nearly as much. You can see that for me it would be wonderful if the option existed to present the background without the blur. BTW, I have no idea where the images come from but I actually don't mind that. It adds a little more fun to the interface.

If you add this option, I'll be eternally grateful!  :wink:

Edit: After playing with this for a few hours, I've recognized the obvious fact that the particular background image displayed is a very significant variable that determines whether the overall effect is pleasing or not so much. (I've been looking back and forth at the two computers and comparing with and without blur.) When set to the Crystal Theme, more of the image is visible and the overall effect with the blur can look very nice.

In the end, I would say that if you're very reluctant to add too many items to the customization menus, just adding the enable/ disable option as you intend to do would not be a bad compromise.

It occurs to me that allowing users to select an image much like a desktop or perhaps a series of them, might be a popular alternative.  In that case I suggest the blur should be optional.

I'll think about blurring options, choosing the background cover art is already planned and possible through the artist view.  The edit profile option found in the artist profile menu.

Chris

gbaby

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Re: Manic Moose (S2) - BDP's third major firmware release
« Reply #2419 on: 6 Sep 2018, 07:47 pm »
Should come back with the recently release S2.38

 8)