XXHighEnd

All,

At some stage we'd have to present an official release;
I want to do that with a version which does not contain disturbing bugs. But do I know them all ?

Below is the list as I know it. If there is more, please feel free to add, but more importantly, please try to eleborate on how to copy the behaviour concerned at will.
Let's say I aim for the beginning of November (2007 :)) for a 1.00 version. A few new features will need be added for that too, but that's another story.

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• Won't run on Vista/64. (*)
  Solved in 0.9v-1
• A-B playing (repeating a selection) not implemented yet
  Solved in 0.9w-2
• Under Engine #3 only the "Primary Device" can produce sound (same with Engine#2 but that will not change).
  Solved in 0.9x-5
• Playlists cannot be copied to other PCs on the network, hence the drive references -as currently used instead of Computernames- will be wrong then. (*)
• Similarly, Playlists can be use locally only (from the install directory of XX). (*)
• Though the Properties area suggests otherwise (Info tab), currently only 2 channel 44K1 16 bit stereo playback is supported. (*)
  Solved in 0.9u later versions (but still only 2 channel (stereo) is supported)
• The currently playing track, eventually will move out of (under) the Playlist area (depending on the length of the Playlist).
  Solved in 0.9m
• When the Q1 slider is set to 0, that position is not remembered at the next startup. This bug was introduced with version 0.9k.
  Solved in 0.9l
• When a track is playing and the Playlist Area is cleared (Clear button), following by dragging in new tracks, the playing track may be the next playing (instead of the second track)
  Solved in 0.9l.
• Not more than one track at the time can be removed from the Playlist area by means of dragging to the Delete button.
  Solved in 0.9t-0.
• There's no running time visible.
• The possibility exists that an Activation Code of "0" is received. So far this happened once only (even today). In the end this is no problem because the Code can be sent manually.
• Startup of XXHighEnd from double-click on a WAV file in Explorer does not work (may be too difficult to solve without the official Install, which is intended to stay as it is).
• Only folder.jpg files are supported for coverart currently. This should be folder.jpeg as well.
  Solved in 0.9t-0.
• Edit as per http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=184.msg1076#msg1076 : Moving tracks within the Playlist Area produces an error (the moving itself is okay). This bug was introduced in the 0.9k version.
  Solved in 0.9l
• Edit as per http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=184.msg1077#msg1077 : Cue File tracks won't play gapless when the album folder (or higher up) contains diacritical marks, because of the whole album reloading at each track in this case (diacritical marks).
  Solved in 0.9t-2.
• When a "Cue File" album is loaded in the Playlist Area, and during playing Clear is pressed, the large WAV file appears as the playing track, instead of the currently playing real track (and (untested) further playing most probably goes wrong).
  Solved in 0.9t-6.
• Edit Cracks may emerge with the Inverted Phase checkbox checked.
  Solved in 0.9lb.
• Edit At random a next track won't play (Engine#3) and a message "Engine#3 did not start within the expected time" may (!) follow.
  Solved in 0.9m-1.
• Edit Selected tracks in the Playlist Area are meant to be played as a subselection from the listed tracks. Currently as soon as the first (or a next) track starts playing, all the others are deselecetd.
  Solved in 0.9t-6.
• Edit It can happen (Engine#3) that a track with diacritical marks won't play because of a wrong internal format; the result is that from then on no tracks with diacritical marks will play (#3 engine stopped working (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=217.msg1303#msg1303)).
  Solved in 0.9o.
• Edit FLAC and MP3 Albums and Tracks cannot be searched for in the Library Area.
  Solved in 0.9t-0.
• Edit When during playback another (bunch of) track(s) is loaded into the Playlist Area from the Library Area (so probably only when done like that) a message "No Track given" can occur when the next track should play from the Playlist.
  Solved in 0.9t-6.
• Edit The Next and Prev buttons can not be used in a fast manner at tracks which need conversion (like FLAC/MP3).
• Edit When the Library button is used during playback to get tracks into the Playlist Area, and the Open File Dialog is open at the moment a next track should start playing, it will not, and instead a message "No Track given" will be showed. (*)
• Edit Cue file tracks can't be put individually in a Galery. This is apparent in the Playlist Area and rightclick -> Add to Galery, resulting in the whole Cue Album being in the Galery.

(*) Probably won't be solved in the 1.00 version. It will be dealt with later.

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Please note that I derived the above mainly from using Vista/Engine#3 and it has been many months since I used XP.
I'd like to urge you to go to Vista anyway, because it is so much better for SQ (with Engine#3) *and* it will be the platform for further developments.

Anyway, if you have bugs or otherwise of which you think it should prevent an official version, please add it below. I'll make the list up to date with them.
Note that upgrades will be free forever, unless a new major release pops up (like 2.xx). Currently this is not planned (hence no new features planned that would justify a new major release).

Thanks a bunch,
Peter

• XX didn't start within expected time = Doesn't go to next track on the playlist

Gerner

When / since when / how often does this happen ?

Well, Peter it happens....but seems to me it's more related to my HDD's temporarely slow com with the LT.

Today I go high speed com between the HDDs and the LT. I'll watch up for the phenomenon and report.

It is not neccesarely related to long tracks. It happened also to tracks not bigger than 25 MB.


Ohh...while writing I remember I have only 1 GB RAM, but have an extra 1 GB liying around not in use. I can plug those in if it's related to that?


Gerner ;)

For Vista 1GB ... it is the minimum. I mean, without loading WAV files it already would be.

But, your culprit will be more in the area of the HDDs which might have fallen asleep. I don't know though whether that can be the case in your sitution. If you can find power management properties for your *internal* harddisk (somewhere) you'd know what to look for with the USB (?) disks. Do find things in this sequence because if there's no power management possible for the USB (?) disks, you won't see anything. So you'd have to see how it looks like first (on the internal HDD).

Note that -if this indeed is the culprit- I could extend the "waiting time" for the data, but in the end this does not help you. It will imply "no gapless", which is not what you'd want. So you just have to solve the problem.
By heart, the current waiting time is 9 seconds or so, and this 9 seconds includes the full loading of the track. Thus, if that would take (for e.g. a full CD = 700MB) more, then you won't overcome the problem anyway. But since it happens with 25MB tracks also, it must be something like described in the above.
Btw, note that the message that Engine#3 did not start in the expected time appears 60 seconds after the first attempt. This is inconsistent with the 9 seconds mentioned earlier, but the 60 seconds is there because there can be other reasons for a wait time longer than 9 seconds, not related to your problem. So this is just background informattion.

Peter

Peter, Thanks.

I think, (my memmory is short - my HDD's are long, hopefully haha), that is related to my stupid use of my new HDD's which are designed for ethernet com and forced to go USB com. My load speed here in this mode is as low as 5MB/s.
That will be changed to day to 80 MB/s or so.

I can't remember if I had this message before I swoped to the new discs? I think I had? But....

So as soon as I go high speed here again and the message eventual occour, I shall check up further upon it.

Gerner

I have that message rather often lately...no idea when this happens either (random as I can't repeat it on the same playlist)

Bert

Regarding the cover art it would be nice to be able to stretch the player even more so that I can show the cover art larger than possible now. Most of my jpg's are 500x500 pixels...and it would look nice if all not needed information could be hided behind one of the tabs (more space left for the cover art and playlist.

I only need to see the real player functions like Play, Pause, Next, Previous, Stop and the playlist menu, the rest is just a one time setting or doesn't work (not implemented yet)...

The UnDemo tab (or any other "useless") one can be removed too after the player is activated.

A version 1.0 should look finished or clean (all shown functions should at least work properly).

Bert

Hi Peter

Got more speed here with GigabitEthernet, but it did not change anything.

The #3 engine just reports it stopped because it didn't receive date in expected time.

I will now have to follow your advice too look for what happened in the HDD's. Did they fall to sleep due the tracks were too boring music?

Gerner

Hi Peter,


Still in 0.9k the Loud cracks!!!!

Other suggestions:

• Memorizing the selected output;
• Remote controle of XXHighEnd;
• Layout suggestion, see attachment.

Regards, Johan

Hi Johan,

As I told you some time ago (PM) ... I won't forget your good efforts on this ...

But on the cracks ... could you by some means send me the (or a) track you have problems with by email ?
I will be responsible for unauthorized copying ... (for those who might be interested in it :whistle:)

If the file is too large, you might cut it ?


It's already on the list.

Thanks,
Peter

I wish for playback of bigger files than 64MB in Engine #1. My opsys of choice is still XP Pro and will be that for some time. As an IT Technician, Vista has so many problems/flaws still that it will be a long time before I will install it. Typical playback length of  e.g. Gregorian Chorus songs is often around 7-8-9 minutes in length.

So, XP Pro it is. And in XP the best SQ from the player is in Engine #1 with 44.1Khz output digitally to an external DAC. A little troublesome with the "can't play files bigger than 64MB" error message, click to remove it and start on the next song.

Should not think that increasing the max file size to e.g. 128 or 256MB should be a big problem? Updating some programing matrix setup maybe?

Just my 2 cents worth & biggest wish item as one of your paying customers...incredible SQ from the player, btw! Congrats on a fine product! Keep up the good work! :)

Btw, the slider Q1, is it only working in Engine #3 in Vista? Neither the no. 1 or 2 gives access to it, e.g. it doesn't move.

You should go to Vista (upgrade version used as dual boot perhaps?) as this (Engine #3) wipes the floor with XP on all aspects...

Basically all extra's (like the Q-setting) only work on Engine #3 (Vista).

Bert

My contribution, including some already mentioned:

1. Buttons for previous and next track selection.

2. Larger area of the screen for album cover image.

3. When a track is playing it seems protected from other operations. For instance if you hit 'clear', all tracks go except that one. It is a bit fussy having to hit stop first.

4. My biggest frustration is in selecting all tracks on an album to play from my hard drive.

The current operation is a) find the album folder on my hard drive storage, b) click on it to drop down all the track titles, c) click/hold and drag over all the tracks to select them d) hit open to transfer to XXHighend.

It would be really good to have a single button operation to select the total album - perhaps a drag and drop of the album folder (hence my interest in cue files). Perhaps this is not possible.

Chris,


I don't understand this. These buttons are just there from the beginning. So what do you mean, please ?


This is by design ...
It allows you to get bored from a current Playlist, but allow the current track to finish neatly.
BUT, this does not quite workout as intended, because currently (in fact, always so far) when you operate it like I proposed (let that playing track neatly finish), that playing track will repeat again. And *this* is on the bug list.
I could allow for pressing Clear twice though, so at a second time that playing track would stop playing and disappear from the Playlist Area.



... Which most probably is because you don't know how to do it ?
So, indeed selecting a complete folder currently does not work. That will be in there though. However :
What you currently should do is :
Use Explorer to find your albums. Go into the album folder. Select the tracks you want (ctrl-click, ctrl-shift-click, etc.), and DRAG them onto the Playlist Area.
Remember, use Explorer.


No, you really would not want that. Why ? because the very first thing you canNOT do then, is select (individual !) tracks from a general means, like Explorer.
XX will solve that for you in due time.

If it's not clear, please call again !

Peter

Hi Bert,

Maybe a tad more difficult ...
Are you sure you have *and* 500x500 pictures *and* you can use them usefully ? What I mean is this :

When I scan a cover at 96dpi (which would be a normal monitor resolution), my pictures "become" 450 x 450 (or in that area, like 457 x 457). Note that this gives a 1:1 physical picture size, hence at measuring at the monitor (uhhm, 1280x1040) they will be egually large to the physical cover.

Of course I could make a 500x500 picture, but not without teaking the dpi. And if I do that, IMO things can't be 1:1 reproduced on the monitor (no matter what size you drag the picture, the dpi is wrong -> conversion).

In the end I don't bother because the cover will display as large as it is told, but since you would be very close to the 1:1 physical size, it would IMO be better to make it the real physical size (coming close to 12x12cm at 96dpi). Make it bigger and the scanner will extrapolate (or at it being bigger, interpolate, whatever).

Peter

Buttons for previous and next track selection.
I don't understand this. These buttons are just there from the beginning. So what do you mean, please ?

You know after all this time and I didn't even notice them there :whistle: Probably because I am conditioned to seeing them alongside 'play', 'pause' 'stop' etc

I could allow for pressing Clear twice though, so at a second time that playing track would stop playing and disappear from the Playlist Area.

That would be good :good:

... Which most probably is because you don't know how to do it ?
So, indeed selecting a complete folder currently does not work. That will be in there though. However :
What you currently should do is :
Use Explorer to find your albums. Go into the album folder. Select the tracks you want (ctrl-click, ctrl-shift-click, etc.), and DRAG them onto the Playlist Area.
Remember, use Explorer.

Well thats sorted that out, I wasn't using Explorer  :oops:- thanks

My covers are 200DPI but still 500x500 pixels and that is what my screen is built on.....pixels, regardless the resolotion used.

Any program shows these pictures when 100% using 500x500 pixels on my screen, should not be an issue which resolution is used. With plain text yes, then the resolution counts...

Bert

Start printing photo's ... then you'll get the grasp of it.
Or print your covers, one with 96dpi and one with 200. Both 500x500 ...

But never mind.  :)

I was just thinking, in the case of people wanting larger album pictures.... maybe a TAB (like the playlist, settings... tabs) that you'd click and it would show nothing but a larger picture of the album playing.... then maybe keep the playlist tab as is??  I dunno, I don't care much about it; my screen shuts off after a min of nonuse, which pretty much is the case when listening to music.

I have no intention to print the cover arts as photo's on paper. So why is this related to XX showing my cover arts larger on screen at moments I like to see them enlarged (500x500 pixels) with high quality and still sharp?

Bert

The 64MB is a limitation of official MS signed drivers (XP only !); Engine#2 goes around that (but with different further features and different SQ).

If you are really into listening to music, you really really should move to Vista. When you'd use the PC for music playback only, it's no big deal really.
Note that the different SQ from Vista is not a coincidence; in there Vista-only features are used which explicitly allow for the much better SQ.
MUCH better. Please try it.

Hi Peter,

During listening to the 0.9k version I have got two times a dotnet error message. See attachment. Music was still playing. I have not seen this error in any other version of XX.

Regards, Johan

Moving tracks within the playlist to another position shows an error (all the time). It moves the track well though...

When using CUE file to play Björk albums (I have 4) the load times between songs is greater than 30 secs.  I'm guessing this is because of diacritical marks.  Of course if I load the single wav file the gaps between songs are correct.  I'm going to try taking out diacritical marks one at a time in her name in the cue file info and see if that helps correct... it may be as simple as that?  I don't think I have many albums with diacritical marks ... we'll see.

That would be true ...
In that case for each track the whole album has to be reloaded ...

It can be smarter, but at the time I had been more busy with it than I thought in advance. So to be honest I thought "let it be for now; other things must have more prio currently".
Remember, if you load the album (the large WAV) into the Playlist Area by means of the Library button, it will be treated as if it were no cue file ...

:sorry:

Yes, no big deal for me.  Here is what I did for one of her albums to get around wait time and still use cue to get to song list.
1) Took out diacritical marks in single wav file name.
2) Took out diacritical marks in cue file name.
3) Took out diacritical marks in wav file name cue file references so it can find the single wav.
4) and here's the surprise: Took out diacritical marks in folder name files are under.

As a side side note... What do you think about adding "Name of Artist" and "Album Name" along with song title to each for each album info... would be helpful when I start mixing up songs from various albums.  As it is now with CUE file play I just see the song titile.
Kinda like this:
02. Miracle Fortress - [Five Roses #02] Have You Seen In Your Dreams
(example name from how foobar handles it)
 Thanks PeterSt.

Oops, sorry, wanted to tell that. Furthermore it would be about the album title; I did not try it, but I don't thing the tracknames would matter (not with cue files).

About your ideas : yes, obviously. But I'd rather wait with that until those kind of things can be added to the album (and track) data anyway.
Which it will in near future ...

Hmm
Using CUE to see song titles, I get an error too when moving song titles.  But when I try to move the song, along with the error, it replaces the song title with the album's whole wav in the new place I moved it.

I haven't seen any of the other errors people are reporting... yet.  I'll let you know if I do.

I think it would be helpful to have a ">" marker next to the track that is playing.  That way if you are highlighting other tracks for whatever reason, you would still see a > next to the track that is playing... (plate a bit full there yet PeterSt? hehe sorry... I'm happy as a clam with SQ playback so... anything up and above what a normal cdp does is all gravy to me).

Me have that too....not too often....but too....
Thanks for reminding me of this Johan.

Well still the music goes on regardless the error.


gerner

Peter, I'm still getting the loud cracks with invert box checked (with version 0.9k) as well. I know Johan already mentioned it. I was just wondering if you have an idea if this can be fixed.

Of course it can be fixed, but it can't have priority over other matters while in the mean time I myself don't have it (hence time consuing). But this is related to having the example, which I now received from Johan.
I imagine this to be solved in the next version (and currently I can't upgrade, because everything is upside down in the program at this moment).

I just realize that it's not on the buglist. Good that you asked.

Dont know if this is the same issue.
Last night the program had a slight wobble, I got an error message which I didn't catch, then the box where the playlist resides was relaced with a big red cross on white background - but the music kept playing  :good: :good:

Probably it's the same, yes (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=184.msg1074#msg1074).

I never had this, and I wouldn't know how to copy that behaviour. So Chris, what is this "slight wobble" you talk about ? ... could be important ...

It was late at night and I didn't pay a lot of attention :blush2:

I had an album loaded in the playlist and was sitting back relaxing. I think after track 1 or 2, when moving on to the next track, an error message flashed up. I cant remember what it said, but as the next track started playing OK I just achnowledged the message and that was when the big red cross replaced the entire playlist area. I dont remember any disturbance to the music throughout.

I cant tell if the message was the same as Johans because of the language difference, but the red cross certainly was. (strange how I get drawn to that album sleeve of his ;))

Next time, if it happens again, I will make note of the error message. Sorry, not much help.

Thank you Chris. But please press the "Details" button then. The real info (for me) will be behind that button.

Hi Peter,

I have send you a PM with the screendump of the dotnet errormessage.

Johan

This isn't a bug, but are we listing things here that might contribute to a final release?  I was just listening to an old joni mitchell album "miles of aisles" and it is recorded with HDCD.  I don't have many of those, and I'm guessing that these type of discs aren't made anymore? But, well, should it be supported in the player?  HDCD discs do sound a lot better when played back with an HDCD player, and sound kinda thin when not.

Well, it's allright if people are listing requests, as long as they don't think it's treated like a bug. I'll listen anyway ...

No, it is not likely that the HDCD format will be supported.
Btw, this is a kind of mp3-like construction (codec) that suggests 20 bits in the data, while physically still 16 are used.

Hi Peter,

I have got a memory message this afthernoon after using XXHighEnd 0.9k the whole day. This has happened now for the third time I'm using XXHighEnd.

See attachment 1 "Memory" and  2 "Taakbeheer" 3 "Taakbeheer" after a reboot of the system. I am using this PC only for Audio (I know, you can see that the Internet Explorer is also active).

Johan

Hi Johan,

Thank you for this information;
Could you please tell me :

For how long were you running XXHighEnd without pressing Play, Next, Previous, IOW how long was it running without touching anything before this happened ? Note that dragging new tracks onto the Playlist Area during playing (it just grabbing those for further playback) does not count as pressing Play etc. as mentioned.

Did anyone else bump into a thing like this with Engine#3 ? I myself have never seen this.
Also note Johan, that 1.5GB of memory is on the low side. E.g. two subsequent tracks consisting of near a full CD can't load with this. Not with Vista itself using 400-500MB.

Peter

Hi Peter

I did a 12 hour listening session yesterday using Version k, Q1 slider at 3. XX performed faultlessly aside from 2 minor glitches.

Just twice during this time on, different albums/tracks, the tracker moved along the bottom but no sound came from the speakers. After about a minute of this an error box came up saying "Engine #3 did not start within the expected time". I hit 'stop' and 'play' and it went back to the start of the tracks and played just fine.

It may not be relevant, but in each case I had two complete albums on the list for playing.

Cheers Chris