The term "Unattended Playback" ever back came from the core audio engine being able to play music without attention (possible) from you, the user. "Without control" so to speak.
It was the better means of audio reproduction through a PC, because all what is happening in the PC influences the sonic quatlity of the music.
Today this did not change. However, by smart "remote control" means introduced fairly quick after the introduction of Unattended Playback, the audio engine can be controlled in every aspect needed.
Unattended Playback will be invoked when the Unattended button is active and Play is clicked.
What will happen is that all what's in the Playlist Area will be preprocessed (like FLAC to WAV conversion) and after all the preparations have been performed, the User Interface (XXHighEnd) removes itself from memory and music playback starts. What's left to look at is a desktop screen with nothing active. Audio plays though.
While this is the mild variant, several things up to close to everyhing can be shut down in the PC when Unattended Playback starts.
The best variation of shutting down unnecessary tasks (services) in the PC is
Minimized OS Mode. This turns your PC into a zombie, while still normal tasks are possible, and for sure audio playback is. Minimized Mode is a more static mode your PC will remain in because all is set at boot time. So, it lasts until the PC is booted into Normal Mode again.
Notice that within itself this is unrelated to Unattended Playback. However, we notice it to you, because it may be a bit confusing to understand which does what.
How to use Unattended PlaybackFor starters, do not activate Monitor Off at Unattended. So, we'll leave that on for now, so we can see what happens.
Also, do not start out with Minimized OS. Remember, that is unrelated to Unattended.
With the Unattended button active, you press Play.
Assumed you shut down all there is to shut down (see above, and not the monitor), a message will appear telling you any remainder of services at that moment is shut down, and when this has been accomplished, the screen goes blank and audio starts playing. Notice that without Minimized OS it can easily take 3 minutes or more before all is shut down. With Minimized OS that's merely 3 seconds up to nothing.
(when you have the Coverart functions activated, Coverart will now be shown, and when OSD Text is activated, texts at the top and bottom of the screen will tell you what plays)
Now what ? Well, a first thing you could do to get acqainted with the features, is using Alt-x. This is such a "remote command" we talked about earlier;
What happens is that XXHighEnd is brought up again, but it is numb. It shows you the current running time position when you re-started XXHighEnd, but it is static. The time cursor doesn't move.
What you could do now is attempt many of the functions, but the audio engine is not under direct control. For example you could press Stop and audio playback will stop. But what really happened is that you provided another remote control command.
Let's assume yuo did *not* press stop, but instead closed XXHighEnd (just cross it away). The same procedure as before happens, and your Coverart etc. will show again as described before. Your PC is dead again (but for audio playback which still continues).
Now we are going to apply Stop from here. That's Alt-s. No wait, let's make it Alt-e for Pause. Ok ?
Audio playback now stops and that's it. Silence. Nothing changes to the PC. The Coverart remains. PC remains dead.
We can bring back audio by using the remote Play command; that would be Alt-p.
See ? easy.
A typicle scenario would be that audio playback is going on, the album is running to its end, and you use Alt-x to bring up XXHighEnd, start selecting your next album, use the Clear button to remove the old playlist (audio still plays !), load that new album or albums in the Playlist Area - now press Stop (or wait out the album which is currently playing), click a first track we want to hear and press Play again.
That is Unattended Playback. It is as easy as you hoped for, while providing you the best SQ possible.
Now you can combine it with Minimised OS Mode, and activate that button which tells to switch off the monitor when playback starts. All contribute to the best sound you heard ever. With the monitor being off you won't see a thing, but it's on by again by touching a button or moving the mouse. Want to have the monitor "internally" (!) switched off again ? use Alt-x and cross away XXHighEnd. Now the monitor will be switched off again.
See here for the available Remote Commands :
AutoHotKeys Listing.
