New Music Engine (2 Viewers)

[jawbroken]

Sure could, but if the rest of the MediaPortal configuration is anything to go by, it probably won't be.

 

[zombiepig]

well... it could be done the mce way and make it configurable by some obscure and undocumented key buried deep within the registry

 

[zag2me]

"Keep it simple"

All software programs should think about this before adding new features

 

[orencha]

I prefer "keep it SMART and SIMPLE"...

There's always a tradeoff between "more configurable" and "more simple" UI. I think the best solution is to allow both: either by using two "Wizard-based / Regular" modes or two "Simple / Advanced" modes, as in many software pieces.

 

[MrMad]

Great

Just installed the latest SVN (haven't installed one for a few weeks) and just wanted to give you a big
Amazing speed and crossfading, you're doing great work here Steve.
Now I'm off to download some visualizations

 

[The_Stig]

SteveV: Good work, i really like the new engine. But unfortunately, I have crashes since the svn with you changes. Maybe you could have a look here:

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/showthread.php?t=10837

Thanks!

 

[framug]

Hello,
Well, it could be great, if possible, to have a post-processing option in mymusic.
(same as in mymovies, mytv, etc...)
So, it would be possible to use, for example, ffdshow audio décoder and, to convert audio stream in AC3 mode for external receiver.
Actually, I use directshow to do that, so, I loose visualization of internal player.

Regards.

 

[SciDoctor]

I have two problems .

One is cpu usage which reaches 100% of a single cpu (dual MP 2000) with VIZ on using 'alchemy' (the only VIZ loaded) and as MP never normaly goes above 15% unless heavy EPG database use this is a concern.

Is there any hardware accelreration for the VIZ or do I need to download other VIZ types ?

The other may not be your engine but all FLAC titles loose their names and go to 'unknown - unknown' after playing the first track.

Anyway keep up the great work, much apreciated.

 

[SteveV]

Steve I think you've made an excellent choice going with Bass, I love the new music engine. No codecs to install, cross-fading etc all make for a much better music portion of MP.

I've always made a one line mod to the previous code to allow playback through a second sound card, for those who've done similar and want to do the same with the new engine place the following before the call to Bass.BASS_Init in MediaPortal.Player.BassAudioEngine:

                int device = -1;

                for(int index = 0; index <= Bass.BASS_GetDeviceCount(); index++)
                {
                    string description = Bass.BASS_GetDeviceDescription(index);

                    Log.Write("Device: {0},'{1}'", index, description);

                    if (string.Compare(description, "Sonica", true) == 0)
                    {
                        device = index;
                        break;
                    }
                }

Then change

                if (Bass.BASS_Init(-1, 44100, BASSInit.BASS_DEVICE_DEFAULT | BASSInit.BASS_DEVICE_LATENCY, 0, null))
                {
                                 ...

to

                if (Bass.BASS_Init(device, 44100, BASSInit.BASS_DEVICE_DEFAULT | BASSInit.BASS_DEVICE_LATENCY, 0, null))
                {
                                 ...

finally run the code, check the log file for the index of the device you want to use and replace 'Sonica' above with the correct description, recompile and you'll be all set.

Note: The above is for people who don't mind fiddling with the code only, don't bug Steve about it or expect to get control over volume (I'm more than happy to control mine via my amp's remote) etc.

Looking forward to seeing what other nice things Steve has planned for us .

Thanks for the code Smirnuff. I'll look at adding sound card selection somewhere in configuratione.exe.

Steve

 

[SteveV]

Steve,
I'm playing with the SVN for 2 days now, and you just made a great job with the music engine!

Two comments:

About the crossfade:
I suggest two seperate configuration bars, one for "fade-in time (seconds)" and one for "fade-out time (seconds)".

Why? because most of the songs (at least those I listen to...) are already fading out natively. Starting the second song, with little or no fade-in at all, while the first song still fades out, sounds smoother... That's what I do today with WinAmp.

About the ReplayGain support I mentioned before, I think you already have almost everything needed to support RG in place:
1. You already have a (great) tag reader; you just need to look for (in tags) for RG tags (and put them in the "song" table in Music DB). and, of course... put the new tag reader in the SVN ;-)
2. You already control the volume (gain) of songs and even do crossfading... So you just need to connect 1+2 together (with simple DB to scale/percentage calculation) - and here's your ReplayGain support ;-)

Please note, that your code DOES NOT need to calculate ReplayGain values; just apply a given gain (read from tags). Users can use other applications (such as Foobar2000) for ReplayGain calculations & tagging.

Thanks again!

The new tag reader already looks for replay gain fields so this should be fairly easy to implement. We still need to go through a music db redesign so it's unlikey that rg will happen until then.

Steve