More streaming questions...

Posted by: Steeve on 12 October 2009

Hi

I am using a Uniti with a QNAP219P NAS with Twonky 4.417 pre-installed.

Question 1:
It's been working fine and I decided as I was away for a few days to power down the Uniti and the NAS (in accordance with the instructions). Upon restarting it up, whenever I play an album it starts with the first track and then plays the rest in random order! I've checked my Twonky Media Configuration and no randomising functions are selected. I also have Foobar2000 loaded on my laptop and the same thing happens when using this. Any ideas what's going on?

Question 2:
I have currently ripped most of my CDs using dbPoweramp. I understand that, at the moment, it isn't possible to save the gap information which means when playing an album like, say, Abbey Road, a few seconds silence appears between each track. I have tried ripping the same disc with EAC and creating a CUE sheet. When I played the file through Twonky last week (prior to the problem in Q1!) this just resulted in the last fraction of a second of the track repeating, followed by a silence followed by the next track! If I play the album back using Foobar2000 through the laptop it plays perfectly. I tried to play the same tracks through the Uniti via Foobar today but couldn't really prove much because of the randomising problem I am getting. Does anyone have any experience of playing tracks with the correct gaps through the Uniti?

Help please! I am going slighty mad...

Steeve

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by Steeve

Doh! Just discovered there's a "randomise" button on the remote so that answers Q1!! Must have pushed it by mistake!

Will try the EAC files again now, but any advice on gapless playback gratefully received!

Steeve

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by pcstockton

Steeve,

True gapless playback is the norm for Foobar.

-patrick

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by Steeve

Hi Patrick

hmmm...strange...when playing them through the Uniti using Foobar there is still a short gap between tracks. (although there is none of the repeating of the last fraction of a second as with Twonky). The Uniti seems to stop streaming at the end of one track and "reconnect" to start the new track.

Anyone else had this problem? Or is everyone else happy with gappy albums?!

Steeve

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by silent tim

I use foobar too, now that you mention it yes all songs do have a second silence imbetween tracks, but have never noticed as playlist is usually set to random

from http://shsc.info/foobar2000

quote:
How do I make foobar play files gaplessly? Playback will be gapless if gapless playback is possible. Generally lossless files, ogg, mpc and wma are always gapless. AAC/MP4/M4A and MP3 are special cases. These rely on the encoder and decoder working properly to produce gaplessness. LAME MP3s are always gapless as of 3.90, as are Nero and FAAC AAC files. iTunes files are not gapless.

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by gmischol

Uniti does not support gapless playback, so there will always be a short gap (probably for buffering the next song). This can be anoying, especially in live recordings and in many classical piece, but you can't change this.

Gaudenz

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by pcstockton

gmischol,

Wow....

Do you know if this ridiculous limitation is for wireless streaming only?

Can someone please check if this is the case for hard wired sources?

thanks,
Patrick

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by gmischol

No, that's the same for any music played over UPnP, doesn't make a difference if wireless streaming or over cable. Sorry, you have to live with it (isn't that bad with all the possibilities with Uniti).

Gaudenz

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by likesmusic

Does that mean you get dozens of gaps listening to opera?

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by pcstockton

Wait a second....

When hardwired it is still using UPnP?

"Forced" gaps are completely unacceptable to most I would imagine. I certainly would not accept it as a necessary evil. This sounds like the early versions of itunes that appended 2 seconds to the end of all songs. Maybe it still does this? Weak.

Live albums and "classical" works are only the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds upon hundreds of my cherished albums have tracks that segue into one another without a definitive break.

How could this not fully piss off anyone who bought one without knowing this? How would this not scare off all potential owners?

Bush league I tell ya.

-patrick

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by garyi

Patrick blame the UPNP protocol.

Posted on: 12 October 2009 by Steeve

Oh well, that's pretty emphatic. With most of the kind of music I listen to it isn't an issue but a classic example with which most people will be familiar would be something like "Abbey Road" where gaps do not make for a comfortable listening experience.

Naim, are you listening? Is this something that can be corrected with future software updates or is it set in stone?

And not intending to be malevolent in any way, I am nevertheless curious, does the same thing happen on Linn DS units?

Steeve

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by Tom_W

Wow, that's a bummer. I thought that issue had been ironed out with media players nowadays.
Kind of takes the edge off my excitement for impending Uniti delivery. Gaps really annoy me

Is there really no way this could be updated through firmware?

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by andyh411

Bit of a big oversight for an otherwise well conceived product. Surely not beyond the realms of a firmware update though?

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by pcstockton

Garyi,

I blame Naim for using UPnP I suppose.
Do the Squeezebox and Linn DS player do this?

-patrick

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by DaveBk

I get perfect gapless playback on my Transporter - I assume it's the same on the Squeezebox, but can't say for sure.

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by likesmusic

Squeezebox is perfectly gapless - I listen to a lot of choral classical music and opera for which gaps are unthinkable. So if a hundred quids worth of streamer can do it ...

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by garyi

Squeezebox ain't UPNP!

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by silent tim

maybe I'm just being thick, but if gapless is really important cant you just rip the entire cd as a single track?

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by likesmusic

Linn can manage gapless playback from a upnp server ... how hard can it be?

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by Joe Bibb

quote:
Originally posted by likesmusic:
Linn can manage gapless playback from a upnp server ... how hard can it be?

Posted on: 13 October 2009 by Steeve

But seriously, could someone from Naim please comment on this and the possibilities for the future?

Many thanks

Steeve

Posted on: 14 October 2009 by T38.45

.....and it works:-) using upnp with qnap, controlling with ipod touch!

Posted on: 14 October 2009 by pcstockton

quote:
Originally posted by silent tim:
maybe I'm just being thick, but if gapless is really important cant you just rip the entire cd as a single track?

What, are we back in the days of cassettes and having to Fast Forward to the next track?

Posted on: 15 October 2009 by Tom_W

Is anyone from Naim reading this thread?
Please can you respond.

Many thanks

Posted on: 15 October 2009 by Occean

The linn DS system basically runs in two different modes, UPnP AV (the standard protocol) for control and an open source propritery UPnP portocol for playback (UPnP Linn Media) which essentially buffers the tracks for gapless playback.

The DS's are also compatibale with a version of Slimserver, (skwezzyDS) which also supports gapless.

AFAIK the Uniti does not do either of these and just uses UPnP AV protocol.