Music Player inconveniences and suggested improvements

Updated status for FW 6.7.18 on Neo players. Did not check the equivalent FW 6.4.18 for other models.
Not on my list was SACD MCH DSD => PCM conversion which support was included very much to my pleasant surprise.

This is a very important update from MP6 => MP7 solving the most critical problems/limitations. Above all it is making MP7 functional also for big(ger) collections.

Zidoo Controller now needs an urgent update to get synchronized again with MP7 .

 

Thank you for this reminder, at the moment I can see the album covers without any delay! I will also try to check if Multichannel SACD properly works.

 

MCH SACD with DSD =>PCM was confirmed to work on all models. Great to see that finally implemented too on Zidoo.

 

" Above all it is making MP7 functional also for big(ger) collections."
What do you consider big(ger)?

 

I think it will still work with 100.000+ tracks which I call a big collection. Guessed processing time 1.5 hours.

 

It barfed on my 175k library which is why no one should purchase this player if they intend to use it with a personal library that is large and use the zidoo player.
What large means is undefined at this point. But both roon an jriver can handle "large" libraries.
Too bad zidoo cant handle both roon and jriver

 

You really tried with the new engine??? The old one would never handle your library but the new one I think it can.
Split it in several folders being scanned and added successively. Next report your results here that is where the forum is all about.

Neo players are both Roon Certified and Roon Tested with other models being Roon Certified and all should work just fine. JRivier is in the makes according my information. Jeffyfin is reported to work well too and was asked by Zidoo to test Plex so also that one is coming.

My own collection has grown beyond reasonable size and I am the first one to admit that fact. About what is large? I do call a 175k library huge. At an average of lets assume 4 minutes playtime that is good for year and a half continuous playback.
But the library should also deal with most music collectors. Will be good to find an indicative limit as a reference.

Please try things before just giving negative comments. Eating is the proof of the pudding.

 

At the moment It seems to be working correctly, but some albums has a wrong cover. The music library contains a lot of files (around 30000). Should I try to reset the system?

 

You can clean the cover cache independently in setup using the latest FW.

 

Thanks for the info

 

I just discovered the topic !
My need is quite simple :
The sorting search function (name of the song / album / artist) for my CD collection, that's all I ask

Waiting now for the same improvement with the Zidoo app and the NEO front display

 

Oh, my bad sorry i didnt know opinions and experiences that differ from the illuminati arent allowed here. If not, i have a number of posts at other places stating the same thing that i will include there. Censorship is unnecessary.
I did try, did you?
The app is a POS and didnt work for me. It is nothing but a frozen (when it actually opens) mess. While the scanning was quicker, it never completed.
So that is better in your eyes? Ok then.
I never stated roon did not work if you read my other posts i actually stated the same as you did. Roon works. Zidoo app does not. Both statements are, for me

What i stated was 100% correct even though you had heartburn with it.
"Its too bad zidoo cant handle BOTH roon and jriver."
Lets disect that in case its confusing, if it can handle one (roon) but not the other (jriver) it cannot handle both. Right? That is what is too bad since both of those options can handle large libraries without barfing on them and why use them. I have nothing against the zidoo app other than it doesnt work.

Thanks for allowing those with differing experiences to post without asking ininuating questions which imply i didnt try before posting negative comments. I did, too bad you didnt put the same check on what i actually did rather than the incorrect conjecture you made.

 

You are allowed to state anything here but will be reacted on if posting incorrect/undetailed findings. Saying it does not work for you doesn't really help.
Keep in mind this My Topic and act as moderator for my own topics. Feel free to create your own topic(s) and do the same.
Staying polite is always a good habit and a general forum rule.

You stated both Roon and Jriver did not work (that implies one nor the other for me): Now you say correctly Roon plus Jriver don't work. Saying effectively Jriver is not supported (yet) is something very different and is just confirmed by me.
Nothing new there except ROON support being improved on one detail with the new FW (not using ROON myself).

OK scanning your 175K tracks library does still crash with the new engine! Which is very possible obviously but doesn't make it a bad FW update. Did you try to split it in multiple folder pieces as asked and report where it goes wrong? Even a single album may be causing this but more likely the total size? Nailing the problem down helps. If not it is only an indication of a potential maximum tracks problem for a single scan or for the total library?

I published my test results and the very positive changes I reported using the new engine:
- Scanning is roughly 100x faster with the new engine which I call impressive.
- It handles much bigger collections (somebody reported 100.000+ working and tested roughly 40.000 tracks myself) but there is always a limit somewhere for sure. Single scan and library limits could be (totally) different and having an indication on these is always useful.
- The library results afterwards are good using scanning including searching.
Comments with details included for further improvement are always most welcome. Looking for a root cause is part of any beta testing (yes this is a pré-beta test FW version only).

If not happy with it just wait for an official FW release or use another product/APP for music playing (as still many Zidoo media player owners do). You still can always play tracks/albums using Media Center without using the library as I always did myself before this new FW was released. I am pretty convinced the new MP7 will enable a lot more customers to practically use the library features and enjoy Music Player as intended by Zidoo.
No not perfect for sure and still a lot of things to improve on music player. This topic is meant for that but yes is my view on that listening to others too.

 

The next version will be optimized for DLNA of Jriver

 

Thanks' for sharing I expect above all @muslhead will like that. I hope he reports also his findings using it.

 

Its your thread and i will not post anymore on it after this. You will get your wish of no one having a differing opinion than yours. You are the moderator, god, lord and master of your thread. I respect that.

I would recommend, that if certain things are not allowed on YOUR thread, you make them clear otherwise there may be others, like me, that encroach on YOUR thread by telling their experience and violating YOUR rules that are not stated those things could be avoided.

I did not state it was a bad update. Is it possible, if you are going to make comments to a persons post, you at least get them correct? I did not even give my opinion on the update. What i stated many times, is it didnt work. I apologize for not stating "for me". That is implied. I am the person writing so it is my opinion. Stating for me is redundant. Just as in your posts, you dont always state "for me". its implied.

I tried scanning the entire library folder and it did not work. I then scanned all the major subfolders and it did better but did not finish all of them. Yes, much faster than the previous versions. IF you are happy and think this is wonderful. Great. Its your opinion and your thread. Unfortunately, that is too low of a bar to be excited about FOR ME. Is it progress? yes, seems so. Sometimes the forest cant be seen through the trees.

I really dont care about whether zidoo app works or not. I will never use it. I only tried it so i could share my experience and see if i could find a temporary solution until (or if) jriver is ever supported. Both of those alternatives are a gazillion times better and more professional for music, than the zidoo app.

I find the zidoo app fine when working with video. I use it every time i watch a video. But then again, i dont have any benchmarks to compare too so maybe, i have set my bar too low. For music though, it is an embarrasing offering as compared to its competitors. If you have no other benchmark to compare to, the zidoo app could be just fine. Unfortunately, i do have that benchmark and naturally compare them. There is ZERO reason for me to change unless i wanted video which the other products dont offer.

Yes, you published those results. Thanks for doing that. While those things you talk are clearly better, the overall package STILL DOESNT WORK FOR ME.
No, nothing is perfect, not jriver. Not roon. And they are charging for them while zidoo is not (but they are not selling hardware where zidoo is) so maybe its apples and bananas here.
You seem reasonably objective which is appreciated but i have found your enthusiasm is unwarranted for me because your bar is either really low which makes anything good, or you arent comparing against the competition. But i can see, after reading more posts on this forum, i can tell you are speaking to the zidoo audience which i am clearly not one.

Sorry to have presented another, less optimistic view than your own, from a person with a different perspective and experience than your own. Other forums people are allowed to present their findings without out-of-line (and false) comments like "Please try things before just giving negative comments". Besides being blatantly false, they are non productive. All that is needed is to make clear you dont want differing opinions. If i then dont respect that, then you are more than justified to make personal, out of line, comments. Sorry if i am asking for too much.

How i came to my conclusions are
1) the scanning process seems to never complete
2) likely due to #1 above, the search function doesnt provide accurate results. tracks i know are there, dont show up. Tracks i know arent there (based upon what zidoo presents) are not.
3) it doesnt support playlists. I tried 3 different types (3 most commonly used). none work
4) roon works. Thank god that Zidoos implementation was completed correctly as it is the only thing that works .... using Roons app and exiting from the zidoo ecosystem.
5) jriver does not work. We can feel wonderful that its being looked at but the objective answer is it does not work currently and they may never get to it (or be able to solve it). So until it is works, its nothing more than a wet dream and a promise.
6) The music player is so slow (due to my library size?) it is unusable and is unnavigateable. Roon and jriver do not have this problem on the exact same library. Neither of those are perfect and each have their own foibles, but i find the zidoo app (on the phone) does nothing. Doesnt play, doesnt scan, doesnt provide correct information about what is available to play. This is why i state its broken.
7) the album listing is WRONG. it shows i have ~30 albums in all my folders (real number is well into the multiple 1000s)
8) the song listing is a jumbled mess. Songs titles are shown that are not in my library. Songs that dont show up that are in my library. Some are garbled, unintelligable scramble of letters. All of my tags have been standardized (except for classical) for every track. I have spent thousands of hours standardizing my 180k tracks. Both jriver and roon pull all the correct info and present exactly what i have. I have none of these issues. This is a complete failure for Zidoo.
9) Artists (see 8 above).
10) File explorer works

There are more negatives but why go on.

Because most everything is broken wrt Zidoo software and i have alternatives that actually function correctly and as documented, i am not looking for answers or solutions. I am just stating my view. Clearly, i am more audio oriented and have an expectation of some sort of practicality and a set of functionality that works. Zidoo does none of those things in its current state for my situation
.
I post not to bash or criticize but to inform those that have an expectation of the same things I do that before they plunk down money they should rethink and dig deeper into the zidoo solution. Unlike some who criticize, i did not get my hardware for free. I actually paid for it. Zidoo does a horrible job of detailing what it does and doesnt do (documentation) so consumers either have to guess, ask questions or read reviews. I am trying to help those that read reviews and are considering the neo for audio. I want to insure they do a complete research before they buy. If i would have known what i know today, i would not purchased and instead be only a happy owner of a z9x which i have owned for a couple of years.

Be clear so you dont twist this around, its not zidoo the company, my comments are directed at the neo offering.

 

My rules are extremely simple: Report here anything in detail with the goal to help engineers fixing/improving things. If you report the detailed result of those partial folder scanning's it helps! If you don't want to do that it is fine.

Pure opinions is plenty of space for elsewhere on the forum. You may find some reviews for various Zidoo models on the forum including one for Neo X from me. I do this for multiple brands by the way.
http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?thr...ther-knowhow-for-hifi-players-playback.86336/
You read that one before buying? Good place for opinions too. Yes a Neo Alpha review is to follow from me too but I intend to do that after Music Player is brought to a reasonable Neo HW matching quality state.

What I am asking: How many tracks in a single scan, duration and final result. The scans that failed to be divided up again in smaller parts. It may be a specific content related problem after all. If failed scans are considerable smaller than others that succeeded that is a good indication that there is a content issue somewhere.
Delete folders that failed from the library and see if the library after that still works as intended for all folders that succeeded. This to find if there is a scanning limit or a total library limitation.

No ROON and Jriver have a very different target customer base with a very different sales model. I don't see them as competitors and neither does Zidoo for sure. It is good to see these plus Plex, Emby and Jellyfin to be supported offering customers a wide choice of media playing setups including mixed player platforms.

 

Great, need to get it!!

 

As a test put a large MP3 collection to a scan. The scanning slows down with library size for sure.
At 40.000+ tracks it is still doing roughly 250 tracks/minute.
Strange it is speeding up again reaching the end for a total of roughly 65.000 tracks.

 

Installed FW v6.7.20 on Neo Alpha. Lets see how it goes. Updated the list on several places. Many as me are now moving to using the library of MP7 to play music instead of Media Center.

It is good to see positive reports about accessing Library services including Music with ROON, Jriver, Jellyfin and Plex.
For the target customers of Neo models this may be a gamechanger as these typically have multi brand installations using these kind of setups.