ZidooMusic Player 2.0 (findings and suggestions)

Discussion in 'HDD Media player(RTD 1295)' started by Nice Monkey, Jul 9, 2018.

  1. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    There is an app shown to control Music Player 2.0 via a Cell phone as advertised (see attachment). Where do I find this App?

    Not referring to solutions like CetusPlay as I need e.g. the capability to browse my music library for albums too.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jul 9, 2018
  2. mirror

    mirror Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Zidoo TECH Supporter

    Visit: IP:9528
     
  3. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    First findings for ZidooMusic player 2.0:
    - The player supports (plays) many formats including HQ formats like APE/FLAC/DSF and SACD-ISO but these are mostly output via 48khz at 16-bit. Far better than not playing these at all but not good enough for the audiophile for sure. I hope this will be changed to RAW passthrough in a future version. Even MP3 should be played with 44.1 Khz and not 48 Khz (=CD format).
    - The player will show individual song art/labels when embedded as an MP3v2 tag. It won't show album art via a folder.jpg file included in the album folder as many music players do for a very long time.
    - The menu button will bring up options on the song being highlighted "add favorite" and "move out of the playlist" I am missing an option here to display details of the song being played:
    a) Technical details: bitrate, bits per sample, channels, pseudo/full stereo for MP3 etc
    b) Tag information: Other v2 informational fields
    - A small error is that the first song played will show "unknown" for artist while it is shown correctly after a re-play and for next songs.
    - I am getting Lyrics in Chinese occasionally (where those come from?)
    - Exactly the same info is displayed twice (browser and below the album art) for the song being played. I would make more effective use of the space below the album: Song title, artist, album title, year and/or technical format information.
    - The up/down buttons on the remote (X9S old) don't move to the next/previous song. It works using another remote with dedicated next/previous track buttons on it.
    - Missing is an option for true gapless playback. With it tracks are played as a continuous stream without pauses in between and without loosing the audio connection with the amplifier.
    - The good news is CUE sheets are supported nicely and a single track can be used for the gapless playback of entire discs that alternative way (live recordings).


    Overall it already looks good, is easy to use and fairly bug free. Did not test various playlist formats (M3U etc) as I normally don't use these myself. I typically play entire folders/albums.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2018
  4. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Thanks :) For readers install procedure can be found under Apps "Control Center" which I had missed completely.
    It does essentially what is needed to control the media player using a smartphone via the players build-in web server. Very nice.

    - There seems to be a limit on the number of files in a single folder using remote control. Via a PC I get a network error above 1000 songs (Top 2000 NL) but my smartphone even skips that entire folder totally.
    - On various places I get Chinese text.
    - I am not getting to see the artwork cloned to my smartphone just the LP turning (for songs with it).

    The use of Remote Control is still a lot less stable than the player itself. Will patiently wait for the release. :p
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2018
  5. mirror

    mirror Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Zidoo TECH Supporter

    ZIDOO MUSIC 3.0 COMING SOON..

    V2.0.32 support SACD 176.4Khz output. MP3 also support 44.1Khz, you should be turn on the sampling rate switch in the quick settings.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2018
    Martin Wiszczor likes this.
  6. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Thanks again for the response!
    The "Audio sampling rate control" switch in fact was ON, but the "SACD audio" switch was turned OFF during the initial tests. Changed both to ON.
    Strange but I can't reproduce my MP3/FLAC findings with the previous setting after turning "Audio sampling rate control" OFF. It seems to be ON always now. I have the feeling there is something wrong with the "Audio sampling rate control" switch implementation.
    The "SACD audio" switch on the other hand works as expected when toggled ON/OFF.

    The much better audio output results now with both switches set to ON are:
    - My MP3 songs are played with a correct 44.1 Khz now.:)
    - Both DSF and SACD ISO is played always with 176.4 Khz indeed. This despite the source being a 88.2 Khz equivalent DSD64 which should be fine though (2x oversampled). :)
    - MCH 5.1 DSD64 is down-muxed and converted to 176.4 Stereo only. In fact I do like very much the MCH available on some SACD's. :mad:
    - Stereo FLAC 88.2 comes out correctly as 88.2. Stereo FLAC 192.2 comes out correctly as 192.2. But FLAC MCH 88.2 Khz still comes out at 96 KHz which definitely does not improve sound for sure. This is a real pity as converting MCH SACD formats to FLAC still does not result in optimal MCH output.:(
    - All Audio output passes internal processing and does not come out RAW (players volume control is active). To be honest if this is technically achievable?
    - An exception to the previous statement is DTS-CD audio in WAV format which comes out RAW.

    Stability Problems:

    - Had one Zidoomusic player crash needing a restart using the standard IR remote during these tests.
    - Had some occasional second long music pauses during playback of simple MP3 tracks.
    - Occasionally when selecting a song the player starts skipping through the playlists. Finally it may give a music player stopped error. Only a full media player restart will recover from this.
    - Occasionally the playback does not start and shows a circling icon this typically takes about a minute. The it plays normally for the entire playlist.

    These seem to happen only at the beginning of playback/selecting: listening to long playlists these never occurred in mid play.

    Overall looking even better than the previous test. What needs attention is RAW FLAC audio including MCH and native DSD64 output as an alternative choice for DSD/SACD ISO sources.
    Looking forward to Music Player 3.0 which hopefully addresses both and does not have the various stability problems? :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2018
    Martin Wiszczor likes this.
  7. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Did a quick check with v2.0.34 installed but it seems nothing was changed here.

    Also reviewed the Picture viewer updates: All seem to be working as claimed. See the v2.0.34 FW thread for additional findings.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2018
  8. Techead

    Techead Member

    I have a lot of wav files in my music library, It would be nice if it could read CUE file to get the Meta data for these albums.
     
  9. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    In fact CUE sheets are nicely supported and used by me with my DTS CD collection all using CUE sheets. Also works with other formats: :D
    - Below the cover art the actual track playing will be shown correctly based on the CUE sheet information :)
    - On the right the album track overview will be shown after opening/closing the album using the album text with the ^ button on the top-right. :)
    - One can jump directly to the individual songs too. :)

    Only the indication of the actual song being played at the right window does not follow automatically. It only updates when the window is refreshed manually for DTS-CD (seems to work correctly for other formats like WAV). A minor cosmetic flaw.

    Album artwork and lyrics are displayed, provided those have been tagged to the file

    Maybe you missed to see the open/close button, the feature is a bit hidden indeed?
    Did not test DTS-CD or CUE sheets with v2.0.32 FW to be honest.

    Updated my findings above with more details after using it a lot more and including also DTS-CD now.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2018
  10. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Could the dedicated Music Player 3.0 settings be moved from General Settings to the Music player itself please. Much easier to change the setup and a lot less confusing (which setting is for Music Player only and which is for all audio output?). :D

    It would next be nice to facilitate more options from inside the music player:
    - Turning on/off the background artwork and/or enable a configurable folder with a slide-show
    - Setting folder or tagged artwork as a preference
    - Make the artwork turn like a real disc
    - Resume playlist where interrupted when starting up the music player
    - Autoplay on/off when resuming previous playlist
    - Displaying files names with/without its extension.
    - etc.
    Like many good players do offer. :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2018
    Martin Wiszczor likes this.

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