Look for the following file in your Undemoe'd folder and COPY it into your new folder ......  XXHighEnd1xx.DAT


Won't happen until Peter creates a 'setup' file, which , as part of it's install process, will let the system know of a new application that can handle the difference media. While in its current form ( ie. simply unzip contents into a folder of your choice ), the system is completely ignorant of the existence of XXHE. It's on his todo list towards the end of the "beta" stage.


per discussions a couple of days ago, simply drop the updated XX.ahk file into the old folder. Shut down AutoHotKey, fire up 0.9x-6a, fire up AutoHotJey again and it should find the path to 0.9x-6a now

Cheers,

Russ

Hi Peter,

It's good to wake up to a new version, and no more spilled coffee ... yahh

I have noticed though, that with 0.9-6a, in addition to the warning messages coming up when attempting to change vol to/from -0dB, the message also comes up when doing an Alt-N. In that event ( and possible other Alt combinations which I haven't tested ), the warning message comes up twice, and the volume is now set at -120dB. Handy if you want to instantly mute the sound but probably not as you intended, which I presume you only want to pop up when doing an Alt-D or Alt-U.

Will continue testing.

Cheers,

Russ

Well done Peter!

You've made far greater progress than my feeble attempts to do a similar thing a while ago. I just couldn't overcome the chromatic abberation inherent in my Hubbleoptics lens, with the results you see in the picture below.

The Dutch certainly are a resourceful lot

Regs,

Russ

Well .. not completely harmless. I almost drowned in a cup of coffee I was drinking at the time when I lowered the volume that first time 

No harm to the speakers though. They are built like tanks and have immense headroom capabilities.

Looking forward to 0.9x-6b soon.

Have fun !

Russ

G'day Peter,

Thanks for the new release, it appears the coverart issues from previous have been rectified.

I've discovered a couple of issues so far with 0.9x-6 : one minor and one which could be quite nasty!

Firstly, I can't seem to get the Alt-G working to toggle the OSD. It appears have _an_ effect as the OSD blinks momentarily, but then it continues running again. Initially I thought it may have been because of a possible omission of three asterisks ( *** ) at the end of the discription line for that function within the the XX.ahk file, but that isn't the cause. I suspect it's an internal program glitch.

The second issue and potentially harmful to your speakers, is that if you use either the Alt-D ( while in Unattended ), or the DOWN button on the volume slider, WHEN THE INITIAL VOLUME IS SET AT ZERO, then you are confronted with a continuous blast of white noise as the slider drops to -1.5 and lower. If the VOL slider is anywhere other than ZERO initially when play commences then all behaves as expected. I discovered this by accident as I was using the hotkeys while trying to cure the Alt-G issue above. I also noticed that if you initiate too many Alt-D commands in quick session a warning window pops up (Initialize Playlist) that reads "The process cannot access file 'C:\XXHighEnd-09x-6\Played.dat' because it is being used by another process".

I went back to try 0.9x-5b and the same issue of this blast of white noise occurs there. It may have been evident much earlier but has gone unnoticed by me as I generally don't use the VOL control.

Be careful with this one folks if you want to try it to see if you are affected also and report back. Keep the volume on your amp down beforehand if you use it that way.

Will continue testing.

Cheers,

Russ

EDIT: I've just noticed that if I start off with the volume slider at -1.5 , then raise it to ZERO, windows brings up a warning message to say that XXEngine3.exe has stopped working and gives you the option to close the program.

G'day Mike,

If you take the tick OFF the boxes for OSD & Unload Services in the settings menu, and make sure you don't load the AutoKey application, you should have an environment as you desire.

Give that a try.

Cheers,

and welcome aboard the geek train 

Russ

There is a squillion references to the HDMI device in the registry and I'd be kidding myself if I could determine how they all interact.

My advice would be to toggle the device ENABLED via the normal Computer Management/Device Manager route per normal when you want to watch TV, and DISABLE it the same way when you want to listen to XXHE, although I'm not sure why you can't chose the JULI@ SPDIF in the output settings. This should work in the interim until a better process is worked out. Don't suppose your video card has HDMI perchance ?

Cheers,

Russ

hmmm ... it might be as easy as flipping a registry entry OFF and ON , and if that's the case a batch(s) job with a shortcut(s) on your desktop could be created to facilitate that.

I have no need for HDMI currently as I said so I had it DISABLED in the drivers manager section, but even with it ENABLED XXHE worked fine. It seems to me that your onboard S/C HDMI component works differently to the one here on my video card ( an ATI HD3450 ).

I'll see if I can see where in the registry things get changed when the HDMI driver gets ENABLED/DISABLED. Could open up a can of worms though .. hehe

Cheers,

Russ

DOH .... [ smacks forehead with open hand ]

that's been the issue all along. Sometime a while back I must have renamed the share , and the system appended the drive letter on the end with a space. I hadn't noticed!

I've just amended two PC's to reflect NO spaces in their share names and all is working fine

I shall now go and sit in the corner and don my dunce's hat for a hour or so 

Thanks for picking up this. It's often the case of the bleedin' obvious starring you in the face .. LOL

Cheers,

Russ ( ex guru )

My problem eons ago was due to using spaces in the share name and I haven't been using spaces since. I seem to recall it was accessing the albums via that 'library' button also. I haven't tried simply dragging and dropping into the playlist .. perhaps that might show different results. Will try later.

The fact that it happens across my whole network and using different PC's to initiate the play process suggests its systemic to my LAN.

There's no urgency on this one Peter. Work on it when you can. I've been living with the bug for many a month now and I don't access the other PC's too often these days, but it would be nice to get it fixed as It might offer some alternatives for data storage.

Cheers,

Russ

The following logs are the result of playing a single track from one of my LAN PC's called 'BURNA'.

To access the album, I went via the 'Library' button to the left of the 'Play' button and navigated to the album, then chose a single track.

The second error window had a "1626" in it at the front this time.

After getting the first set of error messages I stopped XXHE, and then restarted it again, but this time accessed a different album on another PC on my LAN called "MUTHA".

Hope you can follow this.

Not sure what you mean by 'drive letter'. My network shares mostly have a name of some sort for them rather than a plain letter.

Thanks Peter,

Russ

G'day Peter,

I have a confession to make ... for quite a number of versions now ( at least as far back as 0.9w-7 and probably much much earlier ), whenever I access albums across my LAN I get the following message windows:

ChangeWP ~ Error 00: startIndex cannot be larger than length of string. Parameter name: startIndex

followed by ..

ChangeWP ~ 1720:DATA:\\MUTHA\Data_1

Those two error windows come up for each track played, and left unacknowledged simply cascade upon each other.

The playback is fine, and the artwork shows up in the appropriate panels within the GUI, but no wallpaper change occurs as you would expect. Those same albums played on the local PC behave normally.

The fact that no-one else had brought this to your attention had me thinking it was unique to my LAN environment here and I have been trying to figure out what might be causing it here. I've run out of ideas though, and with recent discussions about ChangeWP thought it time to mention it.

If anyone else runs a LAN at home could you try playing an album from across it and see if it works for you.

I should also add that even under the XP partition of my main music server ( dual boot ) I get similar messages ( although the "1720" is a different number then ) when accessing across the LAN.

Perhaps the impending 0.9x-6 fixes this ?

Do you want some logging done Peter?

Cheers,

Russ

G'day Andrew,

which drivers are you using for the Juli@ ?

I had been using v1.04 for months and I noticed a few days back that there was v1.05 recently released. I have been using the latter for a few days now with no ill effect. Couldn't find any doco on what the new version brings forth but 'generally' a later version should be more stable.

I also have a hdmi device available ( via the video card ) but have no issues playing 0.9x-5b. Have you tried disabling your HDMI entry in the drivers manager ... that's what I have done. Even with it enabled I can choose the Juli@ SPDIF entry in the output setting of XXHE.

I presume you have the "Digital Output Device (SPDIF) ~ Juli@ Audio Working" ticked in the Sound/Playback from within your Control Panel? While checking the latter, check that when you highlight the Juli@ SPDIF entry and choose 'Properties', that under the Supported Formats, you have all sample rates ticked, and that under the 'Advanced' tab, you have ticks in the Exclusive Mode options.

Can't think of anything else at the moment that may be preventing 0.9x-5b from working.

Cheers,

Russ

bewdy Peter ..thanks 

The error message still crops up here from time to time running 0.9x-5b and I've been ignoring it for the time being. I've simply left the slider at its leftmost position after it got reset to there. Folder Art process still works fine though

Cheers,

Russ

Thought I would revisit this DPC Latency checker again yesterday in an attempt to understand how my dual boot HTPC is currently performing, and it raised a question that has me baffled at the moment.

When I boot into my WinXP environment and run the DPC Latency app, I see a consistent 10-12 uSec which I reckon is rather good. Under Vista however I see an almost consistent 1000uSec at idle. The part I can't get my head around is that when XXHE is asked to play, the initial period when its converting the FLAC's etc to temporary WAV's and storing them in the XXHE folder, sees the latency DROP to around 75-100uSec during that phase. When the GUI disappears completely the latency goes back up to 1000uSec or thereabouts and stays there while the album plays.

I could imagine Vista being a bit more bloated than XP, but why would the latency drop when it's actually doing more work.

Any ideas anyone?

How do other folks systems perform under Vista as a comparison?

I thought I had my system stripped pretty bare now!

Cheers,

Russ