hey Mani, congratulations on your blistering speed. It's something the average aussie can only dream about currently!

As one of the wealthiest nations, it's embarassing how woefully inept our internet intrastructure is here. Successive governments have done stuff all to grow our communications needs, and what there is in place, is rather expensive compared to most other developed countries.

Our current government is in the early stages of rolling out fibre-optic to 95% of the population, so in time (5 years or so) we will compare with the rest of the world, but it is a AU$43 Billion project, and as with any of these massive projects, that figure will blowout no doubt.

More details at .... http://www.nbn.gov.au/ for those interested.

I'm fortunate in that my house is only 400metres from the local telephone exchange, so my ADSL2+ connection is normally at ~ 21mbps/1mbps. Outer suburban areas often only have ADSL connectivity, and at best get 8mbps. Rural areas are less fortunate, with dialup plans being the only affordable and viable option available in most cases.

The size of our country is obviously a factor when communications needs here are discussed. It riles me that our bickering beaurocrats have left it so long to bridge the gap to the rest of the world, but at least there is now some progress is sight, albeit a very expensive solution.

Cheers,

Russ

Peter, I also noticed a message pop up in the status area Monday night briefly which was likely similar to what you saw, but haven't followed up on it yet. I didn't switch on my music server yesterday but will do so later tonight most likely. I did check the system "properties" page and nothing seemed out of place there, nor were any warnings evident.

My music server has no connection to the Internet and is isolated from the rest of my LAN.

Cheers,

Russ

I think Mani is on the Dark Side of the World now and is sleeping, so in the interim, have a look here ......

http://www.dynamicrange.de/free-downloads

It's a plugin for Foobar. It's OK though ... you don't have to listen to the tracks and the process is nice and quick. Further explanations of what the DR value means on that site also.

Cheers,

Russ

For those wishing to track down some of the limited DMP albums, I found an archive of their website as at October 2007. It should help in identifying their range.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071023061416/http://www.dmprecords.com/index.html

Cheers,

Russ

Hi Mani,

I certainly like my music with as much dynamics as possible, and there are no technical reasons why all redbook albums can't be produced with average DR's at 19 or even higher. It just takes some guts and foresight from the recording engineers and producers to do it. Of course we all know that's never going to happen though ... see the 'loudness wars' for one reason.

One example of a record producer who did accomplish fabulous dynamics was DMP ( Digital Music Products ) established by Tom Jung. By minimising interference to the microphone output and recording direct to the master, DMP have been recognised as having one of the cleanest and best dynamics in the business. Alas, they no longer are in business from what I understand, but if you want to experience what is achievable, go a huntin' on ebay or even some of the bigger record stores which may still have some stock.

I did a DR test on the very popular Telarc's 1812 Overture by Erich Kunzel and the Cincinatti Pops and the results are below. Those real cannon's would certainly have helped to lift the DR value.

By comparison, look at a couple of the many DMP albums I have. Listening to tracks with a DR of 23 is exhilarating and makes you realise how much we miss out on from your average humdrum recording.

If anyone has albums with higher DR values I'm all ears (pun intended!).

Cheers,

Russ

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Erich Kunzel & Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra / 1812 Overture
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR17       0.00 dB   -23.13 dB     15:43 ?-(01) - 1812 Overture, Op. 49
DR16      -3.52 dB   -27.45 dB     15:19 ?-(02) - Capriccio Italien, Op. 45
DR17      -4.63 dB   -27.21 dB      4:17 ?-(03) - Cossack Dance from Mazeppa
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of tracks:  3
Official DR value: DR17

Samplerate:        44100 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   16
Bitrate:           542 kbps
Codec:             FLAC
================================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Flim & The BB's / TriCycle
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR20      -0.27 dB   -25.45 dB      4:41 ?-(01) - Tricycle
DR19       0.00 dB   -22.86 dB      6:35 ?-(02) - Cakewalk
DR16      -1.18 dB   -22.25 dB      6:06 ?-(03) - Lunch Hour Wedding March
DR20      -0.90 dB   -27.01 dB      5:18 ?-(04) - Sweet Winds Of Change
DR23      -0.03 dB   -27.84 dB      6:09 ?-(05) - Tell Me
DR18      -0.29 dB   -23.77 dB      5:10 ?-(06) - Thunder And Birdies
DR13     -13.63 dB   -32.73 dB      5:26 ?-(07) - High Wire
DR19      -0.26 dB   -22.60 dB      3:58 ?-(08) - The 8-29
DR20      -0.14 dB   -24.23 dB      5:59 ?-(09) - Sam's Samba
DR18       0.00 dB   -23.53 dB      6:10 ?-(10) - Eden
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of tracks:  10
Official DR value: DR19

Samplerate:        44100 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   16
Bitrate:           611 kbps
Codec:             FLAC
================================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Flim & The BB's / Big Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR20      -0.98 dB   -25.28 dB      7:56 01-New America
DR19      -0.31 dB   -24.98 dB      6:24 02-Heart Throb
DR20      -0.21 dB   -24.49 dB      8:28 03-At The Hop
DR14      -0.18 dB   -19.82 dB      5:57 04-Funhouse
DR21      -0.93 dB   -25.08 dB      7:45 05-Bergland
DR22      -2.16 dB   -28.69 dB      6:55 06-Street Charmer
DR20      -0.71 dB   -24.87 dB      4:46 07-Boogie Palace
DR20      -0.93 dB   -24.82 dB      3:40 08-Rebecca's Hideaway
DR21      -0.15 dB   -25.39 dB      4:25 09-Invisible Woman
DR20      -0.19 dB   -24.28 dB      3:40 10-Atosha
DR16      -0.02 dB   -22.76 dB      5:13 11-Born to Love You
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of tracks:  11
Official DR value: DR19

Samplerate:        44100 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   16
Bitrate:           407 kbps
Codec:             FLAC
================================================================================
   

yep ... exactly

Dank je wel

Russ

hey Peter, while it's quiet around here, any chance of a row of activation buttons linking back to selectable "Settings Presets" ? Similar in principal and operation to the size presets on top left side.

To change to a difference preset currently required 6 clicks, with the mouse pointer darting all over the GUI. A row of, say, five or even six, positioned underneath the INPUT/OUTPUT sample rate gauges would be perfect I reckon, if you can accommodate that.

I currently have four often-used profiles set up for:- no oversampling, double OS, quadruple OS and DTS playback, which are obviously selected depending upon the material I wish to play. Sure would make it easier clicking on a single button

It would be neat if you could also display the actual profile name assigned to each button when the mouse hovers over it, for those of us with lousy memories who forget what they assigned.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Cheers,

Russ

Strangely enough, I didn't follow Status Quo back in the early 70's when they were at their most popular over in England. I dont think their fan base was all that great over here. A year or so back I saw a TV documentary about them and recognised some of their songs, so went out and bought a few of their more popular albums. Haven't listened to them for a while now though .. too much jazz still to enjoy

Cheers,

Russ

hey there young whipper snapper .. don't go a mockin' the Shadows

They produced a number of fine instrumentals tracks in their day. As long as Cliff didn't get into the act they were very easy listening.

The Moody Blues though... that's another level entirely. Aaaah .. Nights in White Satin .. brings back memories

Cheers,

Russ

 

I have no issue with the colours used for the indicator lights, but I do think an improvement in readability would be achieved by making those indicator lights a little bigger.

In the example below I have increased the indicator section height of the Clear, Load, Search and Library Results(100) buttons to the full extent allowable. The Show Data button had one more pixel added above and below. There is a noticeable improvement in readability I think.

Even more beneficial is when the illuminated section is doubled. See the Stop and Pause buttons for that example.

As it stands currently, determining the indicator status easily only becomes a concern when the desktop size is above about 900 or so pixels wide, which I suppose is the major of cases for users. With a desktop at 1920 x 1020 it is very difficult to see which button is switched on, unless you have your nose pressed up against the screen

The attachments below are the same size, so if you save to your PC and use your favourite viewer you can easily flip back and forth to see the effect a larger indicator light brings.

There may be constraints within the program that Peter uses to build those buttons, but hopefully something along the lines I suggest can be achieved.

Cheers,

Russ

A big thumbs up for Allan Taylor also. I first heard him in a few audiophile compilation discs, and after listening I wanted to know more about this folk singer. I now have five of his albums, and 'Colour To The Moon' is as good a place to start as any. In some ways he reminds me of Mark Knopfler tonally when Mark is singing his more mellow tunes.

On Allan Taylor's web site you can sample snippits from some of his albums. He is best served late at night with the lights low and a glass of your favourite at your side

Cheers,

Russ

ah .. you must mean these guys 

Cheers,

Russ

PS. welcome to the forum !

Hi Johan,

interesting timing your post, as it was only last evening that I revisited using my phone (Samsung Galaxy S) to control XXHE using RealVNC as the interface. Playing XXHE on my video server PC, I set the screen size to 800x480 (the same as my phones resolution) and it looked quite good actually. OPerating in attended mode was a breeze but I want to nail down the services/processes in use for VNC so I can use unattended mode. It's something I will continue with this week hopefully.

In essence I will only likely use the remote function while working around the house doing other things, and I'm sure it will be handy then.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Russ

ah ... I understand what you are trying to achieve. Yeah ... should work OK ending on the right side then.

Well curiosity got the better of me this evening, as I wanted to get an idea of the typical playtime distribution, so armed with trusty Tag&Rename, I exported a snapshot of one of my music drives (just over 90,000 files), and imported into Excel. With guidance from my Excel guru brother, I now have a pretty distribution curve that may be useful.

It would appear that a progress bar of 20 minutes should cover well over 99% of typical tracks. I have some reaching out to just under 60 minutes, but these are typically from the likes of Klaus Schulz who is renouned for that.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Russ

That works for me.

May I suggest an alternate idea? Do away with the 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 numbers and just have the markers present. The markers for the 1/4 and 3/4 can be a little shorter than the one for 1/2. I would also think it more visually pleasing to have the bar starting at the left side. Your eyes are already looking down there looking at the track name .

You would need to figure out a way to scale that progress bar if a particular track exceeds a certain limit, say, 20 minutes. That way the bar can represent 0-20 mins, 0-40mins, 0-80 mins. I doubt there would be tracks longer than 80 minutes as they wouldn't fit on a redbook disc.

Food for thought ?

Cheers,

Russ