DigitalCD 3.08 released

Hi Tennant,
No it doesn’t, because if you have performed the !System merge, then that’s all of the installation completed.

After that, there might be some extra configuration to do, in Mimemap, or !DCDRes.Setup, which is detailed in the ‘DigitalCD configuration of module useage’ section.

HTH

Okay thanks, I’ve merged !System but none of the extra configuration stuff seems to have anything to do with the radio player. Meanwhile, the instructions continue…

5. For PlayIt, follow its ReadMe file for the installation.

..but its ReadMe file says nothing about how to install it.

which says nothing about installing the module

Having installed all of the requirements for DCD on my PiZero today, I can tell you the !Playit application has been in my Boot:Resources directory on my Iyonix for a long time and is OK there on the Pi too.
The Samsung Blueray player come surround amplifier worked faultlessly with DCD once the HDMI setting is done in the config/txt file. (hdmi_drive=2)
I played a 44.1k flac, a 48k wav and a 96/24 flac which as expected, played as 96/16. No sign of problems, I assume the 100% volume setting is 1:1? Jim, your !Soundcheck didn’t show any change with the DCD volume setting, and the device didn’t give any info back with the probe. Actually it doesn’t display anything itself other than the input selected, so you just have to accept it is doing the best thing. The devices own audio file playing from usb is limited to wav and wma(I think) so it is a good thing the pi can drive it. The Iyonix could send stuff to the optical in port via a usb dongle with the optical adapter, the ones I have only do 48k but one can do 24bit. The Samsung device is supposed to be 192k24bit capable but I am working blind, unless a new firmware update improves things.
The pdf for the DAC inside has a serial mode for the multichannels with automatic fs selection, but says nothing about selection for the parallel mode for 2 channel pcm. It is an AK4113VF chip.

.bq which says nothing about installing the module

You are correct, I digged up some old backups where there was both a 26-bit version and a 32-bit version and the ReadMe is only present in the 26-bit version. Newer versions were 26/32-bit compatible but did not included the ReadMe. As I cannot find the information in !PlayIt.Docs, I have added it to the Modules.zip archive. Here is its content:

PlayIt users

PlayIt is a common resource module which can be used by several applications
so because of this it needs to be booted before any client applications are
run.

PlayIt can either be ‘installed’ (ie dragged) into Boot:Resources where the
OS will automatically boot it on start-up or it can be keep in a normal
directory with other sound resources. It may be desirable to add !PlayIt to
the list of apps that RISC OS boots on start-up in the latter case if you are
likely to start applications using PlayIt before opening directory that it’s
in.

Note that for RISC OS 4 adding an appliction to boot is simply done with
Configuration|Boot|Look but for older OSs this requires manually editing the
boot scripts.

Application authors

Please load PlayIt with the Ensure program (see programmers’ guidelines in
documentation) rather than RMEnsure to ensure major version number
compatibility problems to do not occur since PlayIt 2.xx may not be backward
compatible with PlayIt 1.xx. Also PlayIt if Ensure is not used PlayIt should
be loaded with RMRun rather than RMLoad otherwise the wimp interface will not
start. PlayIt will still function as a player in this case but transient
buffer release and event messages will not work.

Jim, your !Soundcheck didn’t show any change with the DCD volume setting, and the device didn’t give any info back with the probe. Actually it doesn’t display anything itself other than the input selected, so you just have to accept it is doing the best thing.

!SoundCheck only tells you the ‘system’ volume IIRC. I think with DCD you have the option to pass the audio via this or not.

If people want I could add in to the probing a ‘module specific’ set of queries for PlayIt, DiscSample, etc.

Beyond that, I’m not sure of the details of what you mean. So to go further you’d have to explain and maybe show the !SoundCheck report.

BTW IIUC DCD Uses DiscSample to read a CD in the drive.

!SoundCheck only tells you the ‘system’ volume IIRC. I think with DCD you have the option to pass the audio via this or not.

OK, I was trying to establish that the wav file was being sent untouched thats all. I have to assume 100% in DCD achieves this unless you or Andre can tell me different. Also I’m assuming that we are only sending 16bit even though DCD does indicate it is playing a 96k24bit file?
In theory you would be better letting the analog amplifier adjust the volume when available.
What scares me the most with this Samsung Home Theatre, is that if they have restricted it’s USB playback to MP3/WMA maybe they think it is OK to put all 2 channel input through as 44.1/48k. I hope not, but there is no way to verify this.
Some mp3’s that I played from usb were a bit painful sounding (blackboard scratching type of thing?) but I haven’t compared like for like yet.
If nothing else the hdmi connection is physically firmer than other connections like optical, but then you have the length restriction.

In case it helps, you can try using

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/temp/PPMjcgl.zip

I wrote this to provide Peak Programme Meter sidebars for DCD. I tend to run it with both the main players and the output monitor. This lets me see the actual outgoing levels as well as the source levels.

So far as I know, DCD and its modules all go via SoundDMA which is still firmly limited to 16bit. I can play 24bit files, but I assume they are simply truncated. However I’ve not tested that as yet. It shows about a 40dB range and gives PPM action. i.e. it always peaks immediately to the largest sample and then decays slowly. It is a modified version of a standard plugin.

Now I have output via HDMI then spdif I will check this at some point. But not had the round tuits as yet.

Thanks Jim, I’ve downloaded PPMjcgl.zip and will look at it later.
I found that !Soundcheck verified that the ‘default’ option in System sound is 0db.
I also found mention that DCD 100% follows the system sound setting unless the ‘ignore system sound’ is set.
The dcd>hdmi>samsung seems louder than iyonix>usb>optical>samsung for some reason.

I had a brief look at !PlayIt, you can set 0db with PlayIt_Volume 127
I guess you could add a flac/or various decoder driver and use it direct, but if DCD meets the need there is no urgency.

The dcd>hdmi>samsung seems louder than iyonix>usb>optical>samsung for some reason.

Things like that seem routine for devices like monitors or TVs. Bit like many of the ‘smart’ TV file players also being an inconsistent mess. Shovelwear.

I started looking at DCD here because some people got clicks/gaps in playback when using it to play an Audio CD in the optical drive. Only to find I got no sound at all! This is on an ARMX6.

DCD will list the tracks on the CD. And when I ‘play’ one the elapsed time runs, and the disc rotates, and I can see the access light keep flashing. But no sound. And the PPM shows no levels. IIUC DiscSample is being used to read the audio, but for some unknown reason, nothing gets though and DCD doesn’t notice.

When I play flac or wave files, they sound fine, and I get PPM level indications. I can check if the sound gain is changing things by comparing the PPM levels on the main (file) player and the output monitor. The levels indicated are essentially linearly scaled in dB over about a 40 dB range.

TBH THis doesn’t matter to me on an individual level as I wouldn’t choose to play a CD in this way myself. But I found the problem when I was trying to help people resolve their clicks/gaps problems. It then blocked my trying to help.

Jim, I can only think of the following situations for the situation you describe:

1) You forgot to select “CD_ReadAudio” mode in the “Drivers → CDFS” configuration. But you previously said that you set it correctly.

2) You have multiple CD drives on your machines but the settings in that section are on a drive per drive basis (as they may be connected on different cards with differently bugged drivers) and you did not change the settings for the correct drive number.

3) If is none of the above, the fact that the elapsed time progresses indicate that no errors where reported to the CD_ReadAudio calls and DiskSample assumes that the buffers where filled in correctly.

For the click/gaps problems, as DiskSample operates in the background (via callbacks), it may be caused by heavy activity (just like when decoding mp3 or flac files), so they may want to adjust the buffer sizes in “Drivers → DiskSamle”.

re (1) Yes, I did this and checked it.

re (2) No, there is only one optical drive on my ARMX6

re (3) Yes, it does seem that each stage in the process thinks it is working correctly. However no stage shows any sign of non-zero values being transferred when monitored.

Beyond that I can’t check the clicks/gaps at all at present. But do wonder if a buffer size change might help my problem as well. Is there any advice on what settings to try?

The dcd>hdmi>samsung seems louder than iyonix>usb>optical>samsung for some reason.

Things like that seem routine for devices like monitors or TVs. Bit like many of the ‘smart’ TV file players also being an inconsistent mess. Shovelwear.

The Iyoninx has a hardware limit built in so that the analogue output is always 48k rate regardless of the system or source rate. It just skips or repeats samples to force-fit. I don’t know if the digitial pin is the same.

I’ve not had any problems with playing CD’s on my MX6.
The only things I can think are the settings in !DigitalCD or your DVD/CD drive is a bit “naff”?

Do you have !MusicMan? If you do, are the results the same.
I was thinking if they were it’s probably a drive fault.
If MusicMan plays OK, then it’s probably a settings issue.
Have you tried deleting (moving) the settings for DigitalCD?
At the moment I’m using Digital CD 3.09 to play some “music” off an old CD without any issues on my iMX6.
I do notice that for “some reason” I’ve got the input/output buffer size set to 2048/4096KB for DiskSample.
Also I’ve got Free volume and Enable interrupts ticked.

I’ve tried other programs that use the same CD_ReadAudio swi as DiskSample/DCD. They all work fine. I’ll check the other settings you mention for DCD/DiskSample. A problem with these is that there seems little in the way of info as to what settings may be required beyond being told what SWI to set.

I’ve just tried settings like larger buffers, Free vol, and Enable interrupts.

I still get ‘silent playing’ of a CD. Symptoms as before. The disc starts, the access light flashes, etc, etc. But no sound and the PPMs show no levels.

Very weird indeed! Sounds like some wrong coloured pixie dust being used somewhere, causing those naughty gremlins to get in! ;-)
But on a less surreal note, I’m not sure whether this will help, but my Settings are here
You may be able to compare them, or edit them for your locations/setup.
At least that should rule settings out completely.

The next thing to “blame” I would guess is Disksample…
I’m using version 0.53

Beyond that I can’t check the clicks/gaps at all at present. But do wonder if a buffer size change might help my problem as well. Is there any advice on what settings to try?

On the Pi3 I have set DiskSample input buffer to 256K & output to 1024K, but the larger the longer it can support other activities preventing the filling/processing of its input.

Enable interrupts ticked.

This can be a source of gaps/pops if other interrupts occurs in the middle of the SoundDMA buffers and take too long to process. I added this option because on the slower RISC PCs leaving interrupts disabled for too long affected some internet stacks but on newer far faster machines I don’t think this will occur.

I still get ‘silent playing’ of a CD. Symptoms as before. The disc starts, the access light flashes, etc, etc. But no sound and the PPMs show no levels.

You might try to grab with !Zap the “DiskSample (Input …)” Dynamic Area. Its a circular buffer that starts with a header using the following words (4 bytes): buffer size, decoding position, filling position, finish flag, 12 reserved words. The data extracted from the CD follows this buffer. Grab the DA several times while playing and check if the decoding/filling positions and the data in the buffer changes.