Asset Control Discussions

[Spoon]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

No the sound card should not have any effect.

[Brad_Field]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

I am using Windows 10 64bit and am looking for a replacement for Linn Songcast, so I installed the trial of Asset UPnp and Asset Control beta. I am using Asset UPnP on my QNAP with great success, but I am struggling to get the Asset Control pairing to work as hoped. The closest I have got using the capture the sound card option is rather distorted sound through my Linn DS Renew. Does the audio quality of the PC sound card have any effect on the sound through my system? I am using an end of life SB xifi titanium at the moment which has a Windows 10 driver. Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

[Niko]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

Hi there,

I am facing similar problems (see my post *440 under this thread), but there seem to be some heavy problems during playback. I had used Asset Control last in August 2014 with Asset UPnP 4.3 with various Naim Audio players (Uniti2 then, now Muso, Muso-Qb and NDX additionally). I remember that at this time I had only some problems with compilation, when different track artists were not shown correctly on various controllers. This problem was corrected with Asset UPnP R5, but playback functioned at that time as expected, and its reliability was much better than from similar desktop PC products.

Since Spoon stated then that Asset Control would not be developed further (I assume, because development for Foobar on iOS, Android and Windows Phone began), I then removed it from my Windows PC. Since I found a new post of Spoon on 25 Oct 2018 under the original Asset Control thread, I downloaded and installed it again, but with disappointing results. My theory is that Asset UPnP was changed severely, especially for release 6, but not all of them were reflected within Asset Control as well.

My problem with playback is actually that playing does not start on the "Library" page, when a single track is selected and the "Play" button is pressed. The "Play" symbol changed, however, to a "Pause" symbol, but changes back after about 5 seconds, but the title is not played, i.e. the player does not receive the audio signal. If I select the "Playing" page, the album art of the selected title is displayed. If I press "Play" on this page, the title starts playing, and indicator on the progress bar moves forward. After some seconds, playback if stopped and restarts from the beginning, bit the progress bar indicator does not jump back fully, but only a few seconds to the left. When the track is repeated again - not exactly on the same playback position - the playback position indicator goes back to a new position, i.e. about 2 times more right than with the 1st repeat, and so on. To stop this, I pressed the "Stop" button, but after some seconds the same track started it's playback again. Pressing "Stop" again had the same result. Then I de-selected this title on the "Library" page, and it stopped playing (and did not repeat anymore).

Then I selected another title, and it now playback started immediately. When I selected the "Playing" page again, the title stopped playing after some seconds, started again from the beginning and so on as experienced before. After the "Stop" button the title played back again. After the 2nd time "Stop" there were a few more seconds silence, and then the 1st track (!) started playback again, and it could not be stopped any more. Switching back to the "Library" page, I de-selected the 2nd title (the 1st title was at this time no more present (since I already de-selected before selecting the 2nd title). When de-selecting the 2nd title, Asset Control crashed, but the 1st title continued to play. So I had to start some other Control Point software and then managed to stop playback finally.

If someone would tell me about such a behavior of the app, I would not have believed it. But the last time trying I had similar - but not quite the same - results. Therefore I asked Spoon whether development of Asset Control had started again, because I think that the only way to show this app's behavior to it's developer there should be recorded a video clip to enable the understanding of this "Feature". Since this reporting needs some amount of effort, it makes sense only if development of Asset Control continues - if not, such effort is needless. If there are no plans to release a registered version of Asset Control (we are still in beta stage), I could understand that development efforts will be limited.

For me, it seems that stream control is lost as the player's "feedback" is not "understood" by the controller software, and so it gets out of sync. But let's see if there is a reply from Spoon to this, whether a more detailed test with adequate reporting should be done.

[vilsen]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

Please report back, it would be interesting to hear what Cambridge Audio has to say about this.

Actually I'm looking around for a media player myself, but I wouldn't buy anything that doesn't conform to UPnP.

[NinthWave]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

NinthWave, if you're still reading... Turns out my colleague at work has a Cambridge 851N and he was willing to try Asset Control. Well, even this expensive player is incompatible with Asset Control.

He says that the tracks play for 9 seconds (with sound) and then the AC & 851N skip to the next track, working their way through the playlist this way.

He also says that on rare occasions the playback goes beyond those 9 seconds, and if so the whole track plays through to the end. For this to happen, you have to manually stop and restart a track, but the following track is back to playing 9 seconds again.

I asked him to try both FLAC and mp3 and the result was the same.

I thought I should post this since you asked in the Asset UPnP thread what you could say to Cambridge. Even if this isn't a technical description of the problem, it might help a bit to know that both 851N and Stream Magic has problems when controlled by Asset Control. I think that Stream Magic, CXN & 851N all share the same platform & firmware, so they are likely affected by this issue in the same way.

Thank you for your continued concern. I tried some settings in the Asset Configuration and nothing works.

I will write to Cambridge Audio about that.

Nicolas

[vilsen]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

NinthWave, if you're still reading... Turns out my colleague at work has a Cambridge 851N and he was willing to try Asset Control. Well, even this expensive player is incompatible with Asset Control.

He says that the tracks play for 9 seconds (with sound) and then the AC & 851N skip to the next track, working their way through the playlist this way.

He also says that on rare occasions the playback goes beyond those 9 seconds, and if so the whole track plays through to the end. For this to happen, you have to manually stop and restart a track, but the following track is back to playing 9 seconds again.

I asked him to try both FLAC and mp3 and the result was the same.

I thought I should post this since you asked in the Asset UPnP thread what you could say to Cambridge. Even if this isn't a technical description of the problem, it might help a bit to know that both 851N and Stream Magic has problems when controlled by Asset Control. I think that Stream Magic, CXN & 851N all share the same platform & firmware, so they are likely affected by this issue in the same way.

[Spoon]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

It is likely it cannot play the format in question, try setting asset to serve 'as mp3', as everything can play that as a test.

[NinthWave]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

@Spoon

Are you aware of any problem specific to Cambridge Streamer?

Nicolas

[vilsen]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

I have a Stream Magic 6 V2 and with BETA 1, the tunes don't play. Control just keep going forward from one track to to next but no red circle... Is it normal ?

I've seen reports that players from Cambridge Audio just keep skipping from track to track, playing each track for only a few seconds. Since Asset Control works with other players, I think this is a problem specific to players from Cambridge.

Try to report this bug to Cambridge support, hopefully they can fix it.

[NinthWave]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

I have a Stream Magic 6 V2 and with BETA 1, the tunes don't play. Control just keep going forward from one track to to next but no red circle... Is it normal ?

[NinthWave]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

Where is the latest version to download? I got the one from the "sticky" topic but it's still BETA 1. Have I the latest version ?

[vilsen]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

I also want to say that I like the updated look of the new version. Those small details makes it look and feel even more professional than before - in contrast to other CP "toys". And the functionality beats every other CP too.

( If you would ever resume development again, the only wish I'd have is "full size" album art in the now playing screen + an even cleaner look without the horizontal decor lines. But hey, this is nitpicking and I know further development is not on the map anyway. )

Many thanks again for fixing the install, I am very happy to be able to use this control point on my XP machine!

[vilsen]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

Great! It installed perfectly.

Thank you very much for the fix! I run a dedicated offline music server with Asset UPnP & Asset Control and XP is my preferred choice for this.

[Spoon]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

Try again now please, install has been fixed.

[vilsen]

Re: Asset Control Discussions

Thanks, but the new install won't install in XP - it can't find InitiateShutdownW in advapi32.dll. Works in Win10 though.

As a test I borrowed advapi32.dll from Win10, but XP didn't like that of course...