Bridge Firmware

Audio Components DACs
1

Any idea time frame for new bridge firmware.

2

New Bridge firmware is out and available for Bridge II. Is that what you meant?

3

No the firmware release that corrects the cover art problem with roon.

4

I’ll check with Dennis in the morning.

5

Thank You Paul.

6

We are still looking for a solution to the issue.

Dennis

7

The flagship DAC products from PS Audio have the capability to display album art on the front panel display screen when connected to a music server through the Ethernet bridge option. However, there are limitations that can, in certain cases, cause issues with cover art. The display of cover art is considered to be of secondary importance to streaming music. Therefore, it can take from 10 to 30 or more seconds to be downloaded and displayed. The Cover art is sent over Ethernet from the music server to the Ethernet engine on the PS Audio Bridge, and then to the DAC’s image processor by a high baud rate serial link from the bridge. As the image is being transferred, it is stored on the SD-card in the back panel because of the image memory size. Any error that happens in these multiple transfer process causes the transfer process to be aborted, and not retried. Also, any write or read errors from the SD-card will cause the process to be aborted. This results in Cover Art not being updated. While it would be possible to complicate this system by putting in error trapping and retransmission functions, doing so would increase the likelihood of bandwidth limitations for robust music transmission.

8
Dennis Kerrisk said The flagship DAC products from PS Audio have the capability to display album art on the front panel display screen when connected to a music server through the Ethernet bridge option. However, there are limitations that can, in certain cases, cause issues with cover art. The display of cover art is considered to be of secondary importance to streaming music. Therefore, it can take from 10 to 30 or more seconds to be downloaded and displayed. The Cover art is sent over Ethernet from the music server to the Ethernet engine on the PS Audio Bridge, and then to the DAC’s image processor by a high baud rate serial link from the bridge. As the image is being transferred, it is stored on the SD-card in the back panel because of the image memory size. Any error that happens in these multiple transfer process causes the transfer process to be aborted, and not retried. Also, any write or read errors from the SD-card will cause the process to be aborted. This results in Cover Art not being updated. While it would be possible to complicate this system by putting in error trapping and retransmission functions, doing so would increase the likelihood of bandwidth limitations for robust music transmission.
Hi Dennis,

This is an important feature for me too. I believe that’s the case with many people here who owns Direct Stream senior with Bridge.

It is perfectly fine even if it takes 10-20 seconds to display the Album Art as it happens very predictably today with UPnP based music servers like Jriver or Minim.

The issue is that for Roon the behavior we are getting is not the same as it is with UPnP based music servers. Especially when someone is playing a playlist the Album Art doesn’t change from one song to another if the formatd of the two subsequent songs are same.

Regards,

Sourav

9

I have gotten the impression from reading any number of posts here that album art is important to many users, as Sourav says. I’m not quite sure why, though. By definition, the Bridge is a UPnP device and so requires a control point; every control point I’ve ever seen displays the album art, normally at a larger size and closer to the listener than the screen on the DS. I ignore the screen except when troubleshooting or changing settings, since it is too far away from my chair to be read. I admit it’s kind of cool to see the album cover on the screen, but in terms of functionality it doesn’t contribute much for me. I’m genuinely curious about how others use the DS in a different way. Maybe people set up playlists and like to see the album cover change to match the song that’s playing, even if they don’t have the control point open in front of them?

10

Count me as someone who loves album art on the player. It makes me very happy. There are times I’m entertaining company and play something from my vast and expanding, exponentially, collection and don’t remember, a quick look at album art reminds me. This is just the logical reason. Love album art on the DS!

11

Hi Magister,

You are on the right track in guessing the use of consistent album arts displayed in the front panel of DS. At least, that’s the way I find it very useful (my DS sits not far from my listening position - I can see the screen reasonably well) to keep mental track of the song being played in a playlist without having my phone in my hand.

However, on top of that, I also believe that the display of album art is one of the cool features DS has (along wth its Sonic Quality). The Album Art display is to me integral part of listening to digital music. And currently very few products in market have the same which are at per with DS in Sonic Quality. So why to make thsi feature non-working/disfunctional/in-consistent ?

Also any inconsistency/dis-functional aspect in my audio gears bothers me. If I had DS Junior probably I would not have bothered. But then in the first place I would not have bought it since it does not have the album art display.

Regards,

Sourav

12

I also reported in another thread the new cover art problem with Jriver for QNAP Which was solved to my knowledge in the second test version of a fixed firmware, but present in the first and last version. Cover art also worked in the non-Roon versions of the firmware.

So independent of the importance to users, there seems to be a way to have it working, just not in the official Roon release version and some of the test versions. I wondered if there were more trials planned for a fix or if Dennis didn’t find a solution, which means I’d have to go back to the non-Roon release or the 2nd test version.

Remark: in my case cover art works with Roon but not with Jriver anymore.So ehatever it is at different User scenarios, something changed for cover art since Roon readiness.

13

Have not had album art for a few weeks now but don’t need it. I have what is playing on my tablet bigger & better album art + & this is sitting on my lap when playing music off the NAS. Love it.

14

I could not care less about cover art on the DS. In fact I dim the DS display.

Cover art is right with me on the iPad - bigger and better quality.

Cheers

15

We are trying to fix the issues caused by teh Roon release for bridge. They are not restricted to cover art in Roon. There are several DLNA issues that have been reported, including the issue with Bubble upnp volume, which has been identified and fixed, but it turned out to be a problem in DS PIC code caused by the changes in in the Bridge code. There are still several outstaning DLNA issues with the bridge code and the Roon Cover art issue, which are still being resolved. I am still waiting for bridge code that addresses these issues and I will be testing with a selected few when I get it to verify the issues are resolved.

Dennis

16

Cover art is an important feature on DirectStream and the Bridge and we will continue to work hard on getting it as good as we can. Dennis is on it, it’s not being ignored as you can see.

We’ll get there and thank you for your comments and patience.

17

As a very recent Bridge II owner who does not use Roon but who listens extensively to TIDAL HiFi via BubbleUPnP, I think it would be great if the DS could display cover art from TIDAL. Thanks.

18
Bootzilla said As a very recent Bridge II owner who does not use Roon but who listens extensively to TIDAL HiFi via BubbleUPnP, I think it would be great if the DS could display cover art from TIDAL. Thanks.
Unfortunatly the problem there is Tidal changed the way they serve the cover art to players, using a method the BridgeII does not support. I wrote about the changes in a previous post.

Dennis

19
Hi

Is there anyone who is using Bridge II with HQ Player (preferably without Roon involved)? Does it work and is it easy to setup?

Are there any benefits to:

  1. using the HQ Player filter

  2. upsampling with HQ Player since the DS DAC maxes out double DSD?

Thanks

20

Paul,

In the vein of every cpu cycle consumed affecting the sound (in a generally negative way), would it be possible to add a “display album art toggle”. On processes and displays the incoming album art file, off ignores it. I dim the display during listening…

thanks…