I am also having a problem with album art. Even though I am connected to the internet and have the SD card inserted I dont get the art on the screen of my DMP. I see a message that says downloading and then the screen goes to just the track number, title and artist.
Elk saidPaul McGowan said Secondly, the truncating issue is unlikely to go away. Oppo only feeds us so much data and we display it all.Nutty. I would like to hear from Oppo what they are thinking.
They have the entire text string but they restrict what they send over the SPI bus which is how we communicate with them. We’re working with their engineers to see if they can’t remove that restriction over the serial port. Shouldn’t be insurmountable, but for now, we’re kind oh hamstrung.
Paul McGowan saidThey have the entire text string but they restrict what they send over the SPI bus which is how we communicate with them. We’re working with their engineers to see if they can’t remove that restriction over the serial port…
Do you have any idea if any solution could be implemented simply by a DMP firmware change; physical alteration of the DMP; or might it require that Oppo make a change (firmware or hardwired) in their drive before it is sent to you for building your product?
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Paul McGowan said It is necessary when you insert a disc for the machine to actually read the contents in the header and then play a short portion of track one - . . . We mute all that's happening . . .Would this explain why, on occasion, with 1.67 I heard a tiny snippet of a track after inserting a disc? In other words, the mute function didn't work or didn't kick in fast enough. That seemed really strange. I will check today to see if it still happens with 1.94.
Exactly. And that should be a thing of the past.
Rob saidHere's more information on this. The most the DMP seems willing to jump at a time in tracks ahead or backward is 5 or 6 tracks (at least via rapid entries to the track-switching arrows of remote or the touchscreen). In other words, if one tries to get a track that numbers in the teens and you are starting from the first track, either slow down your taps or clicks or just press the track number on the bottom of the remote. If you try to get there by repeatedly and quickly hitting the track-advance arrows on the screen or the remote, the DMP will momentarily display the track you think you have navigated to, but start playing a track only 5-6 tracks away from where you started. Then after a second or two of blinking info it will finally revert to a correct display of what is playing.The DMP also still lags the PWT on the display-end of things. One behavior that it has had since the get-go that could mislead me into thinking I had reliably navigated to a particular track when I actually had not still remains. That is – after a fast migration through many tracks (in either direction) – the track number that first reads-out on the DMP’s screen does not necessarily match the one that starts playing. And as many as 3 seconds can elapse before the correct one finally displays.
Played a cd from track 1 via remote start. Got to track 4 before it stopped indicating track 1. And that may be because I paused 4, then it showed 4.
Restarted track 4… time bar shows progress, display is paused, audio dead. Several more pushes on remote. Pause play … still dead audio. Direct access via remote track 3… screen shows play, time bar counts, no audio. Reinsert disc, audio now from cut 1 as selected.
times still blink as they increment, no biggie.
More flakiness to report this morning on display readout and touchscreen direction.
In this instance, the DMP and DSD had been parked overnight on standby. And the DMP already had a disc in it that I wanted to listen to some more. I awakened both units from standby but wanted to navigate to track 9 before tapping “play”. Since the DMP can be especially sluggish when first awakened from sleep, I waited about 15-20 seconds before making any entries to the touchscreen. Then I used the “jump-ahead” arrows to navigate to track 9. Then I tapped the “play” arrow. And, appropriately, the display showed the unit was now in play mode (see below). But there was no sound nor any progress of the scrubber:
Fortunately, to get the DMP to play when this happens, it is simply a matter of touching the pause icon on the screen to get the “play” arrow to appear again, then touching it again.
And flakey listings of tracks continue. Once again, this is without an internet connection. On discs that encode track titles (and not very many of mine do) – and when I first insert one of these discs – I need to start playing each track before its title will populate on the main play and the track-listing screen. The recording from which the image below was taken has 23 tracks. And just for kicks, I quickly did what I needed to do to get titles for all of them to start appearing. But when I return to the track-listing screen to see what’s there, very often the DMP fails to display them correctly or with the correct corresponding track number, although a minute earlier (in the maximum of 4 titles that it allows on each screen), everything had been spot-on. The shot below demonstrates this. Here the DMP displays the first 4 track titles for this recording, which I had just returned to after populating the all the track titles for the whole disc:
Of the 4 tracks showing, only the middle two are correct. (Track 1 should read, “Piano Sonata -”. And Track 4 should read, “Etude”).
Rob said More flakiness to report this morning on display readout and touchscreen direction....Rob, I'm noticing that you are reporting more display and navigational issues than most other reviewers. Perhaps that is because of your great patience and stamina in describing them so carefully.
But I have come to wonder:
- Could your unit be defective (particularly in the navigation between tracks), or
- Is internet connectivity somehow crucial to correct track labeling even when the track information is embedded in the CD?
- Are other testers having similar issues, but not reporting them yet?
The internet is not crucial or even involved for the track titles that are embedded on the disc - at least I am pretty certain of that. You can simply disconnect the internet to test.
Nobo said:
“Are other testers having similar issues, but not reporting them yet?”
For the entire beta period, the items that the display shows and how that stuff is displayed have been so random, that a while ago, I stopped paying attention to it. It will either be sorted out via FW updates or not. Once it became clear that it was the nature of the beast and may or may not ever get up to some imagined ideal, the question became, “What’s important, the sound or the functionality?”
I completely understand if someone feels that any player, not to mention a player of this cost, should function flawlessly. I struggled with it for weeks. Then you come back to the above question.
Most disc players I have had, once I got over the gee-whiz newness of it, were rarely used for random, micro-navigation. I like to put on some music and listen to it, and forget about the player - and hopefully the entire system producing the music. I find that if I approach it as a disc turntable - that is, treat it like a vinyl turntable, where you put on an album and listen to it - I’m much happier.
So to the degree that I’m focusing on it, it still seems to present varied things. But I am also putting in a wide variety of discs, both homemade and factory-made. I mostly care if it plays through, which it does.
I have noticed a number of the display issues being discussed from time to time, but after a few weeks, lost the interest and energy to try and dissect it. It was a distraction from what’s important to me, and it was also changing every week or so with updates.
I would also say though, that (perhaps because I have a Junior rather than a Senior?) I have had few of the major issues many have noted.
Nobo saidNobo, early-on with the DMP I couldn't help noticing navigational and display quirks compared to the PWT. Many of them have disappeared with firmware updates; others have not.Rob said More flakiness to report this morning on display readout and touchscreen direction....Rob, I'm noticing that you are reporting more display and navigational issues than most other reviewers.
And what may distinguish my hands-on experience with both units from many other beta testers here is that I have exclusively been using a headphone rig to audition the DMP, and the entire rig (including the DMP, PWT, and DSD) sits right next to where I listen from. Close proximity means no call for the remote control, so I refrain; touchscreen is my preferred mode to direct both transports. Most users, though, will be using the remote.
Also, of note, I am doing far more jumping-around on recordings than I would do in normal use. Most of the time when listening to a CD, I just pop one in and play it from beginning to end, never bothering to navigate the recording at all. But that is not what I do when I audition new gear. There’s a lot of back-and-forth, countless replayings of certain short passages, and in the case of a new transport, ejecting-then-reinserting the same discs between the different units, then trying to get to the identical short passages again. The PWT is an easy and flawless partner to this. The DMP (still in my experience after the latest firmware update), less so.
I have repeatedly been able to find “disconnects” between ongoing functions of the DMP at a given moment and the display’s accounts of it. Similarly, I am still able to demonstrate divergences between just-made entries via either the touchscreen or the remote, whether the DMP is always going to follow suit, and what the screen will accurately reveal of either. Does this happen all or much of the time? No, far from it. But it takes too little, in my opinion, for this user to cause the DMP to begin to trip-up. Rapid, sequential track changes via the track-jump arrows on the remote or touch-screen is one. Rapid, sequential intra-track jumps via the remote is another. And the DMP still stumbles with track-title info encoded on discs – either slow to read it correctly when jumping to a new track, or not always correlating correct titles to right track numbers during visits back to the track-listing screen.
On a positive note, too many navigational inputs in too short a burst no longer locks-up the DMP (although it balks now at jumping more than 5-6 tracks at a time – unless I switch to the remote and just punch a particular track number). And the touchscreen misses fewer touches (although it is still vulnerable, it seems, for the first 10-15 seconds after waking from standby or insertion of a new disc).
badbeef said ... "What's important, the sound or the functionality?"... I have noticed a number of the display issues being discussed ,... a distraction from what's important to me, and it was also changing every week or so with updates....Badbeef,
Thanks for your comments. Indeed, I appreciate and envy your point of view. Hands down, sound quality trumps display issues. I obsess because I use my highly resolving music system in part for detailed study of classical music performance, often with score in hand, comparing several renditions for alternative interpretations of smaller elements within longer pieces. My process is hindered when I can’t easily repeat a segment of a disc, or swap discs and locate the same material played by a different performer. Of course, ease of navigation accomplishes nothing if I can’t hear the nuances of the music!
I’ve been lurking and haranguing in these forums because I am super excited about the DirectStream products and have waited with baited breath since Paul alluded to the new transport during the summer. I’m sure Paul and the gang will sort everything out. I’ve been just fascinated by the window opened up on this B-testing process, by the intelligence and personalities of the contributors to the forum, and by Paul’s wonderful wit, knowledge and integrity.
Rob saidNobo saidRob said More flakiness to report this morning on display readout and touchscreen direction....Rob, I’m noticing that you are reporting more display and navigational issues than most other reviewers.
…early-on with the DMP I couldn’t help noticing navigational and display quirks compared to the PWT. Many of them have disappeared with firmware updates; others have not…
And what may distinguish my hands-on experience with both units from many other beta testers here is that…[the] touchscreen is my preferred mode to direct both transports. Most users, though, will be using the remote.
Also, of note, I am doing far more jumping-around on recordings than I would do in normal use…
Thanks Rob.
Sounds like your testing routine is similar to my more periodic use routine, although of course most of the time I just play through entire discs using the remote.
I’m really grateful that you have reported your findings in such detail, since your experience calls attention to more occult issues at a time when the impetus to refine the operation is greatest. For my personal goals, that means I’ll probably feel more comfortable pulling the trigger and ordering the DS DAC and DMP sooner.
Here’s a report as of 1:00 Eastern time.
The good
The biggest problem that I was encountering -- the track number staying on 1 while the disc continued playing -- seems gone; I will play more discs this afternoon to confirm.
The touchscreen is more responsive.
Issues
I still hear little clicks/ticks at the beginning and end of some SACDs. This is the same sound that I sometimes hear when playing DSD files via my NAS. It doesn't bother me because I'm used to it and at one point read an explanation (something about how the timing is recorded in the file header vs an extra tad of silence in the data -- details are vague at this point, sorry). But I have never heard these sounds from an SACD player. People who haven't experienced this with digital downloads may think there's something wrong with the DMP or with the disc when they hear the ticks.
In an earlier post, Paul said that if there was no art available and the tracks were listed in one’s Playlist, the full (non-truncated) text would be shown. This is not happening. (It can be fixed later -- I wouldn't hold up the initial release over this.)
Nobo saidA large part of what I did in my career was spent observing and reporting facts, even in their most-nuanced of details. The other part was diagnosing from there and if I could, trying to fix things or restore better function. Well, in this case, I am only a sounding board and one of many bird dogs. Having rendered an unequivocal opinion on how the DMP sounds, I now point my tail at other stuff of note. If it helps Paul and gang further refine this new product of theirs -- or if it helps potential customers like you come to decisions about a possible purchase -- I am gratified.Thanks Rob.
Sounds like your testing routine is similar to my more periodic use routine, although of course most of the time I just play through entire discs using the remote.
I’m really grateful that you have reported your findings in such detail, since your experience calls attention to more occult issues at a time when the impetus to refine the operation is greatest. For my personal goals, that means I’ll probably feel more comfortable pulling the trigger and ordering the DS DAC and DMP sooner.
By the way, I chuckled a bit at Badbeef’s explanations of how he finally threw in the towel over operational issues and decided to keep his DMP despite them. It reminds me of the way I justify the expense and aggravations of a much-more costly hobby to me than this one: motors on wheels, where degree of trade-off, it seems, never fails to attend superlatives in performance, and almost always in direct proportion. Why I am willing to cut temperamental, vintage, Italian iron parked in the barn more slack than I do the DMP, I am not quite sure – except I know that I have never had to do it before with audio gear. If operational functions on any new, consumer-oriented, electronic device don’t work like they should, I don’t wrestle with myself over returning it. But if it is the only one of its kind or stands head-and-shoulders over anything else? Maybe I would.
Is Paul right when he claims the DMP/DSD combination is unsurpassed when it comes to playback of optical media? I don’t pretend to have a clue. But believing him might help realign expectations with those I usually only treat to love objects that either go fast or look like they do…
Play cd via remote start. Audio (which by the way is great and no small thing, no indeed) begins. Timebar displays 00:00 both ends and is frozen.
i think this is only happens after a fresh turn on of the dmp.
JM said Another bug noted in the new firmware that seems to still be present - the small but notable pop/transient zap that appears when hitting play to start the first track of a SACD after it loads. This has happened on Ella's Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie, Allison Krauss's A Collection, and Getz/Gilberto w/ Jobim.I had that pop at low volume with the pwt, seemingly only on freshly loaded CDs.
woodburger said Play cd via remote start. Audio (which by the way is great and no small thing, no indeed) begins. Timebar displays 00:00 both ends and is frozen.I tried to reproduce this: put the DMP into standby, came back 10 mins later, started a CD; all was well. Near the end of the first track I hit Stop on the remote. The display went back to the home screen (i.e., album art disappeared) and the triangular Play icon showed (which should mean that the track was stopped) -- but playback continued until I hit Stop a second time.
Removed this CD, put in an SACD that I have played several times with no issues while testing the DMP. Tracks and art are in my Playlist. First track started normally, then the timer stopped at 2 seconds; no album art. Playback continued into the second and third tracks, but screen was frozen on track 1 at 2 seconds. Jumping ahead by hitting 6 on the remote restored normal playback, with the art. But when I was done testing this disc, I hit Stop on the remote and got the same effect as with the previous CD.
magister saidThe DMP playing while the display showed that it was stopped is something that I experienced once. I can't remember exact details, much less what preceded it. But I know that the DMP wasn't connected to Internet (and still hasn't been), so album art did not figure.…the triangular Play icon showed (which should mean that the track was stopped) – but playback continued until I hit Stop a second time.