J River to HQPlayer

Hi all,

I have practically zero knowledge of writing .bat scripts for Windows; but I wondered if hqp-control could be used in some way to play from J River to HQPlayer. With some googling and trial and error I came up with a few lines that allow you to play any album from J River through HQPlayer (including from J Remote).

This is obviously a Windows only solution. The only thing it will do is play a complete album from beginning to end. It will also allow you to interrupt the currently playing album with another one. That's all. It's really a one trick pony

I'm hoping that someone with far better bat script skills them myself might be able to improve on it, since I really don't have the time.

You have to go to the tools menu in J R - options and click on files in the left hand column. Then for each file type in your library that is supported by HQPlayer and that you want to have played through HQP, choose the option to send to a custom application and navigate to the script linked below, wherever you've put it in your file system. Then click on oK.

From then on when you go the Albums view and click play on an album it should play through HQPlayer. Same when you choose to play an album with J Remote.

As I said, I hope someone here can make it into something better. For the moment it only suits the type of listener that likes to listen to complete albums at a time. Rather like me when I'm at home ;-)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86110007/software/jr-hqp-album.bat.zip

geoff

Geoffrey - it works, pretty cool.

I have my HQP setup to output to an NAA; I can even choose an album in JRiver or JRemote and it will play from the NAA, with the processing as defined in HQP. But in that case I lose the ability to control the playback from JRiver/JRemote.

Yes, there's no connection between J River/Jremote once the album is playing.

It purely functions as a way of loading an album into HQP from j river and starting playback.

Worked for me too.

Sent album from JRMC library using WebGizmo (Win tablet) to play in HQPlayer, switched to full screen mode in HQPlayer in RDP and control the playback from there!

Just one suggestion for those using a win gadget (and apple too!) as a remote.

Thanks Mr. Armstrong!

First step on the Moon?

Hopefully, it is just that first small step for j-nauts. Make sure you return safely to hqp-control

Worked perfectly, since both apps gizmo and rdp are on in remote device. No need even to reload the full screen mode. JR in server mode.

Is it possible to set HQPlayer to play album from memory instead of disc in this configuration? Sounds like some tiny compared to muso memory option.

I leave that as an exercise for someone with better bat scripting chops than me.

I think it should be possible.

All the receiving app (bat script in this case) get's from j river is the full path to the first file of the album selected for play. I chop off the file name and extension from the path and ask HQP to load all files from the album folder and start playing back from the first track.

It should be possible to copy the album folder to a ram disk first and load the new ram disk addreses of the files into hqp instead.

Someone more familiar with bat scripting than me could probably do it in the time it took me to write this post :-(

It might also be possible to convert non hqp supported formats to a supported format as I do with my iTunes Mac solution by calling an external program such as ffmpeg to do the conversion.

It may also be possible to allow the user to begin playback from an arbitrary track of the album rather than always beginning from the first track.

I think that would just about exhaust the possibilities given the limitations of the info past from j river when the send to external option is used.

It was probably originally intended for single video files that j river wasn't able to support. I'm just guessing though.

Geoff

Thanks Geoff for the pioneering work.

I use Windows Server 2012 R2 Core mode with AO, Fidelizer Pro, HQPlayer and JPlay. Now with Geoff's script, both Jriver and Jremote can send a play command to HQPlayer, but it now can only send an album. If I click on certain track in a playlist, Geoff's script will send the track's complete Album instead of the playlist, which consisting of tracks from various albums. This might be something we can expect improvement. Anyway, I'm so glad that Geoff can come up with this script solution. Good job done, Geoff.

John

Thanks John.

As I said I'm hoping some more bat scripters (Batmen and Batwomen) out there will pick up the baton from where I've started, since I don't have the time.

Geoff

On Windows, one can also use newer and more powerful Windows PowerShell.

Agreed. Powershell would be far preferable as it's a frendlier C type language. The only problem is how to freely distribute poweshell scripts.

MS restrict this for security reasons.

I'm sue BAT scripts will eventually be phased out in favour of PS scripts though.

Resurrecting a very old (but great) idea. Since later versions of HQPlayer now load in Programs rather than Programs (x86) I edited the bat to reflect this. But lo and behold when I am playing an album (say Album A) and ask to play Album B then Album B is appended to the end of the playlist and Album A starts playing again (with Album B being next in the list). A third album (Album C) does the same thing, appended to the end, but Album A starts again. What am I doing wrong (realizing this is a basic and unsupported bat file).

Regardless, thanks for the ideas! I am blown away that JRIver has an ability to associate files to be played by an external program (and I long ago relegated my albums to only four file types: wav, flac, dff, dsf)!! Yeah.

Does JRiver version matter?

I know that stuff like this keeps getting disabled in JRiver, e.g. JPlay.

Does JRiver version matter?

 

I know that stuff like this keeps getting disabled in JRiver, e.g. JPlay.

I wouldn't think so. Looks like the file association page has been that way for some time. HQplayer version matters, simply if it's installed in x86 or not.

Edit: I'm assuming my album-adding-to-end-of-playlist issue is due to hqp-control syntax changes since Geoff wrote this bat?

To make this easier for Geoff or Jussi to troubleshoot (or anyone else familiar with hqp-control) here is the bat where I simply removed reference to Program Files (x86):

@echo off

set datapath=%~dp1

IF %datapath:~-1%==\ SET datapath=%datapath:~0,-1%

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost --stop

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost --playlist-clear

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost "%datapath%"

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost --select-track 0

To reiterate, nothing in the playlist is clearing, but instead albums selected are adding to the end and then track 0 starts again.

Cool. Thanx.

Ted, where is the bat file? What else needs to be done? I am coming into this a bit late.

I wouldn't think so. Looks like the file association page has been that way for some time. HQplayer version matters, simply if it's installed in x86 or not.

 

Edit: I'm assuming my album-adding-to-end-of-playlist issue is due to hqp-control syntax changes since Geoff wrote this bat?

 

To make this easier for Geoff or Jussi to troubleshoot (or anyone else familiar with hqp-control) here is the bat:

@echo off

set datapath=%~dp1

IF %datapath:~-1%==\ SET datapath=%datapath:~0,-1%

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost --stop

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost --playlist-clear

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost "%datapath%"

TIMEOUT /T 2

start "" "C:\Program Files\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost --select-track 0

 

To reiterate, nothing in the playlist is clearing, but instead albums selected are adding to the end and then track 0 starts again.

Hi Ted,

I'll take a look and see if I can get it to work

I might try a Powershell script instead.

Best,

Geoff

Thanks Geoff. I tried it again with a fresh restart of JRiver and the first time it did indeed replace the album, but the second time and after, no.

Which version of HQPlayer are you using Ted?

The latest Windows version (3.15.1 beta 2).

The latest Windows version (3.15.1 beta 2).

I've been testing with the latest stable(non-beta) version and I can't recreate your problem.

As long as I just play an album from JR River (Media Centre 22) it works for me. When I ask Media Centre to play a new album playback is stopped and the previous one is always cleared from HQPlayer's playlist

Also tested with JRemote and that's working fine for me too.

Of course you have to associate each File Type with the .bat file in Media Center's Options -> File Types and it will only work with file types supported by HQPlayer. I assume though you've taken those factors into consideration.

You seem to have edited the path on the .bat file correctly, so I'm at a loss as to what could be causing the problems.

Can you try testing with the same version of HQP as me? 3.15 in case it's something to do with the beta.

The hqp-control.exe commands are very basic and have been working fine for me since at least from version 3.13.

Ted, where is the bat file? What else needs to be done? I am coming into this a bit late.

See the dropbox link above ...post #1.

You have to edit it like TedB did to work with later versions of HQP. Open in Notepad, etc and delete the (X86) characters...

OK, so I fell back to 3.15.0 (stable) and the intent of the bat seems to consistently work, but only when the current album music is stopped. If I try while playing: on some albums it works fine while playing, yet on others it does nothing (i.e. once the four dos command windows go away the oirginal album is there and starts playing again). In 3.15.1 (beta 2) the bat works fine, so far, when music is first stopped before selection. However, if selection happens while music is playing then 90% of the time the album is appended to the playlist. Overall, really, kind of a nice feature (but not a guarantee).

Again, I can't thank you enough for this idea. I hope bat masters get on it and add functionality, but the prize goes to you, Geoff. Thanks.

P.S. I have not tested JRemote but assume the same results.

OK, so I fell back to 3.15.0 (stable) and the intent of the bat seems to consistently work, but only when the current album music is stopped. If I try while playing: on some albums it works fine while playing, yet on others it does nothing (i.e. once the four dos command windows go away the oirginal album is there and starts playing again). In 3.15.1 (beta 2) the bat works fine, so far, when music is first stopped before selection. However, if selection happens while music is playing then 90% of the time the album is appended to the playlist. Overall, really, kind of a nice feature (but not a guarantee).

 

Again, I can't thank you enough for this idea. I hope bat masters get on it and add functionality, but the prize goes to you, Geoff. Thanks.

 

P.S. I have not tested JRemote but assume the same results.

You're welcome Ted and thanks for sharing your results.

My results still differ from yours as I don't need to wait for the currently playing album to stop playing. I just play a new album and it replaces the previous one and starts playing.

Strange that you're experiencing such different behaviour.

Just a thought; can you share with me where your albums are located? If you provide a file path to one of the albums which has the peculiar behaviour it might give me a clue.

Thanks

Afew things:

1) my JRIver is MC 20, build 133

2) both HQP and JR exist on my Windows 10 AO'd server (i7 6700k, 32GB RAM, etc)

3) all my music is on a shared folder in my Synology NAS (currently sharing a Diablo fiber switch with the HQP server), mapped to the server as drive M (multichannel is drive N but that is also a different library in JR). The music is divided by type in subfolders (directories really) like DSD, DSD128, hirez 24 bit, redbook, etc) and from there in album folders (named "artist-album"). I find no correlation to issues described above and album location (or format).