Overview

Choose or customize all your settings for using the[ |MPLogo120.png^1631]Music features in MediaPortal.

Changing Settings in MediaPortal

Some of these options can also be set from within MediaPortal, in Settings > Music..

Player Settings

General settings

• Player
  Choose between BASS engine, WASAPI, ASIO and Internal dshow player. BASS engine, WASAPI and ASIO give you better technology than DirectSound, and a lot of music formats are supported by default, like MP3, FLAC, OGG and AAC.
  • BASS engine: - Default
  • WASAPI - The Windows Audio Session API allows delivering an unmodified bitstream to a sound device, without using the Windows mixer. It is available on Windows Vista and newer
  • ASIO - Audio Stream Input/Output which allows musicians and sound engineers to access external hardware directly. An ASIO capable device and driver must be installed. _Universal ASIO driver for WDM audio driver (_ASIO4ALL driver) from http://www.asio4all.com/ for sound device can be the way to make ASIO option active in MediaPortal / Music / ASIO.
  • Internal dshow player - it plays sound via_ Windows _DirectShow Filters / Audio Splitter (LAV splitter / MPEG-I Stream Splitter etc.) which has the highest merit (preferences) in the Windows system (MediaPortal Codecs and Renderer / Video Codecs / Splitter filter settings have no effect for Music codec settings). To change the merit of the Audio Splitter  in the Windows system the GraphEdit or GraphStudio or GraphStudioNext (recommended) application is needed with appropriate "proppage.dll" (part of Windows SDK) registered library. 

• Sound Device
  • Choose which soundcard you want to use when playing music, or Default Sound Device to follow the Windows settings. The sound cards displayed in the combo box depend on the type of player selected. i.e. With ASIO selected, only sound devices capable of ASIO playback can be selected.

Playback settings (BASS player only)

• Output level - Default: 100
  Change the maximum output level here. Lower the value if you hear any distortion.
• Enable Replay Gain - Default: Off
  When the played song contains replay gain information, the playback volume will be adjusted according to the settings in the replay gain tag..

• Enable Album Replay Gain (is available) - Default: Off
  If Album Replay gain is available in the song tags, then all the songs of an album will be played with the same volume level.
• Use Skip steps on forward / rewind - Default: Off
  With this option selected, the Skip steps defined in GUI section will be used.
• Fade-in on start / fade-out on stop - Default: On
  Selecting this will slowly start and stop the music volume.
• Gapless playback - Default: Off Tip MediaPortal can crossfade and play tracks gapless only if they are using the same sample rate. These functions will be skipped if mixing tracks with different sample rates.
  When selecting this option, no silence is heard between two tracks.
• Cross-fading: - Default: 4.00
  Cross-fading mixes the next song into the current song. The amount of seconds changes the time the two songs are heard simultaneously.
• Buffering: - Default: 0.50
  Buffering is the amount of seconds MediaPortal reads ahead to avoid stuttering. Change if you experience any stuttering. During Configuration we try to detect the supported buffering of the selected sound device and adjust this value accordingly.

ASIO

• ASIO Device Settings - pressing this button invokes the ASIO device Settings dialog
• Balance - here you can adjust he left right balance of multi-channel audio (not stereo)

  WASAPI

  

• Use WASAPI Exclusive Mode - Default: On
  Uses the selected device in WASAPI exclusive mode. When deselected the shared mode is used, which makes use of the Windows mixer.
• Speaker Setup
  The setup tries detecting the attached speakers automatically. For some devices this does not work and you may select the number of speakers attached to the device.

Upmixing

Selecting an option from the combo box allows upmixing to more channels.

Play Settings

OK / Enter / Select Button

• Play (default) - use the Enter key to play tracks (the same as the play button)\
• Queue - to add tracks for the selected item (track, artist or album) to the playlist
• *Add all tracks to playlist* - Default: on
  If you are browsing a list of tracks (eg. an album) this option determines whether clicking play or Enter / OK will add all tracks to the playlist or only the selected track

Jump To Behaviour

• Jump on "Play now" - default = None
• Select the behavior you prefer when pressing the Play button remote (this is not the same button as the OK button)
  • None - Pressing play will: play song (this is the same action as the OK button on an MCE remote)
  • Now Playing [always] - Pressing play will: play the song and jump to the playing now screen
  • Now Playing [if multiple items] - Pressing play will: play the song and jump to the playing now screen if there are more songs in the playlist
  • Current playlist [always] - Pressing play will: Jump to the playing now screen
  • Current playlist [if multiple items] - Pressing play will: Jump to the playing now screen if there are more songs in the playlist
  • Fullscreen [always] (internal player only) - Pressing play will: Jump to the fullscreen showing the selected visualizations if enabled
  • Fullscreen [if multiple items] - Pressing play will: Jump to the fullscreen showing the selected visualizations if enabled if there are more songs in the playlist

Note: The controls in this section determine what happens when you press Play and Enter / OK when browsing music.

Playback Resume

• Enable Resume support on Playback Position > xx Seconds - Default: Off
  When this option is selected and the song's playback time is longer than the specified value in seconds, resume information is written into the database. If the song is replayed, the system asks if it should resume playback from the stored position or from the beginning.
• And <combo box value > contains <string> - Default: no selection
  If Resume support has been selected, this option allows to enable it only when other conditions, like e.g. Genre containing "Audio Book" , are met, so that Resume support is not enabled for longer Rock / Pop songs

Now playing

The Now Playing window is a special window for an eye candy, fullscreen display while music is playing. On this tab you can customize several features.

Dynamic content (Internet Lookups)

• Disable internet lookups for similar tracks - prevent MediaPortal from connecting to the internet service and providing the list of similar tracks on the Now Playing screen.

Visualization options

• *Show visualization* - Default: off
  This setting enables or disables visualization display, but is only supported when using the default BASS player
  Visualizations must also be enabled on the Visualiztions tab (see below)

VUMeter (BASS player only)

MediaPortal supports the display of VU (Volume Unit) Meters on the Now Playing screen but only when using the default BASS player.

These are very similar to the VU Meters. or volume indicators, often included in audio equipment to display a signal level in Volume Units.

• *None*
  No VU Meter is displayed - the skin uses MyMusicPlayingNow.xml
• *Analog*
  Displays an anlog VU meter - the skin uses MyMusicPlayingNowAnVU.xml
  
• *LED*
  Displays a LED (light-emitting diode) VU Meter - the skin uses MyMusicPlayingNowLedVU.xml
  

Playlist settings

Use the playlist settings to customize your Music Playlists in MediaPortal

Playlist Settings

• Playlist folder - Default: <windows (My) Documents folder>
  My Playlists
  Here you specify the place to store your playlists.
  Tip: Select a different folder than the one you use for video playlists so you can view only your music playlists in MediaPortal
• Repeat/loop music playlists (m3u. b4, pls) - Default: off
  When you want MediaPortal to continuously play your playlist, check this option.
• Auto shuffle playlists - Default: off
  When you want to shuffle the playlist after it loads, check this option.
• Save playlist as default when leaving MediaPortal - Default: on
  This option will save your playlist and show it as it was when you leave the playlist screen
• Load default playlist on MediaPortal startup - Default: on
  If you exit Music to do something else and after that re-enter Music, the last playlist is resumed
• Playlist screen shows current playlist - Default: on

Visualizations

Music Visualizations are animated images which are created based on the music played. Every time a song is played, different images appear on the screen. The kind of images can be selected here and used wherever music and even radio is played in MediaPortal.

Note: These settings are only valid with the BASS engine selected. Also, you may configure visualizations display separately for the Now Playing window, see Now playing settings below.

• Visualization - Default: None
  Supported kinds of visualizations are:
  • Windows Media Visualizations
  • Winamp Visualizations including Milkdrop
  • Sonic
  • Soundspectrum G-Force

Sonic and Winamp Visualizations need to be stored in a specific folder so that MediaPortal can pick them up.

A Sonic Visualization needs to be placed in folder \MusicPlayer\Plugins\Visualizations. Create Sub folders as needed.

Winamp Visualizations have special requirements. You MUST store them in the folder named Plugins, which is located in the MediaPortal installation folder, this is the same folder, which contains all the other MediaPortal plugins.

Simply copy the the vis_milk2.dll and the Milkdrop2 folders in to this folder, do not create a sub folder for the dll.

The resulting folder structure needs to be:

• %MediaPortal Installation Directory%\plugins\vis_milk2.dll
• %MediaPortal Installation Directory%\plugins\Milkdrop2\
• %MediaPortal Installation Directory%\plugins\Milkdrop2\textures
• %MediaPortal Installation Directory%\plugins\Milkdrop2\presets
• %MediaPortal Installation Directory%\plugins\Milkdrop2\data
• %MediaPortal Installation Directory%\plugins\Milkdrop2\docs

You will also need to ensure you have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package installed from one of the following download locations (dependant on the version of your operating system):

• Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x64)
• Preset:
  • Presets are default settings for each visualization
• Winamp Vis.
  If you choose to use a Winamp visualization, this button will be enable to allow you to configure the Winamp Visualiztions settings from within MediaPortal configuration
• Target FPS - Default: 25
  • The number of times per second the visualization is updated. The higher the number the more fluent the visualization will become. However, most visualizations require a lot of computer power so your fans can become loud or MediaPortal will respond slow to other commands.
• Enable status display in full screen mode (fast systems only) - Default: off
  • Show song info on track change - Default: On

Autoplay CD/DVDs

Note: Auto play settings for CD/DVDs are now set in DVD Discs/Images > Autoplay

Changelog