Author Topic: Xbox Music  (Read 44655 times)

HaraldBluetooth

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Hi Steven, thanks for providing this plugin to MusicBee.

It just works perfect, but I have a question about the streaming quality. I've signed up for 1 month free subscription to Xbox Music and you write, that the quality is 160 kbps AAC. Is this determined by the API or do you transcode this in any form. I thought, that Xbox Music as a Microsoft company was streaming in WMA, not that AAC is bad at all, on the contrary. I just wonder  :)
Last Edit: February 06, 2015, 03:29:29 AM by HaraldBluetooth

Steven

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its streamed as supplied by the xbox service with no transcoding by musicbee - they use AAC for subscribing customers

HaraldBluetooth

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Thanks for your answer Steven.

Is the Xbox stream affected by the player option "Dynamically normalise the volume of streams", because I've noticed far less clipping and better overall listening experience compared to the Xbox music app for Windows 8 or their web-player. If this is true, it's a big plus for your plugin implementation. No online streaming service has this feature, as far as I know, although Spotify has a "Set  the same volume level for all tracks" option, it doesn't work as well as your implementation.

Is this feature following the EBU R128 -18LUFS target volume, or?

By the way, am I the only one, who has abrupt cuts the last seconds of each track, as it isn't finished properly?
Last Edit: February 08, 2015, 03:38:11 AM by HaraldBluetooth

Steven

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the dynamic normalisation is not a full replaygain analysis - it only works with the immediate section of the song and is approximate. You can google the forum for a more detailed explanation

By the way, am I the only one, who has abrupt cuts the last seconds of each track, as it isn't finished properly?
i have no problems with this. Can you explain this some more.
- do you mean it ends the song 2 seconds before the stated duration of the track
- does it happen for the last song in the playlist ie. does it only happen if another song is following
- could you post a screen shot of your player preferences panel

HaraldBluetooth

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About the abrupt cuts, I can hear, that the song isn't finished as it should, because it finishes hard in the middle of the last tone or so and as I can hear it, it happens for each track, although the playlist is from the same album. I don't have this behaviour, when I play local files in the normal way.

Here is a screenshot of the player settings
Last Edit: February 09, 2015, 12:25:39 AM by HaraldBluetooth

Steven

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i cant help any further unless you answer the questions asked.
Also could you give me an example artist/ album/ track name
Last Edit: February 09, 2015, 08:43:06 AM by Steven

HaraldBluetooth

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Steven, sorry I didn't answer your question fully.

Add the Caroline Henderson album Jazz, Love & Henderson from 2011 to your playlist. Play track 3 - Trilingual Love Song. It ends 4-5 seconds before it should be finished. This is also the case, if the track is the only one in your playlist.

I've also tried to play the album the same way in Xbox Music web player and in the Xbox Music windows 8 app, and here there is no problem.




ChristopherE

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I set up an xbox music sub and everything was working fine. Could stream full albums through MusicBee etc. However this morning I tried to stream and it would not work. I went to the plug-in page and clicked log on but all I get is 'your subscription on xbox is not enabled. Try again later'. However if I login to xbox music via firefox the I can stream perfectly and my account has registered that there is a subscription enabled.

Edit:

Seem to have fixed it by using the 'get a music pass' button in preferences rather than the log on option. The xbox website opened to create a music pass but then I just closed the site and logged in via MusicBee and it worked.
Last Edit: February 16, 2015, 03:30:48 PM by ChristopherE

Steven

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it really could be any number of possibilities eg. it could have been a glitch in the API service that musicbee uses which differs to the web-player or it could be the way MusicBee handles an event. If it happens again then please let me know

ChristopherE

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Thanks and I will do Steven. It is a great edition to the player. It is one of the reasons I got the music pass in the first place as it is much better then using Microsoft 'Music' or the web based xbox player.

It would be really nice to have a right click search for a 'search on xbox'. That way would be easy to find artists already in the library on xbox.

Steven

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the Music Explorer in the Services section allows searching/ browsing of the Xbox music catalog

edit:
never mind - i realise thats not what you meant. I will add it to a future version of MB
Last Edit: February 16, 2015, 07:45:31 PM by Steven

jordel

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Thank you so much, Steven. I never expected to get such a great experience for Xbox Music/Groove when I posted the suggestion.

Today I tried the "send playlist to Xbox music" feature for the first time. I'm not sure if I understand the feature wrong or if it is broken at the moment. If I send my local playlist via MusicBee, the app is busy for a little while, says that the playlist was sent except for x songs. Nevertheless, when I go to Groove Web there is no new playlist appearing.

Additionaly, it would be great if it would be possible to add songs the drag-and-drop/ctrl+click way within the music explorer in MusicBee.

You are doing a very big favour to music lovers around the globe.
I'm sorry for several language mistakes. Please feel free to ask if you don't understand, what I am trying to say. I am always willing to improve my English skills :)

Steven

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i just tried now and its working fine for me. That function doesnt send the music files to x-box music, instead it creates or synchronises a playlist on your x-box/ groove music account but only where a matching artist/title and optionally album can be matched.
Perhaps you just needed to hit the refresh button on your browser

moorpipe

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My Xbox Music tracks don't proceed to the next after finishing automatically. It happens while playing a Xbox music radio stream or a regular playlist with one or more Xbox music tracks. Is there some setting I should check? To be honest it did work. I don't recall any settings I changed.
I wasn't sure where to put this problem. In the Support forum or in the plugin thread itself.

I'm running version 3.0.5909 and I'm a Xbox music subscriber (or Groove Music as it is called nowadays).

moorpipe

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Well, this is rather embarrassing. I just installed the latest patch (3.0.6057) and the problem is solved! Sorry, for any inconvenience caused.