[edwardsean]

  MKV blue ray and DVD rips.

Yup! Works like a dream. 

 

[mhpsd]

 
Yup! Works like a dream. 

 
 

  MKV blue ray and DVD rips.

Don't want to derail this thread, but I tried using makemkv and ended up with a folder that I couldn't make work.  Can anyone point me to a thread/instruction on how to make this work?  I'd love to check out OOYH with 7.1 source material.
Thanks

 

[phoenixdogfan]

https://youtu.be/8jUh7hbe4Yc

Try that.

 

[thekorsen]

Been playing more with the presets trying to find what jives best with me. So far my favorites for stereo listening are the Focal Scalia and Revel Ultimas, and I switch to the Cello for large volume sound stage. The room reverb you get when switching off the music is also one my new favorite things, like the cherry on top of the whole effect to make it so convincing!

 

[thekorsen]

I found a great gem for messing with stereo to 7.1 that'll always run in the background for windows! Get equalizer APO installed with the peace extension. Open it with the full interface when given the option, and select the desired configuration (7.1 setup recommended for convenience.) Next click the *Commands button and click the "upmixing 2 channels to 8" option in the menu on the upper right, then click save. Now click the *Effects button and turn on upmix with 7.1 switched as the spacial setup. I'd also recommend turning the spatial balance feature on, try setting it at somewhere between 0.6-1 for the front setting and it should help give a better front image and reduce the image confusion this configuration tends to induce. This also gives the freedom to individually EQ each channel (or channel pairs in the convenient 7.1 setup option), which might allow one to play with EQ to make certain instruments more or less present in different areas to force image separation into the mix.
 
One bug I'm getting with this setup however is a buzzing that goes in and out at varying volumes. It tends to get more loud and last longer over time, but closing and re-opening OOYH seems to remedy this. There are also some occasional audio artifacts (poping, skiping) and they are usually just milliseconds in duration but still distracting. Not sure what's causing these issues and they can be very annoying, detracting from an otherwise convenient solution to this.

 
 
*edit* Issues seem to be a result of switching effects in OOYH too quickly / too often. Restarting OOYH seems to resolve them when they do occur.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

The popping is probably digital clipping.  Lower the gain on whatever is feeding OOYH to fix it.

 

[thekorsen]

  The popping is probably digital clipping.  Lower the gain on whatever is feeding OOYH to fix it.

I had that issue before, needed to lower my source to it to fix it originally, and those pops were originally much louder than the sound and these are not. These pops persisted and had loudness which correlated with the volume no matter which part of the audio chain I lowered the volume of. The "poping" might just be a really short duration skip/audio artifact too, maybe having to do with the fact that two programs are processing audio at the same time, making lag in the system slow both down for a blip and possibly not giving both programs enough buffer time to fix the now compounded error. I don't know much about this though, taking a shot in the dark.

 

[darinf]

  I had that issue before, needed to lower my source to it to fix it originally, and those pops were originally much louder than the sound and these are not. These pops persisted and had loudness which correlated with the volume no matter which part of the audio chain I lowered the volume of. The "poping" might just be a really short duration skip/audio artifact too, maybe having to do with the fact that two programs are processing audio at the same time, making lag in the system slow both down for a blip and possibly not giving both programs enough buffer time to fix the now compounded error. I don't know much about this though, taking a shot in the dark.

Hi @thekorsen ,
 
Thanks for the tip about Equalizer APO. I remember trying it at some point, but I can't remember if I had any problems getting it to work with Out Of Your Head. But I am glad you have it working.
 
Your suspicion about why you are getting some audio artifacts may be due to both processes processing the audio signal. Plus the fact that the processes are running in real-time with fairly low latency may have some problems even on a fast computer. With the current low latency engine, even fast CPU's can sometimes have audio glitches when other processes are running at the same time. Sometimes even web browsing or any mildly CPU intensive process can affect the audio processing in Out Of Your Head. So I would not be surprised if Equalizer APO can cause audio glitches with Out Of Your Head. We are doing a fairly significant amount of DSP very quickly and I assume so is Equalizer APO.
 
I will give it a try on my test systems and see if I can get it working smoothly.
 
One thing to check in general for anyone running Out Of Your Head on Windows is to change your Power Options to the "High Performance" setting, or in the advanced settings, make sure your Minimum CPU State is set to 100%. For some reason, sometimes Windows will not "see" that Out Of Your Head needs a lot of CPU and will leave the CPU in a low power state. That can cause all kinds of glitches and distorted sound especially on laptops.
 
Anyway, I'll let you know if I have any luck with Equalizer APO.
 
Thanks,
-Darin

 

[darinf]

  Hi @thekorsen ,
 
Thanks for the tip about Equalizer APO. I remember trying it at some point, but I can't remember if I had any problems getting it to work with Out Of Your Head. But I am glad you have it working.
 
Your suspicion about why you are getting some audio artifacts may be due to both processes processing the audio signal. Plus the fact that the processes are running in real-time with fairly low latency may have some problems even on a fast computer. With the current low latency engine, even fast CPU's can sometimes have audio glitches when other processes are running at the same time. Sometimes even web browsing or any mildly CPU intensive process can affect the audio processing in Out Of Your Head. So I would not be surprised if Equalizer APO can cause audio glitches with Out Of Your Head. We are doing a fairly significant amount of DSP very quickly and I assume so is Equalizer APO.
 
I will give it a try on my test systems and see if I can get it working smoothly.
 
One thing to check in general for anyone running Out Of Your Head on Windows is to change your Power Options to the "High Performance" setting, or in the advanced settings, make sure your Minimum CPU State is set to 100%. For some reason, sometimes Windows will not "see" that Out Of Your Head needs a lot of CPU and will leave the CPU in a low power state. That can cause all kinds of glitches and distorted sound especially on laptops.
 
Anyway, I'll let you know if I have any luck with Equalizer APO.
 
Thanks,
-Darin

OK, I was able to get Equalizer APO working on my Windows 10, desktop system: i7-6700 3.4GHz and 32GB RAM.
 
This computer is pretty fast and it's a desktop, so it seems to have plenty of CPU power to playback 2 channel audio with both Equalizer APO and Out Of Your Head active. I didn't hear any problems with the audio even when up-converting two channels to 7.1 channels.
 
However, for whatever reason, I noticed that in "Effect", once I set "Spatial Setup" to 7.1 and then "Upmix" to ON, the output level from Equalizer APO jumped way up and caused some seriously loud clipping/digital distortion. So be careful! 
 

 
To fix the distortion, I adjusted the "Pre-amplifying" slider on the top of the main Peace GUI down to -14 or lower. You have to play with that until you stop hearing any distortion especially on loud passages.
 

 
The clipping/distortion does not sound like the clipping I get when the output from my media player is set too high. The distortion from Equalizer APO is more like a buzzing sound.
 
I am not sure if that's the same problem that @thekorsen was getting, but just making sure people are aware of this.
 
However once I adjusted the "Pre Amplifying" volume down, Equalizer APO worked really well with Out Of Your Head. If it works on your computer without problems, I think it's a great solution for EQ-ing your audio when using Out Of Your Head. 
 
I will try the same thing on a laptop and a slow laptop to see if I have any issues.
 
-Darin

 

[darinf]

  OK, I was able to get Equalizer APO working on my Windows 10, desktop system: i7-6700 3.4GHz and 32GB RAM.

Spoiler: Click to see the full post

This computer is pretty fast and it's a desktop, so it seems to have plenty of CPU power to playback 2 channel audio with both Equalizer APO and Out Of Your Head active. I didn't hear any problems with the audio even when up-converting two channels to 7.1 channels.
 
However, for whatever reason, I noticed that in "Effect", once I set "Spatial Setup" to 7.1 and then "Upmix" to ON, the output level from Equalizer APO jumped way up and caused some seriously loud clipping/digital distortion. So be careful! 
 

 
To fix the distortion, I adjusted the "Pre-amplifying" slider on the top of the main Peace GUI down to -14 or lower. You have to play with that until you stop hearing any distortion especially on loud passages.
 

 
The clipping/distortion does not sound like the clipping I get when the output from my media player is set too high. The distortion from Equalizer APO is more like a buzzing sound.
 
I am not sure if that's the same problem that @thekorsen was getting, but just making sure people are aware of this.
 
However once I adjusted the "Pre Amplifying" volume down, Equalizer APO worked really well with Out Of Your Head. If it works on your computer without problems, I think it's a great solution for EQ-ing your audio when using Out Of Your Head. 
 
I will try the same thing on a laptop and a slow laptop to see if I have any issues.
 
-Darin

 

I just tried an older, cheap laptop:
AMD A6-6310 1.8GHz; 8GB RAM; Windows 10
 
It worked pretty well.
When I enabled the 7.1 Upmix, I had to turn down the "Pre Amplifying" to -18 or more to avoid any clipping.
 
But I was surprised at how well it worked and was generally glitch free.
 
However, unlike my main desktop, this computer definitely had glitches and stuttering when I did anything else on the computer like opening windows, opening Chrome, browsing web pages, etc. It wasn't hard to cause some glitches in the audio.
I did notice that adjusting the settings in the Peace GUI didn't seem to cause any glitches.
 
Anyway, hopefully some of you can get it working without problems.
 
-Darin

 

[thekorsen]

  -Lots of good stuff-

Looks like you've been hard at work with this! I've been playing with this more today and found that the buzzing issue I mentioned before has not yet come up again for some reason and the stuttering is not as prevalent. Its working well enough to let me use it and enjoy the music, which is great! Might also be because I have less things open? I can't imagine what I could've had open before which would pull a lot of resources though. Generally I only have a few tabs (under 10) open, maybe 2 of which being youtube videos, and steam in the background. If I'm playing a game I would use it's own 7.1 output and disable the upmixing all together. I'll try to test a few things as the day goes by and see if anything causes it again so I can report it here.
 
Edit: Also noticing some tracks respond better to this setup than others...but the ones that do can sound spectacular! The Shaman by Nicola Conte off Spotify was pretty stellar when played back like this with the Revel Ultima effect.

 

[thekorsen]

Hi, just wanted to report a bug. After switching effects via pressing the up and down arrow keys every minute or so for a prolonged duration during a listening session, occasionally a popup would come up similar to what pops up after the 2 minute limit on an effect. After I X-ed out of it the audio is paused for a few seconds, then comes back on but is often distorted. This distortion can sometimes be very noticeably (buzzing and loud clipping) or marginal. Restarting will get rid of the noticeable effects, but the clipping issue seems to get additively worse as this pops up more and more and doesn't dissipate until the computer is restarted. For me, this increasing tendency to clip was experienced in lower frequencies even through the volume was not changed from the source or in OOYH. I tested this by setting it just above the point of clipping on a certain song, inducing the error by repeatedly pressing the up and down arrows to switch between effects, then exiting and reloading the program. The volume sliders were the same in OOYH and Peace, but I now had to lower the preamp in Peace another -1db to stop it from cliping.
 
Another bug from switching effects consistently over time seems to be a slowed time to switch effects. After a while, when a different effect is selected it will stay at bypass mode for a few seconds then switch to it.
 
I realize switching effects constantly isn't the desired way to use the program, and the bugs it compounds over time may well serve as a way to encourage buying the full program, but I just thought they should be mentioned.
 
Also, a review of the program on my different headphones is in progress. It will be my first review on headfi so it might take a while, but stay tuned.

 

[darinf]

  Hi, just wanted to report a bug. After switching effects via pressing the up and down arrow keys every minute or so for a prolonged duration during a listening session, occasionally a popup would come up similar to what pops up after the 2 minute limit on an effect. After I X-ed out of it the audio is paused for a few seconds, then comes back on but is often distorted. This distortion can sometimes be very noticeably (buzzing and loud clipping) or marginal. Restarting will get rid of the noticeable effects, but the clipping issue seems to get additively worse as this pops up more and more and doesn't dissipate until the computer is restarted. For me, this increasing tendency to clip was experienced in lower frequencies even through the volume was not changed from the source or in OOYH. I tested this by setting it just above the point of clipping on a certain song, inducing the error by repeatedly pressing the up and down arrows to switch between effects, then exiting and reloading the program. The volume sliders were the same in OOYH and Peace, but I now had to lower the preamp in Peace another -1db to stop it from cliping.
 
Another bug from switching effects consistently over time seems to be a slowed time to switch effects. After a while, when a different effect is selected it will stay at bypass mode for a few seconds then switch to it.
 
I realize switching effects constantly isn't the desired way to use the program, and the bugs it compounds over time may well serve as a way to encourage buying the full program, but I just thought they should be mentioned.
 
Also, a review of the program on my different headphones is in progress. It will be my first review on headfi so it might take a while, but stay tuned.

Hi @thekorsen ,
 
Thanks for your detailed bug report.
 
When switching presets quickly, on some systems we have seen that the speaker presets may have errors loading. Everytime you switch presets, there's actually quite a bit going behind the scenes in terms of loading the 8 effect files, dealing with the cache and buffers, and "restarting" the processing engine.
All of this must be done very quickly while still maintaining the low latency.
 
On some systems, sometimes after switching presets rapidly, the presets would stop loading and all the presets would sound the same. Other times, the engine would get into a state where the processed sound was distorted and you would have to quit Out Of Your Head and relaunch it.
 
We have worked on this kind of bug and have made improvements, but it's not perfect, as you have found.
 
We will take a look at your bug report and see if we can reproduce the error.
 
But, in general we recommend not switching presets faster than once every 5 seconds or so. 
 
-Darin

 

[musiclover2015]

  I found a great gem for messing with stereo to 7.1 that'll always run in the background for windows! Get equalizer APO installed with the peace extension. Open it with the full interface when given the option, and select the desired configuration (7.1 setup recommended for convenience.) Next click the *Commands button and click the "upmixing 2 channels to 8" option in the menu on the upper right, then click save. Now click the *Effects button and turn on upmix with 7.1 switched as the spacial setup. I'd also recommend turning the spatial balance feature on, try setting it at somewhere between 0.6-1 for the front setting and it should help give a better front image and reduce the image confusion this configuration tends to induce. This also gives the freedom to individually EQ each channel (or channel pairs in the convenient 7.1 setup option), which might allow one to play with EQ to make certain instruments more or less present in different areas to force image separation into the mix.
 
One bug I'm getting with this setup however is a buzzing that goes in and out at varying volumes. It tends to get more loud and last longer over time, but closing and re-opening OOYH seems to remedy this. There are also some occasional audio artifacts (poping, skiping) and they are usually just milliseconds in duration but still distracting. Not sure what's causing these issues and they can be very annoying, detracting from an otherwise convenient solution to this.

 

Wow, that's a good find. 
 
I followed the config steps, just to confirm, all this while the my EQs in the Peace GUI are flat, will adjusting those make a difference, because right now they seem to be inactive.

 

[thekorsen]

  Wow, that's a good find. 
 
I followed the config steps, just to confirm, all this while the my EQs in the Peace GUI are flat, will adjusting those make a difference, because right now they seem to be inactive.

The EQ sliders shown will affect the selected speaker(s). To select which you'd like to EQ, there should be a white box on the right with selectable speakers. It defaults to *All I believe, and with that selected the changes made to the EQ via the sliders should apply to all the digital speakers in OOYH. To better see a difference that an EQ can make, I'd recommend making a flat preset and a EQed preset you can switch between via the white box on the lower left corner. Just click save once you made a EQ and save it, and it should show up in that box like the rest (try starting it with a number so it shows up at the top of the list since they are listed alphabetically)