With all do respect, I think we should expect real time sync. At 10 pm on release day we should expect to see new releases if we manually clear the cache. These aren’t free products.
@fritzg: Unfortunately, in many cases TIDAL can’t tell anyone about a release until it goes out to the public, including its partners. This is a requirement from the record labels.
So you can “expect” it to be real time sync, but it is impossible with the current business model where Roon and TIDAL are 2 different companies… and there is no plan or desire for us to merge into one.
Right now the sync can be a few days off. We want to get that to be a few minutes off. But that will take some work to achieve. We have no schedule for release yet.
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So, how did Roon know about the release “Straight Outta Compton”, but not David Bowie’s “BlackStar”? That doesn’t make any sense to me.
From what I understand, Roon does not see the new releases until after they come out. I noted that one release from January 8 has been synced and another has not. I guess wanting to know the technical details is boring.
But I will move on. Good to know we should not expect new releases to show up day of release.
Please do keep us posted when this is fixed. Because I probably will cancel TIDAL until it works and will have no way to know when it does.
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TIDAL gives us full database dumps on a periodic basis. We then take those dumps and process them into a large virtual library. It’s kinda like a big import of everything they have. There are thousands of places where things can go wrong.
Technical details can be interesting, but this is really low level stuff. You’ve seen us post technical details often, and I’m not shy about being open with you guys, however, to explain these details would be monumental.
Just know we are working on it, and it will get better.
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[quote=“danny, post:33, topic:6628”]Unfortunately, in many cases TIDAL can’t tell anyone about a release until it goes out to the public, including its partners. This is a requirement from the record labels.
[/quote]
Different labels / albums = Different release criteria, it’s a comersial constraint which affects:
- When Tidal update their systems.
- When Tidal publish their updated data.
Then Roon asynchronously to Tidal:
- Ingests all of the Tidal data
- Cross references it with all the metadata Roon has access to.
- Builds the matrix
- Validates the results
- Publishes to its subscribers
Roon performs this entire process every few days. Due to the huge amount of data being processed it is not possible to significantly reduce the cycle time.
Now that said, the Roon devs know that the current latency leads to issues with new releases, and a ‘fast track’ auxiliary process is also required to manage new releases. This process does not exist at present, hence the recent discussions with Tidal to identify what can practically be achieved with collaboration.
EDIT: I drafted my reply before Danny re-posted.
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Carl pretty much nailed it.
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If this situation really bothers people - and I suppose it might be frustrating if it’s what you’re relying on for your music and need latest releases - maybe as a special case workaround you could just keep a ‘live’ panel into Tidals new releases? Not pretty, but probably prettier than forcing users out of Roon and into an external ap/VNC? Just an idea as a temporary fix if the real solutions a huge deal.
I only had this situation once and it didn’t bother me really, but I guess people just expect real-time everything these days…
The lag is being worked on and has to do with how Roon processes our metadata. If there are releases you simply cannot wait on, it is entirely possible to play those through the TIDAL client in the meantime.
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Yes @palbratelund , but for some reason the Tidal app still doesn’t do gapless playback (which is critical for some album listening) and also the iPad app doesn’t allow playback to your stereo, but only through the iPad which makes it tough for people who have a headless setup… just a couple things I believe Tidal needs to improve on.
Clients are gapless. Have you updated in the last 6 months? 
That’s great news I didn’t realize, it’s not gapless on the Oppo app player when I last played… how about the iPad app to have playback to your stereo and not just iPad (like Spotify has).
What terrible news to wakeup too… I’m shocked. 
Our clients are gapless. Not all partners, but that’s down to their own implementations, or the limitations of the third-party solutions they may run. But TIDAL clients on desktop and mobile are gapless. And of course - in Roon.
And regarding Spotify Connect - we were considering the same type of solution but ditched it. There are many solutions coming now that does this better than that. Google Cast is one. Roon Ready.
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David Bowie. R.I.P.
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Thanks @palbratelund, although the Google Cast doesn’t really help in a headless setup and with Roon Ready the lag issue may still be there for some albums… I realize the headless setup is probably a small amount overall though, but something that Spotify connect is perfect… to be fair I really am only going to use Tidal on Roon anyways as a lifetime member I really do love it, so it’s important to me that this lag issue is reduced to a minimum.
We are working on that to optimize the flow. Anything is always available through our API when it is supposed to be visible to partners, but Roon adds a lot by processing the metadata. We are looking at strategies to make this as real time available as possible.
@palbratelund, the iPhone app isn’t gapless. Well, actually there’s no gap because it tends to mash the end of one track into the beginning of the next. Most obvious example would be Frank Zappa’s Sheikh Yerbouti.