Smart Downloads questions

[TreeZorro]

Thumbs up to the new Smart Downloads feature in ARC. It seems really useful.
I have a couple of questions about it.

How are the albums selected? I guess it’s a complicated mix of a lot of different variables. But does the heart (loved album) function play any role in it?

Will the Smart Downloads albums change by it selv over time. Eg will it delete some albums (on the phone) and download others without user interaction?

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Some info here:

ARC Build 223 Feedback

It is designed to rotate content. The interval of rotation depends on how much “valuable” content you don’t have already on your phone. Things like listening to stuff, favoriting stuff, adding stuff all impact an item’s ranking. The idea is that SDL are an ever rotating chef’s menu of your own music you’re likely to enjoy. If you really enjoy it, “saving” an item ensures it won’t get scooped up and deleted in the next rotation. Hope this helps clarify! Thanks for testing

[TreeZorro]

Thank you @Suedkiez
Very helpful as always👍

[dwhome9915 (Danny Yang)]

Hey guys, a somewhat basic question here regarding smart downloads in ARC - I have the options for SDL set to CD quality and the downloads are fine, however, for any tracks that were downloaded at this quality setting, I am only able to play it back at said quality, even when full WiFi is available, playback will always be the downloaded file and not the original.

For example, I have tracks that are DSD format and SDL correctly converted them to 16/44 CD quality FLAC files to download. However, now I am only able to play these songs at the downloaded quality, and no longer the original DSD files, unless I delete the downloaded files first…

Is there a way around this? Would be great to have the smaller files for offline listen only, and still play their original formats when streaming / data is not an issue.

[Chikolad (Lior)]

Really? That’s almost a deal breaker

[ged_hickman1]

I would imagine it’s part of the “to come” feature set.

[dwhome9915 (Danny Yang)]

Yeah, sure hope so! At the moment I’m simply downloading the files at their full quality, thankfully nowadays phone storage is more than enough to spare 10-15GB, good for 10+ hours of music even at higher bit rates.

Btw, are we able to download individual tracks in Roon ARC? (Not smart downloads, just the regular downloading function). I’ve only been able to see the download option as part of the dropdown menu of albums, not of individual tracks - if I’m missing something here can someone kindly point me in the right direction as to how to download individual tracks? Much appreciated!

[ged_hickman1]

I don’t think you can download tracks. A workaround would be to add them to a playlist.

[Dale_Brittain]

As far as I can tell my smart downloads have not updated in the last two weeks. I was under the impression that stuff would be added and removed over time as my listening habits dictated. I have them sorted in reverse date-added order and the last thing download has been the same for at least a couple weeks.

[Johnny_Ooooops (Listener in Chief)]

Yes, I too find that my SDLs are fairly static (meaing that as @Dale_Brittain says I think that I haven’t seen anything new in a couple weeks). Feels like given that I have 15GB of content, there should be a fresh album or 2 every day, but maybe that’s just me and I’m a segment of 1.

[TreeZorro]

My Smart Downloads haven’t updated either since I first created dem. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t use ARC that often.

[Joseph_Johnson]

I agree - Smart Downloads is not updating and tend to play the same group of albums. In fact, as a test - I also installed ARC on my ipad (in addition to iphone) and found that when I enable Smart Download - it chooses that same group of albums that was on my phone.

[Dale_Brittain]

I’ve started deleting them monthly and loading a new set.

[Chikolad (Lior)]

Another question, let’s see if anyone knows. When I first tried smart downloads I chose a few gigs of storage and the balanced format (I already had a big lossless library on my phone for UAPP).
Now I moved all of my operation into ARC, so I gave it much more storage and switched to CD quality.
How do I go about upgrading the already downloaded albums from the lossy format to CD quality?

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Chikolad

How do I go about upgrading the already downloaded albums from the lossy format to CD quality?

Like this:

@vova

Download Quality Settings

Need to save space? Now, you can select from various quality settings when you download. Choose from four options from unadulterated original format to space-saving bandwidth-optimized (OPUS). All options are the same as the streaming quality options.

Replace already downloaded music by changing your download quality setting and selecting “replace at [new quality]” via the download context menu.

[Chikolad (Lior)]

Thanks, maybe I wasn’t very clear.
I already did this, and currently new music is being downloaded in CD format.
The original albums that were downloaded in Opus still exist in that format, and I wish for them to get “upgraded” to the new format.
I don’t want to remove them manually, since I’m guessing Roon would not download them again automatically. Is there a way other than remove and add manually?

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

My understanding was that

@vova

selecting “replace at [new quality]” via the download context menu.

would do exactly what you want, but now I tried and can’t even find a „replace at…“ option anywhere. (I am on EA versions). Not sure if this is working as intended.

[Chikolad (Lior)]

Yeah I didn’t find any such option either