Itune reading HDX files

Um, I am not sure about the metadata reads you could be wishing there.

And of course the music on the hdx will have to be put on a store as itunes will not be able to read the hdx directly.

The easiest thing to do would be to point itunes at the HDX store and see what it comes up with. I think you will be disappointed.

you have got to the same dead end that i have. I was about to start ripping several thousand CDs into this NS01, but have stopped because I cannot get the rips out in a sensible format for me to be able to load them into itunes (or whatever) and thus into ipod (or whatever)

Its nice that Naim has its own proprietary rip format, but going down that road places the onus on naim to provide a route out for the ripped music.

So im sorry, but you are not the first to notice this. And with a truck load of UnitiServes about to go out, you wont be the last, either.

actually having just tried ripping into itunes in uncompressed WAV format, I think I will probably use my spare MacMiniServer with a couple of attached cd drives and a firewire800 drivepack, and use that as the rip center.

by the way, I dont trust the Errors counter on the naim ripping. It always seems to say 0 even when there are audible glitches on the rip (wav file and screen grabs on file). I think it is not telling the truth.

I know no one wants to hear this but..... I would rip with EAC even if I owned a Qute, Serve or HDX.

And it would not detract in the least from me wanting those boxes. The ripping is a nice add-on for those slightly less discriminating than I. But I dont think it is a necessary feature to get hung up on.

So as far as you are aware there are no commercial rip converter programs that can read a Naim rip.

Thanks for all these replies. Hope one day Naim will think to add an "export" feature in their material.....

quote:

Its nice that Naim has its own proprietary rip format

Show me a standard.

As iTunes (even though it uses Gracenote for CD identification) does not import "standard" cddbinfo.txt files (which would easily be parsed for basic disc track information), upon whose shoulders does the burden lie?

Uncompressed WAV is pretty basic stuff-no issues there.

One way to try would be to use a batch file converter like Dbpoweramp and convert HDX music folders in an Itune friendly format.
I have already been able to embbed HDX metadata (basic: artist, album name, track name and timing) into a MP3 file, compatible with Window Media Player. It should be possible to do that for I-tune.
And yes, many are ready to pay (0.99$ ) for an app to transfer an HDX playlist into i-tune for synching with our I-pod/phone.

quote:

Originally posted by jon honeyball:
...
Its nice that Naim has its own proprietary rip format,
....

Jon
AFAIK it is just plain WAV, you won't get it more simple and more standard than that.

The only thing is it doesn't carry any tagging. Naim stores the meta-data in its own database and stores some files with the acually downloaded meta-data, but that's not part of a rip-format.

In another thread I told you of some ways to get tags into the files. I would suggest for iTunes/iPod use you convert the HDX WAV into a iPod friendly format and add the basic tags from the file name / directory structure using the conversion tool. And than take it from there to make it more iPod friendly.

But I find it hard work to get iTunes/iPod to work well on anything else but tracks from their own store. But that's probably part of Apple's strategy.

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aleg

Wait for the howls of pain from the new users when they realize it won't Just Work.

And how many of the dealers are equipped to handle this sort of tech support?

quote:

Originally posted by jon honeyball:
Wait for the howls of pain from the new users when they realize it won't Just Work.

And how many of the dealers are equipped to handle this sort of tech support?

Jon

You are suggesting that (a lot of) people are expecting to be able to take the rips from the HDX/UnitiServe and move them to their iPods?

How would they come by that idea?

Naim does not mention this as of of its product features. It is presented as a ripping device with local playback and UPnP-streaming features.

Why would anyone expect, by default, to be able to move things around to other devices and to be supported by a Naim tool to do so?

It is usually the territory of the somewhat more computer savvy people to stretch the possibilities of some device.

I think all manufacturers of ripping devices are still walking some thin edge with respect to copyright issues and they probably don't want to make it all too easy to spread 'their' rips all around.

If a computer with iTunes or an iPod can act as a UPnP renderer, than you can play directly from the HDX/UnitiServe using its UPnP-streaming features.

To be able to take it with you out of the house, you will have to do something extra. This can be quite easliy solved but needn't be supported by Naim.

All IMHO of course .

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aleg

OK - I just did a quick search and test...

Converted Naim ripped album to MP3 using DBpoweramp and then used a TAG programe called TAGSCANNER

Took a bit of time to figure it out becuase I generally do not read the help file but I soon had "Maria Ana Bobone - Senhora de Lapa" all tagged up...

quote:

Originally posted by Aleg:

Jon

You are suggesting that (a lot of) people are expecting to be able to take the rips from the HDX/UnitiServe and move them to their iPods?

How would they come by that idea?

By engaging their brain, and realising that ripping all their CD's again is going to be both very boring and tiresome? And spotting the Naim device on their local lan, with a share called "music"?

quote:

Why would anyone expect, by default, to be able to move things around to other devices and to be supported by a Naim tool to do so?

Because an NS01/HDX/Unitiserve broadcasts this ability onto their home network?

quote:

I think all manufacturers of ripping devices are still walking some thin edge with respect to copyright issues and they probably don't want to make it all too easy to spread 'their' rips all around.

Depends entirely on the legal jurisdiction. Its perfectly legal to rip your CDs in Germany, for example.

quote:

To be able to take it with you out of the house, you will have to do something extra. This can be quite easliy solved but needn't be supported by Naim.

There we disagree. If Naim wants customers to buy Naim server products into which they rip their CDs, they have to accept the market reality that they have to play in a wider space. Expecting customers/dealers to jump through hoops is not going to leave pleasant taste in the mouth. Having locked in music stores might be ok for an NSxx customer, who expects everything to be done for them -- it is a custom install service, after all. This doesnt apply to HDX customers, and especially Unitiserve customers, who are in a different market sector. Especially when you are ripping to a network store, which might be local disc space on the computer in your home office/den etc.

At the very least, there should be an FAQ of tested solutions. Better still is an app which takes the wav file and wraps it with metadata. Just like iTunes does when it rips to Wav. This should be a fairly trivial matter.

quote:

Originally posted by PureHifi:
OK - I just did a quick search and test...

Converted Naim ripped album to MP3 using DBpoweramp and then used a TAG programe called TAGSCANNER

Took a bit of time to figure it out becuase I generally do not read the help file but I soon had "Maria Ana Bobone - Senhora de Lapa" all tagged up...

IMO that's the way to do it.
You can have dBPoweramp add tags based on filenames and directory structure, so that would add artist, album and song title. With those basic tags you can use a program like Tagscanner or one of many like it and have it add the remaining tags. Those files can easily be imported into iTunes with all required tags present.

Takes a bit of time but not really difficult.

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aleg

I have all my CDs ripped onto a NAS in WAV format,so not quite the same but they are in a giant folder called 'MUSIC so similar. I guess I am old fashioned perhaps but I ripped into labelled sub-folders such as 'Jazz piano', 'Rock', 'R&B' etc which then makes the conversion task more orderly. dBPoweramp batch converter helps cut down the task as well. You can tell it to do an entire folder at a time.

I guess this doesn't happen on an HDX where it is all lumped into one folder..right?

I must admit I wanted a nicely sorted set of albums in itunes so I convert one Cd's worth at a time ( about 2 - 3 minutes in dBPoweramp) to MP3 then added the resulting folder into itunes. The tags necessary to generate for example Genius playlists and the album art all came across easily so you can have the basic tags you need without having to use a TAG program. i-tunes seems to be able also to find missing album art work in these MP3 conversions and add that at a click of mr mouse.

Of course I am not converting everything, just selected albums I fancy for on the road listening.

Geoff

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff P:
...
I guess this doesn't happen on an HDX where it is all lumped into one folder..right?

AFAIK on the HDX/UnitiServe the albums are stored like
/Artist/Album/<song 1 - n>

The genre you use to create subfolders, is added as part of the meta-data of each album/song and is added while ripping or can be added/maintained later.

quote:

The tags necessary to generate for example Genius playlists and the album art all came across easily so you can have the basic tags you need without having to use a TAG program
...
Geoff

If you used the dBPoweramp CD-Ripper to create the WAV-files on your NAS, than the dBPoweramp CD-Ripper has added the tags to the WAV-files (as I believe it does by default). That way when you converted them again to MP3 for your iTunes, it just took along the tags it had previously added to the WAV-files.

That's why I like dBpoweramp, because it can add tags to WAV-files (though not everybody agrees it should).

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aleg

dBpoweramp + Tagscanner seem to be a good option. I will try that !
For those who are sceptic about the interest of doing such a transfer into itune, I let them try to rip 1300 CD into an HDX and then do it again in ther laptop just to be able to bring some music on the road. Sure they will change their mind after that... long...experience

In all cases,I agree with Manu, I'm ready to pay (till 1.99$ ) an application to transfer an HDX playlist into i-tune

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff P:
So as far as you are aware there are no commercial rip converter programs that can read a Naim rip.

The HDX / UnitiServe and NS0x *ALL* rip as a 44kHz/16bit WAV file and iTunes can read them - unfortunately iTunes just isn't intelligent enough to work out that if you point it at a folder structure then it is seeing a load of different albums and instead imports them as a single album with 10,000 track 1's, 10,000 track 2's, 9,999 track 3's, 9,998 track 4's etc.

We're not using a closed or proprietary format at all - WAV has to be one of the most widespread and open formats there is!

Unfortunately iTunes suffers from that lovely Apple characteristic of "If it wasn't sourced on here then I'm not going to help you..."

Phil

I was referring to the sql server store :-)

quote:

Originally posted by jon honeyball:
I was referring to the sql server store :-)

Hi Jon,

Yes, I know what you were referring to but I was just making it clear (as the statement/question had become "So as far as you are aware there are no commercial rip converter programs that can read a Naim rip.") that the rips are readable (and on a 1.5a HDX / NS0z / UnitiServe they can be read directly from the units open but read-only network share) as plain WAVs and not some strange nailed down and closed format.

The extended metadata is something that we handle via our own databases of course.

Phil

quote:

Originally posted by pat74:
Thanks for all these replies. Hope one day Naim will think to add an "export" feature in their material.....

We did discuss this internally some time ago however we were advised at the time that it was not advisable due to possible copyright issues and so the ability to *EXPORT* to a different format has been left out.

We are however aware that people may wish to use their music collections in iTunes and of course this is something that we are trying to find a solution to that fits within how our music servers work but doesn't leave our company lawyers trembling in a corner - they're not as brave as some!

Phil

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Harris:
We did discuss this internally some time ago however we were advised at the time that it was not advisable due to possible copyright issues and so the ability to *EXPORT* to a different format has been left out.
...
Phil

Phil

Thanks for the clarification.

I already thought it might be an issue for Naim.

But for those who realy do want it, there is always a manual/semi-automatic way to get it. And that's fine with me

-
aleg

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Harris:
We did discuss this internally some time ago however we were advised at the time that it was not advisable due to possible copyright issues and so the ability to *EXPORT* to a different format has been left out.

Interestingly the Sooloos system allows for export to a portable device - but only in MP3 format not full quality FLAC.

As Aleg said, it does sound the right way round: don't prevent the export (if you know what you're doing) but don't encourage it to get the lawyers all hot and bothered. Of course you'd have to be trying to comply with the copyright laws in all the countries you sold in which would be a nightmare.

iTunes uses a track-based paradigm (which serves the iTunes Music Store very well) rather than a physical media-based one (as do most media server manufacturers). Each track is listed and tagged within the iTunes Media Library.xml file and is referenced to a pointer ID for the folderized media files.

The database file then generates the metadata relationships between individual files for presentation to the user, independently of iTunes Library folder structure.

The media tags (from Gracenote) lend themselves to track-based file tagging (single-valued, agglutinate-termed, "flat"), and are therefore easily embedded as ID3 tags. Contrast this with the multiple-valued, fully relational tags that AMG Lasso provides (licensed by a wide variety of manufacturers), for a fee.

As an aside, it is easy to see how the aims of the enthusiast get trapped between the ideal copy provided by an archiving, closed media server (with relational metadata provided by a company formerly owned by copy-protection overlords Macrovision) and a more open, unitary approach with limited sophistication as regards user presentation.

Also worth pointing out - iTunes is computer-centric, tying management of the library to a single volume rather than an aggregation of storage locations (which would be difficult to manage digital rights for).

quote:

Originally posted by David Dever:
iTunes uses a track-based paradigm (which serves the iTunes Music Store very well) rather than a physical media-based one (as do most media server manufacturers). Each track is listed and tagged within the iTunes Media Library.xml file and is referenced to a pointer ID for the folderized media files.

The database file then generates the metadata relationships between individual files for presentation to the user, independently of iTunes Library folder structure.

The media tags (from Gracenote) lend themselves to track-based file tagging (single-valued, agglutinate-termed, "flat"), and are therefore easily embedded as ID3 tags. Contrast this with the multiple-valued, fully relational tags that AMG Lasso provides (licensed by a wide variety of manufacturers), for a fee.

As you've commented about tags, etc. can I ask a quick question...

How does the HDX handle albums where there is a collaboration between two artists? For example the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss "Raising Sand" album. Would it be listed if I searched for Robert Plant, or if I searched for Alison Krauss, or does the HDX consider it a completely separate artist? Finally if you were searching Led Zeppelin is there any link to Robert Plant like with the Sooloos?

Secondly, can you control how artists are sorted. I prefer to sort by the artists surname - is this possible?

Eloise