UniLite UPuP Album tracks played not in numeric order

If I were you, I'd get a decent NAS that does not use Twonky, which is basically a pile of poo. 

Yes, in Twonky select 'Folder View', forget Asset as that is a server program that runs on the PC, and you don't want the PC running when playing. When I rip CDs I use dBPowerAmp and it creates numerically ordered 'track' names by giving the file string numbers before the actual track name. Simply rename the files with 01, 02, 03... 12, 13 and everything will play in the right order!

05 Beethoven - I. Allegro Vivace E Con Brio

06 Beethoven - II. Allegretto Scherzando

07 Beethoven - III. Tempo Di Menuetto

08 Beethoven - IV. Allegro Vivace

Above is my tracklisting for Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, as you can see the numbers don't have to start at 01, they just have to be 'in order' 01, 10 100, 1000 would work as well. This facility is sometimes useful to know when box sets split recordings, or worse, have the tracks running out of order so as to 'fit'.

Yes and no! It's quite rudimentary but has got a lot of bad press for two reasons:

1) the UPnP 'discovery' issue that Naim have now fixed

2) frustrating metatags that basically don't have any discernible affect!

If you can tolerate basic functionality, like just playing a ripped CD, it's fine. Expect Rovi integration? In my dreams! Seek-to-time and multiroom is no problem.

PS: I still want a UnitiServe though! Nothing I've seen has put me off, I just wonder how easy it is to repair botched running orders after ripping with it?

Hi hafler etc. Thanks for your comments. I just want to get what I have installed working and if it takes a little bit of effort on my part each time a copy a CD I am happy with this.

No doubt WD used Twonky but I have no idea how to access it on my drive, any suggestions. When I rip and copy albums to the WD drive they appear there in numeric order with track numbers before each track much as you have illustrated, but it is played by the UniLite in alphabetical order!

I am happy to try dBPowerAmp to see the effect. Am I right to understand based on your experience that dBPowerAmp tags album tracks so the UniLite sees and plays the tracks in numerical order. Where as the tagging in Media Player looks OK but the UniLite plays in alphabetical order.

Just for clarity, I am ripping to my Laptop hard drive and then copying and pasting to the WD. Any problems with this 2 step process?

Just to confound everything I have one album Bach Violin Concertos which plays in numeric order! I have no idea how I achieved this though!

Cheers  

Hi yes Dbpoweramp uses a tag for track number that many upnp servers use to sequence the tracks. It also uses another tag for CD number for multi CD albums so the album sequence can be correctly listed and played.

it shouldn't matter that you rip and save and then copy to another location, albeit it sounds cumbersome. Why don't you rip directly to your share and save time?

Simon

I also had the problem with Twonky playing classical tracks in alphabetical order, rather than proper track order. Everyone thought I was nuts, but I did some research and found that there was indeed an uncorrected bug. The fix involves editing one of Twonky's XML configuration files. I dumped Twonky a long time ago since it proved to be such a "pile of poo."

See these links for info about the Twonky complaint and fix:

http://community.wd.com/t5/My-...de-still/td-p/482774

http://community.twonky.com/tw...rder_my_music_tracks

This solution has worked well for me.  As for Twonky, it has some problems but over all is functional if you don't want to run a computer all the time.  I have considered the Naim server solution but will not switch til next year.

Anthony

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.

With great anticipation I downloaded the dBPowerAmp and ran through the set up as recommended by the vendor. The CD ripper worked just fine and saved the file in FLAC format in my share file as Simon suggested. When I played the album it was unfortunately not in track order! I changed some settings in Metadata settings and repeated the process unfortunately with no change. Can anyone help with the Metadata settings or other dBPowerAmp settings so the album is played in numeric order.

Alternatively, is it possible that the WD Mybookliveduo cannot be forced to serve album tracks in numeric order?

Thanks, John

Can you check that besides the filename itself, each track has tracknumber in its metadata ?

If you are using the PC, I highly recommend using MediaMonkey as a software to view/manage/edit these. 

Hi All. Engjoo I believe the disc Metadata is shown in correct track order. Nothing seems to be having an effect so the final step is to look at the WD drive code.

Given that "Twonky" appears to be used by WD I have looked more closely at Race Tripper and simglass suggestions and the WD thread (thanks) and I now believe that the code "Twonky" in the WD Mybookliveduo will have to be modified as suggested so tracks are played in numeric order. I will give this a go and come back in a few days time.

In the meantime for those who have changed the code I get the impression that it was a short time fix and ended up with a new different UPuP drive.  Why was this?

Thanks again. John

Hi All,

All resolved thanks. The WD Mylivebookduo I found does not have a Twonky file server, so thanks for the link and instructions.

WD have their own DLNA software and guess what a recent firmware update "Resolved issue of music files being sorted by title rather than track number when in album view." Having then completed the update all is resolved. Thanks.

dBPowerAmp is great, thanks again for the suggestion I shall definitely be using it.

The next problem will be to download music files in Australia as many suppliers are blocked from overseas!

All the best.

You won't need to repair any botched running orders. I've ripped over 2000 albums and every one has been perfect.

Sorry, I wasn't clear in what I meant. Some reissues I have on CD positioned the tracks out of their original running order compared to the vinyl and or original CD versions, or dump some unwanted live out-takes in the middle of the running order . Worst offender I've got is a Klaus Schulze double album on 2xCD with music from side 1, 3 and 4 of vinyl on disc1; extra tracks (never on vinyl) then side 2 of vinyl on disc2. With dB I can sort it all out correctly before I transfer the music to the NAS, so when I play it I get the "whole original album" without having to select the second disc or skip anything. The extra material now exists as a separate "Album", as it was a film score. Is this kind of restoration possible with the UnitiServe? Can CDs be stitched together to create the original "Album"?

Glad it's sorted and Twonky will not be appearing on any more WD devices (although the cynic inside me thinks it might 'very similar' software!)

I have had the same problem with the same WD. 

I don't know whether Twonky is a "pile of poo" or not, but I am always highly suspicious of superficial "answers"/ opinion/ prejudices like that which rarely help.

I found an answer which doesn't need much time and works.  I bought a program called Jaikoz ($20). Load this up and then mass copy (you can mass copy the whole column) the column called File Name and mass paste into the Title column and save.  The tracks then show up in n-Stream as 05 Allegro, 06 Adagio etc etc.  You may well be able to perform the same trick in i-Tunes

100Gb takes about 2-3 minutes for me to make the changes and Jaikoz to process  them so this may well be quicker than replacing your software with something else, or moving to a more complex or pop music based system.

The WD does take some time to process all the changes.  I did mine last thing at night and let it cook overnight.  By the following morning all was well

Yu might also want to rename some files as they are often too long to be seen in the little iphone screen on n-stream.  A bulk renamer utility will do that, but it can be a bit tedious

Blech! This is a complete kludge. It alters the titles. It doesn't fix anything. I recommend against using this approach (i.e. fixing broken software by breaking your metadata to match). My Handel opera doesn't start with "01 Overture." It starts with "Overture" and so on

Twonky is just plain broken, and there is a procedure to fix it (I provided links to the relevant info above). I recommend fixing Twonky if using that, or using something that works correctly. I wouldn't want to alter my entire library to kludge it to work with crappy software.

Suit yourself.

I want a simple solution which works.  It is and it does. It takes little time to set up and is foolproof

I'm not that bothered that a solution which allows me to find and play the pieces I want in the correct order quickly, uses different titles than the ones Beethoven did; so what?

To be more precise, the title to label a piece is often chosen by a record company .  And as anyone who has any size of classical collection knows there are some Lulus there.  I kid you not; I have pieces which have ripped Bach to "Rock", whatever that might be. 

I do not think getting into discussions about "crappy software" (says who?) take us very far forward in getting the OP a working solution. 

I will respectfully disagree. Your solution is a hack that might not suit others. I'm just pointing that out.

I listen to Jazz and Classical. I go to enough trouble to make sure tracks are named correctly (as the artists named them, not the record labels) that I correct them to be accurate and consistent where possible. So it is important to me that a track is not renamed to fix a problem with buggy software. And when that software has the same bug for years and goes uncorrected then it's reasonable to me to call it crappy software.

In fact, when I brought it to Twonky's attention via a support ticket, they stopped responding to me when they realized I had a legitimate complaint and they couldn't help. I had to find the fix elsewhere on my own. So I'll just add crappy customer support to the crappy software.

So while you may not like calling something "crap," I and others in this forum have stated on many occasions that Twonky is broken and suggest using something else -- I consider that a useful answer. You can take that any way you wish, but I'm not going to stop calling Twonky for what it is. It's a stupid bug that should have been fixed a long time ago.

I don't use the USB input of my ND5, and have no advice to offer, so I didn't not respond to that thread.

As I say, suit yourself.  The OP asked for a solution, I gave him one which seemed a more positive approach than just railing on about some piece of software

It's up to the OP to decide what's best for him, not for you or me to decide that for him or her

If you or others find my approach useful good; if they don't, fine too.  But I don't see how an opinion about Twonky ( about which I cannot comment because I don't know enough about it) helps him

Meanwhile, if you could offer me a solution as to how n-Stream ( which I'm not impressed by FWIW) can select individual tracks when reading from the front USB input,  I would be in your debt

And the same to you. 

Hi All. I spoke too soon! I wonder if anyone has some further suggestions please?

The situation is that about 80% of the albums I rip onto my drive using dBPowerAmp and Accur Rip are OK and are displayed and played in track order by the Unilite but the remaining 20% are a problem.

Some of these albums I have been able to rip into distinct files containing 4 tracks each for each work contained on the disc and they are OK. With other albums the procedure has one track out of order which is very frustrating no matter what I do. One disc in particular has the tracks in a almost random manner.

I am saving the Albums on my WD drive in folders and sub folders.

Are the setting I am using in dBPowerAmp ripper not helping? The settings I am using are as follows,

1. Under Profile I am using (default)

2. The Path is straight forward.

3. Naming I am using the Default which is artist etc. I have not ticked any of the 3 boxes should I trick current CD Meta?

4. I have ticked "After Encoding Verify Written Audio

5. Under Options I have left settings unchanged. Under "Meta Data Options" PerfectMeta Options I have not changed and I wonder if these setting might help?

6. DSP is clear.

Any suggestions please.

Thanks JEM

Hi Jem,

I' am from Holland so excuse me for my bad english.

I had the same problem with Unitiqute and WD livebook but i solved the problem. It's realy simpel, open N-stream on you're Iphone or Ipad, choose Upnp. Then click on "back" or the arrow to the left. In this menu you can choose "Artist" "Album" etc etc. Now choose for "Artist/Album" and NOT for "Folder".

You will see that the albums no longer will play in alphabetical order but in numerical order.

Succes, Joep