Uniti Core Feature/Organizational Suggestion (Folder View for Downloads)
Posted by: DUPREE on 05 June 2017
As many who are post-CD most of my digital music are tons downloads as well as RIPs of some LP's. Some of these are high-res files, some are high-res rips from LP or other source and some are just the thousands of tracks downloaded from iTunes over the years. It would really be nice if there were a way to create subfolders or even just have a folder view like Minim, Asset or Synology. That way things could be broken down. For instance I have a folder of Jazz LP's, a Folder of Rock LP's that were all carefully ripped at 192. I have a high-res folder that has various FLAC, WAV and DSD downloads and so forth that are very very difficult to separate or organize in the current Core paradigm. Even something as simple as a folder view for the contents of Downloads wouid suffice, although there maybe more elegant solutions. I would think most people with large collections (and I would assume that most people would would invest in a NAIM system would have a large music collection and a vociferious appetite for music) need better ways to subgroup items.
Of course, every decent UPnP server should support a folder view. Folders and indexes, however, are rather orthogonal notions. If one could satisfactorily organize a collection of items using just folders, there would be no need for metadata.
The truth is that folders are quite inadequate when it comes to searching and browsing a collection of items according to different criteria. Hence indexes and metadata. It goes without saying that searching and browsing critera are very subjective. Thus, a good UPnP server should support user-specific indexes.
I have not systematically tested UPnP servers but I have found that MinimServer fits my needs very well. It is very flexible, fast and easy to setup and use. It has excellent support for classical music and supports user-specific indexes.
Naim's UPnP server is very primitive and, for classical music collectors, very much worthless. My suggestion would be that Naim simply allows users to install and run MinimServer on the Core. They do not need to support it, just make sure that customers can use it if they wish to do so.
I agree with NBPF above that the "folder view" ultimately is the least robust method of cataloging and indexing one's music. Indeed, metadata tagging was developed for a reason . . .
You can use metadata to sort by all of those variables -- genre, resolution, etc. And if you have 2 identical albums that differ only by resolution, include that in the title. I put "24-192" in the title for example. Or if it's the Mobile Fidelity Sounds Labs version of a cd, I just include "MFSL" in the label, as well as the MFSL artwork.
Metadata CAN set you free, with the proviso that servers such as Asset and Minimserver are much more flexible than my old UnitiServe was. I'm not familiar with the Core but it sounds like it's not so flexible.
Perhaps its flexibility was modelled on NacA5.
Yeah, I tried the Genres route but it seems the Core does not want to look at that field in my downloads, which is quite disappointing.
Hungryhalibut posted:Perhaps its flexibility was modelled on NacA5.
Right, in 1989 being stiff and stubborn was rather cool! Alas, we are now in 2017. Thus, Naim, please improve the Core's UPnP server and SPDIF player by adding
- folder view
- proper treatment of "Artist", "Composer", "Work", "Conductor/Director", "Period", "Genre", etc. metadata
- support for user-specific indexes
- support for internet radio and internet streaming services (SPDIF player)
It would also be nice to have some detailed technical documentation of the Core's server and player. For an example of how the documentation of a UPnP player could look like, please consider http://minimserver.com/userguide.html. For an example of how the documentation of a renderer could look like, please consider https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/docs.html.
Support for internet radio and internet streaming services will not happen I'm afraid ...
nbpf posted:
It would also be nice to have some detailed technical documentation of the Core's server and player.
I'm not sure how much more detail people require, but I'd say that the existing documentation needs sorting out. The info in the Support section of the Core webpage is, to my mind, a bit painful to navigate on a computer, and more or less completely unusable on iOS devices. Given the move towards iOS only control of the Core, I would have thought a manual that works on iOS would have been a priority. A PDF version would be so much easier.
Klout10 posted:Support for internet radio and internet streaming services will not happen I'm afraid ...
No matter what they'll do or fail to do, there is no reason for us being indulgent. It is important that those in charge at Naim understand how awkward the Core's software design is and how limited is its the set of functionalites.
Awareness might not be enough to bring us a better product in the short time. But it could help avoiding awkward marketing campaigns and embarassing announcements and giving Core owners a perspective.
I think that a Raspberry Pi 3 running MinimServer and upmpdcli with an Hifiberry DIGI+ Pro hat and BNC SPDIF connector is a fairly good example of what a modern UPnP server and SPDIF player can bring to the table in terms of functionalities. It also seems to sound pretty good ...
I would expect that a $2600 server would at least have feature parity for a free piece of java software like Minim. That is a start. I am not a griper, Conceptually and sonically I like the Core, but in terms of music organization and functionality some of it is half baked.
Klout10 posted:Support for internet radio and internet streaming services will not happen I'm afraid ...
I don't think this is going to happen either. This is something I understand a bit too. This is a server, if you are streaming to any NAIM player UpNP the player itself has internet radio - NDX, 272, Muso, etc. It would just duplicate functionality that exists elsewhere in the chain.
DUPREE posted:Klout10 posted:Support for internet radio and internet streaming services will not happen I'm afraid ...
I don't think this is going to happen either. This is something I understand a bit too. This is a server...
This is actually not correct . The Core is a UPnP server and a SPDIF player. Support for internet radio and internet streaming services in the SPDIF player is important for those users that deploy the Core as a SPDIF player, typically connected to a SPDIF DAC.
DUPREE posted:Klout10 posted:Support for internet radio and internet streaming services will not happen I'm afraid ...
... if you are streaming to any NAIM player UpNP the player itself has internet radio - NDX, 272, Muso, etc. It would just duplicate functionality that exists elsewhere in the chain.
This is also not correct: implementing support for internet radio and internet streaming in the Core's SPDIF player as specified in my original post:
- support for internet radio and internet streaming services (SPDIF player)
would actually not duplicate any functionality.
It may be that Core simply isn't what you're looking for ... ?
DUPREE posted:I would expect that a $2600 server would at least have feature parity for a free piece of java software like Minim. That is a start. I am not a griper, Conceptually and sonically I like the Core, but in terms of music organization and functionality some of it is half baked.
Expecting the UPnP server of the Core to offer the same functionalities of MinimServer would be, at this point, a little bit too much, I believe.
MinimServer is a very flexible UPnP server with exceptional customizability. It is a well established product that been developed and improved for quite some time. The developer is dedicated, has a vision and has managed to strike a difficult compromise between reacting to feature requests from users and ensuring reliability, consistency and efficiency.
The Core's UPnP server, on the other hand, is probably Naim's first attempt at implementing a UPnP server on the new computing platform. Perhaps it is Naim's first attempt at implementing a UPnP server tout court, I do not know. From this perspective, initial difficulties and limitations are probably unavoidable.
Thus, we should be both patient and critical. More importantly, we should make sure that those in charge at Naim understand where owners and perspective owners expect the journey to go. If they cannot offer a credible roadmap for improving Naim's proprietary UPnP servers and SPDIF players to meet the most elementary specifications (among others, suitability for classical music), they should at least allow users to deploy available and established third-party solutions.
Klout10 posted:It may be that Core simply isn't what you're looking for ... ?
As a single box SPDIF player, the Core is definitely a device I have been looking for. The lack of support for classical music collections, however, is a dealbreaker. The lack of support for internet radio, Qobuz, Tidal, etc. is also not particularly inspiring. So are the plans that Naim seem to have (or not to have) for the Core. Thus, as it is now, the Core certainly is not what I am looking for!
Klout10 posted:It may be that Core simply isn't what you're looking for ... ?
I think that is kind of a poor answer. If my use case which is someone who owns a full NAIM system and satelite Naim MuSo's looking for an all in one music server and S/PDIF player for them is not the target audience who are they going to sell it to? I also was saying that Minim is a good frame of reference of a great UPnP server, I actually don't expect, need or want all that functionality - I simply want a way to group types of recordings together by either something as simple as a folder view that would allow me to nest things or by honoring the Genre or Grouping tag and allowing me to subgroup albums. You could theoretically have nearly 30TB of media attached, this is untenable with now way to subgroup. I have ~5600 Albums/74,000 tracks on my Core equaling ~6.5TB and it is unmanageble already. I like the product and want them to come up with a solution that is not wonky and I would think NAIM want's the product to be viable for people who already have a large investment in NAIM electronics.