Album art issues - Superuniti

Posted by: deanyoungson on 09 January 2012

Hi all,
 
I am a newbie on this forum and I am in fact a newbie to Naim.
I recently purchased (Saturday to be exact) a Naim SuperUniti and have paired it up to my B&W PM1's and I am streaming via a Western Digital My Book Live.
 
However I am having a wee problem with the artwork.  Some artwork is present and some is missing, the artwork which is present appears to very pixilated.
My music is being transferred from an Apple MacBook Pro and is stored in iTunes (apple lossless).  All artwork appears perfectly in iTunes and it did also on my previous Sonos system…
 
Any ideas or ways to fix would be much appreciated.
 
Dean
Posted on: 09 January 2012 by badlyread
I don't let my Mac Mini (iTunes) get the art for me, I prefer to do it myself due to such issues. To sort out the problem: select the tracks of the album with the faulty artwork (click on the first track, press shift and then click on the last track - this will highlight them all). From the iTunes menu File>Get Info. Tick the box next to the artwork box and then OK. Artwork is now deselected. Find the album in Amazon/Google. Click on it to make it larger. Select the tracks of the album again. Drag the album cover to the box in the bottom left corner of the iTunes window (may need to toggle the 4th button from the left in that corner for the 'Selected Item' window to come up). DONE. This is fairly tedious so only do it when you come across art where there is a problem. May be other methods available. Stop iTunes getting the album art for you though. Regards Neil Formatting not working!! Enjoy the SU!
Posted on: 09 January 2012 by james n

iTunes stores its artwork seperately from the music files. I'm not sure what server the WD Livebook is running but you may want to try embedding the artwork into the file and also creating a folder.jpg of the album artwork inside the music folder for each album. There are a number of scripts - See the following thread which has some links which should help

 

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...nt/10858529755570951

 

As an interim measure, you could try serving straight from your Macbook - you can download trial versions of Majestic or Playback UPnP servers.

 

James

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by deanyoungson

Hi both,

 

Thank you for the feedback.

I do obtain the artwork myself using the same method as advised by Neil.

However the SU seems to still be having problems displaying the album art work using n-stream.

 

The WD uses a twonky sever I think?

 

Also albums that have more than one CD do not play in the correct order, they seem to play the tracks in order of each CD, for example CD 1 track 1, CD 2 track 1, CD 1 track 2, CD 2 track 2 and so on.


Other than this the SU is working perfectly and sounds sublime I'm super chuffed! just need to get these to problems sorted as they are annoying me.

 

Thanks.

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by Phil Harris

I believe that Twonky on the WD NASs also uses a maximum cover art resolution of 150 x 150 pixels too...

 

Generally UPnP servers on NASs are pretty limited, reduced functionality variats of the "full fat" PC counterparts as they're running on much less capable hardware.

 

I could suggest that this is why we produce the UnitiServe / HDX / NS0x ...

 

Cheers

 

Phil

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by james n

Run the scripts and then let Twonky see the library - that should solve the missing atwork issue. I've never found Twonky to work well with iTunes generated libraries with regards to how it indexes the library and junked it a long time ago.

 

James

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by deanyoungson

Hi James,

 

How do I run the scripts - stupid question I know but this whole this is a whole new ball game to me...

 

I never had to do any of this with the sonos...

 

Dean.

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by james n

Hi Dean - 

 

Go here

 

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/...s/ss.php?sp=embedart

 

See right hand side of page for instructions on how to install. When you install the script it will appear on the itunes top menu bar between Window and Help (it looks like a little script logo). Select the tracks and click on  'embed artwork' 

 

James

 

 

 

 

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by Tog
Get or build yourself a Vortexbox and use Bliss to manage your artwork - am currently about to audition PM1s how do you find them? Tog
Posted on: 09 January 2012 by deanyoungson

Hi all,

 

James, thanks I tried youre process to embed the artwork some worked some did not?

Also on further inspection there are several albums that are not in sequence order of the CD/iTunes versions?  Also I have noticed one album has the first five tracks duplicated creating a 32 track album when it should only be 27, also each of the 5 duplicates does not play?

 

I so confused...

 

I have read a few reviews and it appears the WD My Book Live - twonky server is not the best NAS for the job.  This is annoying as I bought this on the reccomendation of the deler who sold me the SU!?!

 

Can anybody recommend a NAS with UPNP inc. which I can plug in transfer my music library and just works first time - or is the whole world of streaming really this problematic?

 

Dean

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by james n
How did you store your music when you used the Sonos system ?
Posted on: 09 January 2012 by deanyoungson

I used a Buffalo Linkstation NAS.

 

Simply copied over my iTunes folder to the NAS and streamed to the Sonos no problem - track playback listing, album artwork etc.

 

I dropped the Buffalo whilst moving house earlier this so purchased the WD NAS (as recommended by the Naim dealer).

 

Can anybody recommend a NAS that will work with iTubes and the SU effortlessly?

 

Dean

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by james n
Ah ok - the Sonos will just read your iTunes library file with no problems. Twonky on the other hand won't as you have found. I use iTunes but use a headless mac mini to do the serving and just use the NAS for storage. Flexible for what I need to do for managing a number of iPhones and iPods, easy library management with iTunes and it serves my Naim streamer without issues.

In the meantime whilst you sort out your ideal solution, it's very easy to set your MacBook up as a UPnP streamer using your existing iTunes library to get you playing music again. Just google Majestic media server and download the trial version.

James
Posted on: 09 January 2012 by deanyoungson

Hi James - thank you for the help, you've been a godsend.

Im going to download the software to use the MacBook for the time being...

 

Will drop the guys at Naim a call tomorrow to see what they suggest as far as NAS's are concerned.

 

Once again thank you for your help!

 

Dean.

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by james n
Good luck Dean. It can be a bit of a pain deciding on the optimum solution ( though you are halfway there already ) but worth it in the end. If you have artwork problems then follow the link in my 3rd post and this will sort you out, I had exactly the same issues (without the NAS issues) when first finding a solution to use iTunes with my NDX.

James
Posted on: 09 January 2012 by deanyoungson

James,

 

Downloaded playback, did what you advised concerning album art and hey presto all working fine!!

All artwork present and seems to be being displayed at a higher resolution and all albums playing in the correct order.

 

I have disconnected the NAS for now and will use my MacBook/Playback to stream.

 

There is still one album that will not play but that particular album has caused problems streaming via the NAS, majestic and playback, works fine when no artwork attached then is unable to be read as soon as I embed artwork?  Will put this to the guys at Naim tomorrow.

 

I am now on the hunt for a NAS device to work as good as the MacBook/Playback setup...

 

Once again thank you.

Posted on: 09 January 2012 by deanyoungson
Originally Posted by Tog:
Get or build yourself a Vortexbox and use Bliss to manage your artwork - am currently about to audition PM1s how do you find them? Tog

Sorry Tog, only just seen this - to put it frankly the PM1's are superb.

I upgraded from the B&W 602 S3, so a pretty big jump, but also auditioned various others inc. Spendor, Totem, PMC and Neat the PM1's for me were simply a cut above...