HDX database rebuild - how long does it take?

Whoops! Sorry, I've no idea, but I just hope it's soon and that you don't end up have to rip that lot again. Let us know will you.

Gary

Call Naim today. More importantly, why the need to re-build your database?

I will try to call Naim but this being the week immediately after the Xmas break, many UK businesses are off air till next Monday and so I would not be surprised if that was also true of Naim.

I was hoping one or more other forum contributors might have been able to answer ....

Why did I do it? My post does start with a recognition that perhaps I should not have done ..... however, as one of you asked, the reason related to the apparent inability via the Desktop Client software to re-classify the genre and other tag attributes of music files which the HDX accesses over the local network in my house. The immediate case related to some FLAC files on a 'shared' USB stick on my laptop upstairs next to the router.

Can anyone shed any light on how to persuade the Desktop Client software to edit the HDX's tag or whatever data for these outboard files that it has found and entered in its database?

I plan for the HDX to access not only its own on-board inventory of ripped WAV files, but also a set of nearly 200 FLAC files on a NAS drive resulting from HDCD-encoded discs which have been properly decoded and converted with dBpoweramp. That NAS drive is due for delivery shortly.

Therefore it's going to be kind of important for me to know how to manage the tags (or whatever) for these outboard HDCD FLAC files in the HDX onboard database.

Adef, you can do alot of file editing in the DTC and genre adding. You can't change genre in the DTC, but it is easy to do in the IPUI. You can however add additional genres or subclassify in the DTC and drag/drop into your "Genre" list and these will be available to classify in the IPUI. You can also re-name artist, album, or re-look up CDs in the AMG Db for which album art was not downloaded. There are a few albums in AMG that do not have artwork and there are some albums for which AMG shows artwork, but the HDX does not download the the artwork. Naim are looking into this.

This works for albums stored on the HDX. currently you cannot edit files on your NAS via the HDX software as when you try to do this the "tags" do not light up to change.

The question is whether you will be able to do this with the software update to allow HDX rips to be stored on the external NAS and whether this will apply only to those albums "ripped" by the HDX to the external NAS or editing of "all" files on the NAS regardless of how they go there download, thumb drive import, ripped via a different program as EAC.

A few points raised here....

Naim is on shut down but our customer support is accessible via Phil Harris.

Telephone: +44 (0) 1722 426661 (Office) | +44 (0) 7876 508935 (Mobile)
Email: phil.harris@naimnet.com

Additionally 07899 896 848 for Alan Ainslie.

The database rebuild would take 30 or 40 mins max. Best advice is to restart the machine which should now run with the newly rebuilt database. Please ring me if there is a problem (07899 896 848).

Secondly, the tags belong to the music, not the database in the HDX, which simply enumerates fom the available shares. So if you wish to retag the shares that should be done using something like mp3tag or similar. And then the new tags will be reflected on the HDX database when the shares are scanned.

Hope this helps.


Alan

Assuming that there are no other network shares for the HDX to enumerate then the database rebuild should take no more than about 30 minutes for 600 CDs.

The first thing to try is to take a video feed from the rear of the unit into an external display (from either the VGA, s-video or composite video connections) and see what the unit is doing (the front panel display in the HDX is completely autonomous to the player). If you see the Naim CD logo on the external display then point the remote at the unit and press a button - if the external display then shows a GUI then your HDX itself is working OK - if it stays on just the Naim CD logo then your HDX hasn't been able to start up properly and there is another problem that needs to be identified (possibly a corrupt database or some other such issue).

If you are getting the HDX GUI on the external display then can you please drop me an email back to my work address (phil.harris@naimnet.com) with the following information which you can get from the Home -> System -> System Status menu:

IP Address
Subnet Mask
Gateway
DNS
Address Mode
FrontPanel IP Address

With reference to your queries about DTC and tagging external files - DTC *DOES NOT* manage the tagging for files on external devices - any tags in FLAC / MP3 / AAC files on external storage should be managed using your favourite tagging tool (I use "The Godfather" myself.)

Thanks

Phil Harris

Here's a minor update about my current position (re the HDX that went u/s over the weekend).

Alan A of Naim now has possession of my HDX and is getting it over to Salisbury for it to be diagnosed. This followed my having turned the HDX off and restarted it, to no avail. I then tried attaching a TFT screen to the VGA output, but this did not result in any useful information other than the Naim logo being displayed. Alan feels that one or more processes seem for some reason not to be initialising properly on HDX startup.

Alan has kindly lent me an NS01 to use (e.g. with a NAS drive) while the HDX is being resuscitated in Salisbury.

I hope that the HDX fault is effectively diagnosed (and cured ...) , and that I will not have to rip my 600 CD's all over again into my HDX. Fingers crossed ....

I am favourably impressed with the responses that I have received, and reassured about my recent purchase.

How long did it take to rip 600 cds?

Since the HDX makes a clone of the data every night, your music should be safe.

I only took delivery of the HDX on December 4 or so and I managed to get the 600 CD's ripped well in time for the Christmas holiday period.

Without being fanatical about it, I was able to manage a few days when I added approx 60 CD's per day.

The only downside that I found was that this rate of data stuffing into the HDX caused it to take several hours over its nightly incremental backup routine, to such a point that I found the HDX was taking 30 mins or more to rip a CD first thing in the morning after such a long day. At first I wondered if the HDX was damaged. I partially solved that problem by using the Desktop Client to reset the start time for the nightly backup from 3.00 a.m. to 2.00 a.m.. It would perhaps have been more sensible to be less ambitious in my rate of CD ripping - but I wanted to show that all the CDs were out of the sitting room before our many guests arrived.

Perhaps Naim could update the user manual to alert users about this side effect which is somewhat distressing when first experienced.

After the 600 or so CD's had been ripped, that led to the other question - how to store them? I have now acquired a set of aluminium flight cases each to store 150 CD jewel cases; next, I'd like to find a sensible way to store the artwork and sleeve notes, because I really would like to have those accessible in the main listening room, even if the jewel cases and CDs are in the basement in the aluminium cases.

Has anybody found a suitable way of archiving the artwork and sleeve notes, such that it can reside on e.g. the shelves of a bookcase? I do not really relish going for 'photo album' type of solution, though - too unwieldy for my taste.

Adef, I had the same issue with the HDX when I got it and it prompted a visit to NANA with Dave Dever. Re-setting the b/u to occur during the night and accounting for 2-3 hours of b/u if a lot of material was ripped that day solved the problem.

Seems as if "communication" aspects of the HDX with the internet are slowed/shut down during a b/u period. Yes, it would have been nice to have been included in the manual and ultimately saved a trip to NANA.

Chris, on average a rip takes between 7-8 minutes depending on the album. The nice thing is that you can listen to other albums on the HDX while your CDs are being ripped.

Adef, found this on a web search. Look like at some point you'll be able to get album art/sleeve notes via an Apple application. The article doesn't say if it will apply to older albums and who knows what they will charge. This would be quite interesting to be able to access the info on a hand held or tablet pc while you listen.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/apple-invents-s.html

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Apple dont have that much at the moment regarding old covers.
IE no Beatles and loads of other stuff.
Munch

That's what the article implied, but it's an interesting concept.

The other thing AdeF can do is look up the album on AMG which gives all of the details of the album from song lists, times, musicians,production people and all of the other CDs produced of that album as well as, a review,cover art, but no sleeve notes or lyrics. Not complete, but not bad overall. This can be accessed via any hand held device, tablet, netbook PC that has wireless access in the listening room.

In fact, even if it may seem a tad sad, AdeF is rather keen on physically holding and looking at the original CD inserts and artwork (rather than having to faff with some more technology ...).

@ AdeF: I have quite a few HDCDs but unfortunately the HDX can not decode HDCD. How did you manage to decode your HDCDs to 20bit WAV or FLAC? Is dBpoweramp able to do the HDCD decoding? Thankx!

The latest level of the 'reference' version of dBpoweramp from Illustrate includes an optional extra feature pack called (I think) 'DSP' effects.

You can invoke those DSP effects to tell it to recognise HDCD-encoded discs and to decode them on the fly: if you also tell it to make a FLAC file of the ripped and decoded material, that should do the trick. Of course the useful feature is that dBpoweramp will also create a set of metadata tags for the FLAC file. This could save you a LOT of work compared with (e.g.) doing this by hand using the HDCD.EXE routine that you should be able to find on the internet.

In my case I am having the HDCD material ripped in bulk for me by a relatively local UK company called Ripcaster. The FLAC files will be loaded by them for me on to a 2 x 1TB AVA RS3 NAS drive that I am buying from them.

As I have not yet received it, I cannot comment on the success of the operation, or on the relative quality of the metadata tags: I expect that it will need to be corrected / expanded by me, using a tag editing tool of some kind.

The real test of course will be whether / how easily the Naim HDX (once I have had it returned ...) 'sees' and indexes the FLAC files on the AVA RS3 NAS drive.

Assuming that the Naim HDX sees and indexes the NAS drive FLAC files OK, then I should be able to free up some space on the HDX (perhaps after some comparative listening) as there will be a certain amount of duplication of the CDs that have been ripped on the HDX and the AVA RS3.

It will be interesting to see if you hear a difference between the ripped files since they are using different software programs etc... when you playbac via the HDX.

I'd do this comparison first as if you find the HDX rips "better" you can move them to your NAS, and delete from the HDX those files and the the duplicate rips from Ripcaster.

Thankx for the answers! I will try it since I always liked my HDCDs with my CDX 2 better than the regualar Redbook versions of the same album. Now I can have my HDCD played as 20bit WAV or FLAC with my HDX which replaced my CDX 2.

To gary1 (US): small question: if I should conduct a comparative test and find that I prefer the HDX (red book or 16 bit) ripped version of an HDCD-encoded disc over and above the FLAC version after I've ripped and decoded using dBpoweramp on the NAS, how do I set about moving the better WAV file set from the HDX on to my NAS?

This post is to report that I took delivery of my HDX unit back yesterday evening from Alan at Naim. It had in effect been fixed by Naim at Salisbury in the same day, the first day back at work after the recent Christmas break.

The stored music is still all there (as of course I was assured that it would be).

I understand that the problem that I experienced is attributable to some 'illegal characters' in the metadata on [one or more] FLAC files that the HDX was accessing on a USB memory device elsewhere on my network.

I have provided the stick in question to Alan so that the Naim engineers can see precisely what files are involved and the associated tags / metadata.

From my perspective:-

- the incident is closed (my HDX is back in my hands again, and working);
- I will not lightly again embark on an HDX database rebuild via the Desktop Client; and
- as a first-time Naim purchaser, I can only be very impressed with the the responsiveness that I have been shown, especially during a holiday period.

Thank you to Alan and his colleagues in Salisbury!

quote:

Originally posted by AdeF:
To gary1 (US): small question: if I should conduct a comparative test and find that I prefer the HDX (red book or 16 bit) ripped version of an HDCD-encoded disc over and above the FLAC version after I've ripped and decoded using dBpoweramp on the NAS, how do I set about moving the better WAV file set from the HDX on to my NAS?

Adef. This can be done via file share on the HDX. It will see all devices on your network if you activate them on the DTC and then the HDX files can be moved wherevere you need them, to your PC, NAS whatever.

To gary1 (US): Thanks for the last mesage, but ..... I give up - how in the Naim Desktop Client interface do I activate file sharing to allow other devices on the same network in my house to see what's on the HDX?

I went though every option I could see, but that one is not obvious to me.

The full HDX reference manual was not of any help here either - I did check, in the Desktop Client Interface chapter, too.

I suspect the function is not available: this is because the HDX is I believe only supposed to be able to stream out to other StreamNet or NaimNet compatible devices?

Adef,

Go to the DTC and under tools--> network. When you click network, you'll see a listing of all devices that the HDX sees that are on your network. There are various columns listed and you can choose to activate or deactivate a pc, NAS etc... On mine there are about 12 devices on my LAN, but I only have 2 active at the moment: the HDX itself and my D-link NAS.

If you activate your PC on the DTC and add the hdx to your pc network share you should be able to "share" the music.

Thanks, Gary1 (US).

Sadly although (under MS Windows XP SP2) I can manage to 'see' my Naim HDX on my PC (in the 'Microsoft Windows Network' section of 'My Network Places'), when I try to open the HDX or to look at its properties, it bombed me out, saying that I needed to enter a user name and password (or had inadequate access rights to complete the task).

quote:

Originally posted by gary1 (US):
Adef,

Go to the DTC and under tools--> network. When you click network, you'll see a listing of all devices that the HDX sees that are on your network. There are various columns listed and you can choose to activate or deactivate a pc, NAS etc... On mine there are about 12 devices on my LAN, but I only have 2 active at the moment: the HDX itself and my D-link NAS.

If you activate your PC on the DTC and add the hdx to your pc network share you should be able to "share" the music.

Adef, I'd call Naim at this point for some help. You should be able to do this.

What for example happens if down the road you want to get rid of your HDX for another piece of kit you have to be able to move your files out to another storage device.

Moving Music will be become very easy in the full NAS supported software 1.4D. Due for release in the Spring.