Playback uPnP Issues

I tried the Mac version earlier this week. I appreciate you trying to be helpful, but It has a very long way to go before it's usable (extreme emphasis on "long") . When I had it running it crashes constantly. I am not willing to pay for something so buggy, unfinished and unstable. And in the state it is now, I think it would be crazy to edit my files with it. Too much risk of file corruption.

I believe the developer of Metadics will have regex support long before JRiver is usable on the Mac.

You don't need to edit your files with MC if you don't want to. MC maintains its own tag database - one of the reasons it is so fast - tags are only written back to the files if you want them to be. So you can, for example, use regular expressions to define a derived tag and that will, if you prefer, just live in MCs database, though can be used to configure your UPnP browse trees. Same with tag edits. No risk of file corruption whatsoever.

Thanks. I'll pass on JRiver. It's just not ready for prime time on Mac OS X (and that's being polite), and I have no interest nor desire to use it on Windows.

Not to mention, isn't MC's tag database proprietary to using MC for serving the audio files?

Apparently, my issue with Twonky mis-sorting the tarcks by title rather than track order in folder view (see my prior post regarding Handle's Orlando opera) is not a new problem. 

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

Since I cannot get LMS to work streaming AIFF files to the ND5, I am going to try Twonky again with the fix described in the WDC community forum.

If that doesn't work tomorrow, I'm packing the ND5 XS and getting rid of it, either selling it outright or trading it in to do some analog upgrades. Then I will use my SBT and Arcam DAC, which I have had no problem getting to work with my music and how I want to navigate and play it.

I was suggesting you use MC as a server, in which case it would be using it's own database anyway. If that didn't suit, you could tell it to write tags back to your data files, once they had been populated to your satisfaction. BTW I used LMS and a Touch for many years, but MC gives me way more control over how I navigate and play my music. I now use MC (and the Whitebear plugin) to play to my Touch. And imo the JRemote app for an iPad is a superb control point - usefully better than iPeng, benefitting from all the custom browse trees of MC and with a pretty good  search (which can often be the fastest way to find something). But I take your point about it being early days for MC on a mac. 

Hi RaceTripper,

uups, I hope something good has come out of my resurrection of your thread for you? For me, I installed Playback on my 2011 MacMini (with ext. Superdrive for ripping via iTunes) and wireless streaming of whole AIFF albums works absolutely fine to both ND5XS and another streamer.

I remember that you had AIFF and FLAC libraries outside of iTunes. Have you considered converting the FLACs to AIFF and importing the files into iTunes? (sorry, I know your issues were more complex).

Cheers,

Stefan

I wonder why naimees always feel obliged to swim against the current.

It would be much more obvious for RT to convert everything to flac and live with LMS, Sbt and ND5 XS happily ever after. But no, it has to be the stoney path.

Hi PinkHamster,

my decision for ripping to AIFF was a close call for me, with WAV and ALAC as closest contenders. I use Macs all the time, so please forgive me for using Apple's native format (nice that naim includes AIFF and ALAC, whereas quite a few other streamers don't)! And I am really impressed how simple the ripping/streaming process is with the MacMini: Any ripped CD is immediately available throughout the house now. And I do like the openness of the system (for comparison, I was reading that WAV files on the HDX are, although accessible from the outside, somewhat useless since the meta-tags are, understandable, kept in a separate, inaccessible database).

Cheers,

Stefan

Converting everything to FLAC will cause me all kinds of headaches. Most of the AIFF files I have  in folders for serving to the NAIM are also pointed to by iTunes for syncing as 256K to an iPod Classic. Besides, I shouldn't have to convert anything. The SBT supports FLAC and AIFF, the Naim supports FLAC and AIFF.

I don't see where you come off accusing me of swimming against the lane. In fact, quite the opposite, I quite rightly expect it should work as advertised. I'm not trying to do anything that is unsupported.

Anyway, I'm going to try the manual fix to Twonky today. If that works, then problem solved. If not, I'm trading in the Naim and using the SBT instead.

Thanks, but it's not as if I didn't consider JRiver and give it a try. I did. The Mac version doesn't work, and I don't have nor want a windows box. Let's please put JRiver to rest.

Like you, I rip CDs to AIFF using a Mac Mini with a Superdrive, but I use XLD rather than iTunes.

iTunes is terrible for classical music. And it got a lot worse with the iTunes 11. 

I only use iTunes for music to sync as 256K files to an iPod Classic so I can listen at work.

I seemed to have fixed the problem with Twonky, since LMS and ND5 XS can't seem to agree on playing AIFF, and everyone seems to think I should convert my AIFF files to FLAV, and vice versa. 

As I mentioned before, the database metadata files for Twonky are wrong. An internet search told me what I needed to change. The process is a bit more involved:

1) make an ssh connection to the QNAP

2) look for Twonky's "view-definitions.xml" file...I used unix find, from the filesystem root, 'find . -name "view-definitions.xml" -print'

3) make a copy of the file: cp view-definitions.xml view-definitions.xml.bak

4) using the vi editor, I found the line 

<container buildon='res' createClass='object.item.audioItem.musicTrack' class='object.container.storageFolder' />

and changed it to:

<container buildon='res' sortcriteria='+upnp:0riginalTrackNumber' createClass='object.item.audioItem.musicTrack' class='object.container.storageFolder' />

(substitute an 'o' for the '0' above...the forum was converting the correct spelling to a mad face icon)

5) save the file and exit vi

6) from the Twonky server maintenance page [web], select "Rebuild database"

Anyway, it seems to work now. Hopefully, that's all it takes now.

Now I'm going to play some records...you know where it takes all of 10 seconds to actually enjoy music once you decide on something to play. 

Hi Race Tripper,

congratulations on your sucess in tweaking Twonky.

Actually I didn't mean to accuse you in particular of swimming against the lane. Your quite distinctive requirements just fit into the general attitude with quite a number of folks here, which is 'AIFF and WAV, but go away with FLAC'. This is not true for you, I know, you use a variety of formats, including FLAC.

And you are of course right, that it is a crying shame that either LMS or ND5, or both, do not perform as advertised.

I also used to have the requirement of being able to sync to an iPod. At a certain point I was just sick and tierd of having to deal with the propriatary approach of those iThings. They simply didn't fit into my setup any longer and I wasn't prepared to make compromises just for the sake of a freakin' iPod. There are so many other nice mobile players out there, all of which can be manage via a simple file manager.

So for my lossless library everything is converted to flac, regardless of the lossless format it came in. This makes my life so much easier. I say this not only with respect to codec support, but also with an eye on consistent tag reading. Not every server will interpret the same tag in ALAC and FLAC consistently. So why should I bother to run into potential problems where I don't have to?

OK, PinkHamster. Fair enough, and thanks..

The reason I have a mixed library is that I rip CDs to AIFF, but nearly all my online purchases of high resolution audio are FLAC, since the choice is limited.

I do maintain an iTunes library so I can put 256K versions of my music on a 160 GB iPod Classic to play while I work. For the FLAC files I buy, I convert them to ALAC into the iTunes library. But what I have on the QNAP is the mixed library of AIFF ripped CDs and purchased FLAC files. When I acquire music I don't want to have to do much more than place the files on the server, and fix the basic tags. I don't listen to digital media enough (less than 10% vs. analog) to make it worthwhile putting a lot of effort into editing tags and converting files.

This process of getting a Naim streamer to work with folder browsing of classical music was far more painful than it should or needed to be. If I knew from the beginning this is what I would go through, I would not have gone down this road. It may be all great and perfect for playing pop music and even jazz, but it just isn't ready for prime time with classical music, at least not the way I (and others I know) listen to it. The whole thing is pretty much a big mess.

I may still sell/trade my ND5 XS for other upgrades, and use the SBT instead (which I had working correctly in less than 30 minutes). Getting it all to work is far too complex and painful, and I suspect it's a fragile affair. It certainly isn't anywhere near as straightforward as my 282/250. This has left me somewhat soured to the Naim streaming experience. I'm not sure I want to stay.  

Race Tripper,

if I understand you correctly, your are maintaining a mirrored iTunes library consisting of aiff and alac files, while your 'main' library contains all sorts of formats.

I also have a mirror for mobile use. Only I keep this library consisting of all aac files. This also saves time when I copy something over to my phone or mobile player - no on the fly conversion necessary.

You might consider doing the same. So instead of converting your purchsed flac files to alac, you could convert them to aac. You could do this with all the files in your main library and keep that in whichever lossless format you choose - and which works with LMS and ND5. 

Thanks, but I really have no need to keep anything in low resolution format. I only use that on an iPod, and iTunes converts on the fly when it syncs. The cost in disk space is inconsequential, and the time to sync doesn't matter since I just do it overnight when I want to add new files.

I understand that you like storing them as AAC better, but I just don't see that it really buys me anything to want to change my workflow. Besides, if I ever want to Airplay my iTunes library to something that supports AIFF/ALAC encoding (say, if I buy a new AVR that does Airplay streaming), then I will have regretted converting everything to AAC.

I like the way I'm doing it now.

And, I don't entirely maintain two libraries. When I rip CDs, I rip to AIFF into a streaming library directory. Then in iTunes, I point to that directory, so that both iTunes and UPnP use the exact same set of files (and tags). The only thing I convert and maintain separately for iTunes is purchased FLAC.

I actually tried converting purchased FLAC to AIFF so I could do the same thing with streaming and iTunes sharing the same directory, but something ended up not working quite right. Now I cannot remember what that was. Maybe it was an issue with the 24-bit 96 and 192 files.

Hi RT and PH,

now that you're at it: how can I supply my iPod with aac files, please? Is this as simple as creating a second iTunes library and then ... then what, please? (how do I get the aac's from my AIFFs)? Do I have to create the aac's whilst ripping to AIFF, or can I easily do this later?

And there is one other thing that I wonder about: will the MacMini / Playback / ND5XS cope with larger libraries (say, 500 CDs), or will this slow the tune selection down?

Many thanks for your help,

Stefan

When you select you iPhone/iPod/iPad in iTunes for syncing there is a checkbox named:

Convert higher bit rate songs to [128 | 192 | 256 kbps] AAC.

Select that and pick the setting you want. When you sync, your AIFF files wll be converted on the fly to AAC files on your device. Note that it can take a lot longer to sync, especially the first time you do it.

I would like to go on on record to say that Twonky is total and utter rubbish.

It can't read tags in AIFF files. Not only is the Twonky version 6 this way, but the retail version 7 suffers this problem too.

Could have told you that two years ago - close run thing between it and EyeConnect. Not called Wonky by accident. :-)

Tog

One of the aspects of Vortexbox that is really helpful is its "mirror flac to alac/mp3 facility.

Tog

Oh well. I'm not getting a Vortexbox.

I still might trade my ND5 for  a new tonearm and phono preamp. Should be getting pricing on that week after next. Waiting on audition. If I do that I'll move the SBT and Arcam DAC to the 282. I know that works.

I hit another snag and solved it in case anyone comes up against it.

Now my streaming library is all on a QNAP 219P-II. I am using LMS with the UPnP plugin, so that I have one service for both the ND5 XS and my Squeezebox Touch. However, I wasn't able to play any of my 24/192 files on the SBT. It wasn't a network issues since they streamed fine to the Naim.

It turns out the QNAP is struggling to transcode the files from 24/192 to 24/96 so the SBT could play them. It couldn't keep up, so the SBT kept dropping out while rebuffing. The solution is twofold. One, I installed the "Enhanced Digital Output" plugin on the SBT. This disables the analog output of the SBT, but no matter since I'm using an Arcam rDAC. Secondly, in the settings for the LMS UPnP plugin on the NAS, I turned off transcoding  so it just streams 24/192 unconverted to the SBT.

Lesson learned. Buy a more powerful NAS next time. I am starting to regret getting a NAS and not getting another Mac Mini, which was my original intention.

RT, I'm sorry as it was me that recommended you take this route

Thanks for continuing to post your issus and fixes - hopefully it will help someone.

Ian