Minimserver - Version 0.71

Posted by: Tog on 20 April 2013

Latest version - even more stable and feels quicker on my test server. Now includes more support for standard playlists and extended tagging. Selecting transcoding options is also more reliable. Many of the control point issues with nStream appear to have been resolved and the improvements to album art recognition made in the beta 0.64 are all present and correct.

 

If this had been around two years ago - I would have been very happy - Asset / JRiver certainly have competition on their hands on OSX and thus far it is ahead! Perhaps eventually on other systems as the interesting thing is that due to its Java base Minimserver is very agnostic on platforms right from the start with none of the porting issues faced by competitors who were developed initially to serve only Windows or Linux. Got a NAS - install to Qnap/ReadyNAS/Synology - Ubuntu/Fedora/Amahi - bit more convoluted but certainly possible.

 

Anyone else trying this out?

 

Tog

Posted on: 20 April 2013 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Hi Tog, no but thanks for the heads up. I'll give it a try when Simon let's me know his decision on wav tagging.

However in my spare time (don't seem to have much currently) I am reverse engineering the ID3 meta tag types, so I can modify the miniDLNA package to interpret id3 tags in wav. Currently from reading the code it supports only the official  list info tagging method in the wav file albeit quite extensively.

I have the code and have seen which module I need to edit. If I am right I can make this painless. My c coding is a bit rusty, and the challenge with Opensource is that you have a hotchpotch of coding styles.......

Simon

 

 

Posted on: 20 April 2013 by Conrad Winchester

Yep, love it, and the 0.71 upgrade is so good I gave a donation :-)

 

Have it installed on a synology NAS

Posted on: 20 April 2013 by NickSeattle

Test driving the NDS this weekend.  Minimserver is brilliant, easy, immediate.  No ALAC support, so I am converting 3000 songs as I type this.  Using the WAV24 on-the-fly conversion from AIFF.

 

**WOW**.

 

Nick

Posted on: 21 April 2013 by NickSeattle

Some albums will not play, presumably due to unhandled exceptions in tags.  The pattern seems to be that R. E. M. is not good, nor is 33-1/3 for album title.  Exploring options.  Everything is AIFF now.

 

Nick

Posted on: 21 April 2013 by Tog

Will test out an REM album - from flac.

 

Tog

Posted on: 21 April 2013 by NickSeattle

I changed the Title and Album as indicated.  No joy.  I installed Asset for Mac and it plays the offenders.  Still, I like what Minimserver promises.  What plays is great.

 

Nick

Posted on: 21 April 2013 by Tog

I found that Asset for Mac sent flac files that wouln't play at all - very odd.

 

Tog

Posted on: 22 April 2013 by roo
Originally Posted by Tog:

Anyone else trying this out?

 

Tog

I've been using it on a QNAP TS-112PII NAS since v0.64 and it is much better than the old Twonky software I used to use before. The ability to transcode to WAV is great as I find it gives a lift to playback on the NDX. I just need the prices of the newly launched 960GB Crucial M500 SSD  to come down a bit and I'll have the perfect NAS.

Posted on: 22 April 2013 by NickSeattle

The tagging was a red herring.  I ran permissions repair, and also reset permissions at the iTunes Media folder level and propagated down.  Everything is playing now.  Not sure why iTunes and LMS are not bothered by these issues, or why permissions go off the rails sometimes.  I do not believe any permissions were actually changed.  "Everyone" is, and always was, set to "Read Only".  "Me" is the only one with "Read-Write" permissions, which has always gotten the job done, ripping with XLD or iTunes.

 

Nick 

Posted on: 22 April 2013 by NickSeattle

The rot returned.  I decided I had too many servers fighting for the same songs:  LMS, Sonos, iTunes, Asset for Windows and Mac.  I shut them all down, and reinstalled nStream in my iPad.  Now we are working well.  This is one problem with home demos: lots of variables that will disappear after decisions are made.

 

Nick

Posted on: 23 April 2013 by NickSeattle
Now that Minumserver is working well, I like it a lot. The UI at the root is better than Asset for Mac in that the full album list is displayed; Asset wants you to pick a letter before letting you browse. I converted a few files from AIFF to FLAC and tried the OTF WAV24 transcoding. It works well, but I think AIFF has better bass. Nick
Posted on: 23 April 2013 by -goat-

Looks good. Can anyone comment on whether Minimserver can be used on a ReadyNas Duo V1? Unfortunately It looks as though it is not possible.

Posted on: 23 April 2013 by David

Hi Goat

 

i looked into this, unfortunately it is not supported on the SPARC processor in the V1.

 

david

 

Posted on: 23 April 2013 by -goat-
Originally Posted by David:

Hi Goat

 

i looked into this, unfortunately it is not supported on the SPARC processor in the V1.

 

david

 

Cheers David. That's disappointing. Might be an added incentive to ditch my NetGear products which I have to say are possibly the biggest lemons of any technology I have ever owned. 

Posted on: 18 January 2014 by Dawks

Having recently purchased a NDS I was getting very very frustrated with WMP! But a few days ago I stumbled across Minimserver and it's brilliant try it out! 

Posted on: 18 January 2014 by Graham Hull

Something that put me off Minimserver is that there is no cover art in the higher levels of the tree structure, only when you go to play an album. Is that something that can be changed in the settings?

Posted on: 21 January 2014 by Dawks

Can't say the lack of cover art at higher levels is an issue as you also dont get it with WMP. The real benefit I see is it's speed, reliability I.e. Doesn't crash out. Plus a lot of nice touches like tag viewing folders which is realy useful when merging iTunes libraru media and the see complete album feature. I just see this as so much better than WMP.  Of course if you're  not that good with computers a Naim ripper is a better, although expensive, option as streaming isn't that straightforwardntio you're use to it.

Posted on: 21 January 2014 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by Graham Hull:

Something that put me off Minimserver is that there is no cover art in the higher levels of the tree structure, only when you go to play an album. Is that something that can be changed in the settings?

Hi Graham

 

When you say no art work in higher levels, can you explain what you mean. Also can you say what your using now that does show it.

 

Reason i ask is that depending on the view you use depends on the art work. But all servers i've used have been the same, but i'd love to find something that showed art work no matter which view your using.

 

Graeme