Some advice and guidance required, please!
Context:
Whilst my Unitiserve SSD is sick and probably on its way back to that nice man, Manu in Montreal I am borrowing an ND5XS. These are some of the things I have done to try and get it working.
I have a Qnap TS219P II NAS and this contains all the unitiserve rips in one folder and downloaded music in another. I use a Mac as my main machine and have downloaded NStream on to my ipad.
I setup the ND5 correctly and it is wired to the network and it didn't see anything. So I investigated my QNap NAS and found two UPnP apps. The QNap's own and Twonky. Stared with the Qnap app, shared out the folders and Nstream picked up the files, but only the downloaded music and not the unitiserve ripped files, shut that down.
Next Twonky, the version on the NAS was quite old so I installed a later version 7.2.5-1, that was quite easy to do. Set it all up and its all a bit of a mess, Nstream lists albums, but only the downloaded files and not the ones ripped by the unitiserve. However I can see all the files in folder view, but no cover art, closed that down.
Next installed Squeezebox server, again quite straightforward and now I can see all of the files listed by artist and also by album and I get the cover art.
OK so far so good.
But using Nstream I can't play any tracks, the app lists the NAS as a UPnP device, I select music and I get to the album, select a track and then it quickly says connecting, the screen spins and I'm back where I started.
I managed to get through most of this from searching the forum and the good advice from fellow Naimies.
What am I doing wrong?
By the way I now appreciate how good the unitiserve SSD and NServe is and the straightforward functionality.
Cheers
Tim
Posted on: 02 December 2013 by Timbo
Thanks Simon.
I have just tried asset and it will list but not play my downloaded files and those ripped by the unitiserve it reports them as unsupported file types.
I also went back to Twonky and the SB server to check and I get the same results.
Looks like unitiserve ripped CD's can only be played by the unitiserve.
Seems like the ND5 is not going to work unless I re-rip all of my CD's and perhaps purchase a more compatible NAS.
Tim
Posted on: 02 December 2013 by Timbo
Update:
Twonky is now working (sort of) it will play all of my downloaded music and correctly identifies it and I get good album art.
However, all of the rips done by the unitiserve are listed as unknown and when I go into folder view it will list them by name but when I go into a particular folder it lists artist and album as unknown - although I can play them.
So it seems that meta data in the rips done by the unitiserve are not readable, perhaps this is intentional to better work with Naim streamers?
Staring to run out of ideas, I want to try minmserve but that looks complicated to install.
Tim
Posted on: 02 December 2013 by Simon-in-Suffolk
If you run asset on a little server and mount the QNAP shares it will work fine. I always keep my upnp server app quite separate from my NAS's.. Just like the Unitiserve SSD. Most little consumer NASs just are not powerful enough to run a descent upnp server and database, especially with a large collection and Hidef transcoding.
With regard to the files you are trying to play, can you mount the shares and play the files from Windows or OSX?
if you can what file type does it saying it's playing,
edit: posts crossed. Your upnp server will not be able to read the Naim metadata as it is held in a Naim proprietary database, and not stored in the files, especially with wav files. The streamer doesn't extract the metadata from the file.. That's the job of the upnp server app. That in turns typically obtains the metadata from it's own database once the files are scanned. However Naim doesn't store metadata in its ripped WAV files.. The metadata goes directly to the database.
Can you export your unitiserve files as FLAC files or such like with metadata stored in the file? Otherwise it sounds you might need to re rip.. Ouch..
Simon
Posted on: 02 December 2013 by Timbo
Hi Simon:
Oh dear, I was wondering how the unitiserve rips were done and as Naim hold the info in a database that does provide the answer as to why all the albums were unknown. I will try an export program on a few to see what happens.
I installed minim server and that gives the same problems as the other upnp apps.
Unfortunately my Mac mini server is running Snow Leopard and so assert will not work on it. Don't really want to upgrade the server as it has been stable for quite some time.
I'll report later on the export experience.
Tim
Posted on: 02 December 2013 by Timbo
Just tried a couple of applications to convert the unitiserve ripped files to flac and wav. No go, they are not recognized.
I do have a bonus. I copied over all of my music files, downloaded and those ripped by the unitiserve to an external hard disk on my Mac mini server which is running Squeezebox server and my SB Touch recognizes them all and plays them and I have cover art. I'm using an app called Ipeng on my iPad and we have no problems.
So theoretically I should be able to find and play these files via the ND5 and nstream, I'll work on this.
Tim
Posted on: 05 December 2013 by Timbo
To continue....
Updated ND5XS from firmware version 3.06 to 3.22, took about 40 minutes but I have a lot more functionality. It seems that CD's ripped with XLD, iTunes as Apple lossless and anything else I can find still don't get much info when being accessed by the ND5.
Using Twonky at present, but have tried quite a few UPnP servers and none are as good at presenting info like the unitiserve, although it doesn't have access to rovi. Seems that with most of the serving software that the best view is folder view which presents most info.
Still comparing and contrasting to see what is best.
Cheers
Tim
