Displaying album art in nStream

Alex - thanks for that, its good to know and maybe ill get round to trying it out at some point but like yourself i think ill stay with minimserver. Always a bit daunting the DSM downgrade. but its been fine and ive done it quite a few times now.

Alan - hdtracks have a free mini album download and also www.2L.no (i think from memory thats correct) have quite a few test tracks

Graeme

Just checked and indeed my nStream displays .FLAC at the end of every song name. I haven't noticed it before, I guess I got used to it. And it's not limited to DSM 5.0, because I'm on DSM 4.3.

So if Alan or someone confirms that DSM 5.0 can transcode hi-res formats, I'm upgrading just for this functionality

Hi Gajdzin,

I can confirm DSM 5 does appear to transcode hi-res files from FLAC to WAV correctly at full hi-res, and doesn't downgrade them - I will make the caveat that this applies to music I've tried, and I can't speak for every alternative. It does however add the .flac suffix to every track name; maybe they'll fix that next.

The upgrade to DSM 5 was painless too, and I haven't found any problems so far (a few days in).

However, I still prefer Minimserver now it's installed and running. But if I hadn't already installed it I would save the hassle and use DSM 5.

(As an aside, and not expecting a solution here, the D213J is a good server in operation, but currently lacks a simple bootstrapper, so unless you're very technically minded you're stuck with only what Synology provides through the Package Center. It's an annoying 'feature', and had I known that I might have picked a different model.)

Alex

My experience with DS213+ and transcoding FLAC to WAV is that it works well with 16/44.1 and 24/96 but struggles with 24/192. It seems too much work both for the DS213+  processor and for my network (I use an airport express as a wireless bridge). No problem with hi res if no transcoding is used.

Dambor

The issue with 24/192 files transcoded could be the increased bit rate from approx 6Mbs for FLAC to over 9Mbs when transcoded to WAV which is probably too high for your wi-fi to handle.

+1 i have an older 212j on wired network and it transcodes 24/192 without any issues

Graeme

@gajdzin - there's no great logical reason why I prefer Minimserver. I guess I assume that the WAV file is the same once transcoded so there's no difference in SQ. I might be wrong about that and maybe one day I'lll do a comparison. So it really comes down to preference about the way they present and behave. DSM sticks .flac at the end of every track and Minimserver doesn't. On the other hand, Minimserver doesn't automatically detect changes and DSM does. 

The one other reason is that Minimsever is made by a guy who cares about music and often provides first-hand support to users, and Synology is a big corporation. But that's a purely personal motivation.

A bootstrapper is a piece of Linux software that enables the user easily to load new programs on to the system. Most servers have such a thing, including Synology ones, but the D213j uses an unusual Arm chip and there isn't currently a simple bootstrapper. This means the user is limited to the packages provided by Synology via Package Center - including Minimserver for example but not including the Autorestart add-on that would overcome the change detection mentioned above. 

Alex

Thanks, Alex, that's very helpful. I've only had my first NAS for a few months now and I'm new to streaming, still learning. What is change detection - does it mean when you add a new recording, you don't have to run the Reindexing service? I found I have to run it every time I add music to my NAS and it takes very long to reindex everything, like 20 minutes...

I have approximately 1,500 ripped CD's (587 GB) on my Synology DS213+ NAS and a rescan in Minimserver takes 2 minutes 25 seconds.

Wow, you guys were busy today...great thread!

Thanks Graeme for the test tracks link, will go check it out later. Thanks also to Alex and others who have confirmed hi-res streaming operation in Media Server already. 

I agree with Alex that we're well beyond "needed for pure enjoyment" and into "nice to have" or even (for me at least) "would be nice to see how this works"! That was true for me way back when I first started with Twonky on an iOmega NAS (that I'm in the process of restoring with brand new larger WD 3T Red drives). It worked fine right out of the box and I was thrilled. It's still true now that I'm doing more with the NAS and trying to up my game on the tagging and so on.

WiFi bandwidth appears to be an issue for highest-res streams, but in my situation it is also an occasional (firmware-related?) issue with a UnitiQute. In my case, I feel like I have fewer issue occurrences streaming FLAC rather than WAV.  So I have Media Server set for FLAC and MinimServer set for WAV, both running on the DS213+ and both pointed at the same library / directory. Sweet and flexible and a cool trick. 

I don't listen to much classical, so the advanced tags and drill-down search / display in MinimServer are not as vital to me as some others. That said, enabling the advanced display in Media Server adds a nice "recently added" view, which I love using at the moment to see stuff I've just bought (including the new ones I can't remember and usually have to find by album cover) and the old ones I've recently ripped (which is driving me to be a bit systematic in working through the remainder of my cd collection). I believe there are ways to script and build your own views, but have not checked into this yet...maybe I will, maybe I won't. In the physical media days, and in the car now, I had new stuff and fave stuff in piles beside the player...I see this as a sort of digital equivalent (and my iTunes library has a set of chronological NewDiscsXXX playlists to track my purchases for that very reason). 

Other reasons for for upgrading to DSM 5 include speed and robustness improvements for both windows and apple connections...ie for the core NAS functionality. I view this as being akin to the sound improvements Naim adds in when updating their firmware from time to time: better performance for free if you stay up to date. Others don't view it this way, and there are certainly times when some favourite behaviour gets "fixed", so that's always a factor. I've found DSM (and native apps) upgrading to be easy and painless, and I like the email notes reminding me to grab the new whatever when I get home. 

That's it from me for tonight. Sorry if story telling overtook information sharing!! 

Regards, alan

ps: re-indexing can be ultra fast if you restrict the directory listing; MinimServer only looks at your music library, but Media Server scans music, movies and (often the killer) photos...that was a big issue in the past, but not so much any more...and lots of online help to automate if that's your thing. 

Jota

minimserver on my 212j scans in less than a minute (thats a guess will time it tonight if i get time) and thats for 1100 albums, over a terrabyte of data. What version of DSM are you running?

Graeme

Gents, a note on an earlier comment.. i don't believe FLAC is currently a standard mime type. Audio/wave now is, but registration is being sought for FLAC. There is nothing stopping software supporting unofficial mime types, as indeed many apps  do, but in theory could decide to reject unofficial mime types until formally registered. This could be part of the reason that Apple doesn't formally currently support. FLAC for example.

Are you sure it's not? I can see Flac listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...edia_type#Type_audio ...

I'm using DSM 5 but not sure how that would make a difference.  I did time mine because I'd initially guestimated the time taken to be under a minute! 

Hi Jota

Have timed my scan and it took 24 seconds. Maybe the extra folders you have really slow it up but that seems a long time. I use DSM 3.2 on an older NAS than your unit, so maybe its down to the version. Would be interesting for others who use Minimserver to post there scan times.

Graeme