High Resolution/24bit with Flac

It isn't necesary to have a separate directory for 24bit or Hi-Res files although it is something that I do personally. The easiest way to identify these files would be by tagging e.g. adding "HR" or something similar after the album title or perhaps having a specific category (style or format perhaps) where you can tag the files as either CD or HR.

The naim app will indeed indicate the bit depth and bitrate of the file once it is playing but by the correct use of tagging you can identify your HiRes files and even include a browsing tree category to distinguish between CD and HR albums.

sjbabbey posted:

It isn't necesary to have a separate directory for 24bit or Hi-Res files although it is something that I do personally. The easiest way to identify these files would be by tagging e.g. adding "HR" or something similar after the album title or perhaps having a specific category (style or format perhaps) where you can tag the files as either CD or HR.

The naim app will indeed indicate the bit depth and bitrate of the file once it is playing but by the correct use of tagging you can identify your HiRes files and even include a browsing tree category to distinguish between CD and HR albums.

 Thanks for the tips!  What do mean by this? "you can identify your HiRes files and even include a browsing tree category to distinguish between CD and HR albums."  How do you do this? No worries if it's too technical. 

I am just in the process of changing from Plex to Asset upnp server running on my media server pc. On Plex you can set up libraries using different folders. I had two folders on the pc, one for standard res, the other for high res. In each of these folders I had jazz, classical and rock and pop folders. In asset all the music folders are lumped together so tags, especially genres, become very important. I have been tidying up my genre tags and I thought I would have to do something about identifying HD or standard resolution with a custom tag, for example. However, I found this unnecessary as asset gives you an option to choose 16 or 24 bits and you can set up an appropriate tree structure within the asset configuration programme. 

Sorry, I forgot to add that I don't know if minimserver acts the same way as asset.

blownaway posted:

sjbabbey posted:

It isn't necesary to have a separate directory for 24bit or Hi-Res files although it is something that I do personally. The easiest way to identify these files would be by tagging e.g. adding "HR" or something similar after the album title or perhaps having a specific category (style or format perhaps) where you can tag the files as either CD or HR.

The naim app will indeed indicate the bit depth and bitrate of the file once it is playing but by the correct use of tagging you can identify your HiRes files and even include a browsing tree category to distinguish between CD and HR albums.

 Thanks for the tips!  What do mean by this? "you can identify your HiRes files and even include a browsing tree category to distinguish between CD and HR albums."  How do you do this? No worries if it's too technical. 

 

Say, for instance, you decided to us the "format" tag in your library and used the values "CD" and "HR" to differentiate between your standard CD res and 24bit files. Once you have tagged each of your albums with the appropriate "format" value, you then create a browse view in minimserver which will have "format" as the top level i.e. it will appear as a top folder option in the naim app.

To do this you simply open minimserver's properties by right clicking on the green musicnote icon and on the Server tab you will see a list of Index tags e.g. "Artist", "Genre" etc. You simply need to add "format" to this list of index tags. 

I used to manually add something, eg [lossless] to the album name tags to keep track of bitrates. Now with minimserver I use an automatic 'quality' tag. Minim automatically adds either [LC], [CD] or [HD] to album names, depending on bitrate. So the actual tags are just the normal info, and the quality indicator appears magically on its own.

I'll try to find the code for it later if anyone wants it.

If you use Minimserver you can add some customisation to displayed titles too.

For example in the tagFormat property I add the syntax Album.displayFormat={$album^$#AudioQuality$releasedate^ [^]^-} this tells MinimServer to (instead of just displaying the Album title) to show Album Title [CD / HD / LC) then year] which allows easy at a glance for you to tell between two versions of the same album.

The syntax can be more complex to allow different information to be included.

sjbabbey posted:

Say, for instance, you decided to us the "format" tag in your library and used the values "CD" and "HR" to differentiate between your standard CD res and 24bit files. Once you have tagged each of your albums with the appropriate "format" value, you then create a browse view in minimserver which will have "format" as the top level i.e. it will appear as a top folder option in the naim app.

To do this you simply open minimserver's properties by right clicking on the green musicnote icon and on the Server tab you will see a list of Index tags e.g. "Artist", "Genre" etc. You simply need to add "format" to this list of index tags. 

With MinimServer there is no need to manually tag things - if you go into the MinimServer properties, in the list of "index tags" add #AudioQuality, #AudioData, (you need to make sure you continue a comma separated list so each item except the last is followed by a comma and you can add either or both) - after a rescan you will then find new indexes to browse.

AudioQuality in a summary format: CD (quality) CD+ (24/44.1 and 24/48); HD (quality); LC (lossy compressed eg. MP3, AAC)

AudioData is more detailed with 24/192000, 24/96000, 1/2822400 (DSD), etc

PS. on the other hand I do keep folders for different download sites as occasionally its useful to go back check what I've downloaded from where.

Thanks! I've added AudioData and now I can find my hires files, should I feel the need. Now, if only the 'latest' feature could be added - it would be so useful. One day, hopefully. 

Latest, as in most recently added to the NAS?  Yeah, I'd find that useful too.  Had wondered if it was already present and I just didn't know how to turn it on.

I have asked Simon about it, and it's on his 'to do' list. I quite often buy stuff, add it to the nas and then forget about it. It's not like a CD, where you can keep the new ones in a separate pile. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I have asked Simon about it, and it's on his 'to do' list. I quite often buy stuff, add it to the nas and then forget about it. It's not like a CD, where you can keep the new ones in a separate pile. 

One thing I tend to do (at least with CDs) is that new rips go to a "2016" folder.  You can then use "folder view" to browse to that folder where you can easily find all new CDs.

Hmm, that's an idea! So folder view relates to folders on the NAS. I hadn't really though about it before.  Durrrrr.

Hungryhalibut posted:

I have asked Simon about it, and it's on his 'to do' list. I quite often buy stuff, add it to the nas and then forget about it. It's not like a CD, where you can keep the new ones in a separate pile. 

That's where the MM/HD/iTunes/Audirvana has great advantages. I keep my 24 bit and DSD files in separate folders on the HD and drag them into the Audirvana play queue box to play. I can browse all 16 bit titles in iTunes,  including in order of download, which I can then play through Audirvana bypassing iTunes. Tagging is easy when downloading. This is so much simpler than using NAS software, the complexity of which put me off streaming for a long time. No ethernet cables to deal with either. 

With MinimServer you can find all your hi res files without doing any customisation. There is a standard "Bit Depth/Frequency" search at the top of the search tree that will allow you to navigate your collection by all the various bit depth and frequency permutations that you have.

Hungryhalibut posted:

Hmm, that's an idea! So folder view relates to folders on the NAS. I hadn't really though about it before.  Durrrrr.

I have used folder view since I started streaming about 5 years ago. No other view would work properly for me! I can always find what I want in seconds. Folders are organised exactly as I would organise CDs on a shelf....and it gets around any dodgy tagging!

John3 posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

Hmm, that's an idea! So folder view relates to folders on the NAS. I hadn't really though about it before.  Durrrrr.

I have used folder view since I started streaming about 5 years ago. No other view would work properly for me! I can always find what I want in seconds. Folders are organised exactly as I would organise CDs on a shelf....and it gets around any dodgy tagging!

I'm the opposite, I've been OCD over tagging so "album" view is my default, but occasionally I find folder view useful for (example) to check what CDs I bought in 2015 or what I've bought from HD Tracks.

Eloise posted:

sjbabbey posted:

Say, for instance, you decided to us the "format" tag in your library and used the values "CD" and "HR" to differentiate between your standard CD res and 24bit files. Once you have tagged each of your albums with the appropriate "format" value, you then create a browse view in minimserver which will have "format" as the top level i.e. it will appear as a top folder option in the naim app.

To do this you simply open minimserver's properties by right clicking on the green musicnote icon and on the Server tab you will see a list of Index tags e.g. "Artist", "Genre" etc. You simply need to add "format" to this list of index tags. 

With MinimServer there is no need to manually tag things - if you go into the MinimServer properties, in the list of "index tags" add #AudioQuality, #AudioData, (you need to make sure you continue a comma separated list so each item except the last is followed by a comma and you can add either or both) - after a rescan you will then find new indexes to browse.

AudioQuality in a summary format: CD (quality) CD+ (24/44.1 and 24/48); HD (quality); LC (lossy compressed eg. MP3, AAC)

AudioData is more detailed with 24/192000, 24/96000, 1/2822400 (DSD), etc

PS. on the other hand I do keep folders for different download sites as occasionally its useful to go back check what I've downloaded from where.

Cool, do you add the index tags to mention above after the album name or at the very beginning of the tag? 

Can you give an example of a CD you have tagged like this?  (example of complete tag).

blownaway posted:

Eloise posted:

With MinimServer there is no need to manually tag things - if you go into the MinimServer properties, in the list of "index tags" add #AudioQuality, #AudioData, (you need to make sure you continue a comma separated list so each item except the last is followed by a comma and you can add either or both) - after a rescan you will then find new indexes to browse.

AudioQuality in a summary format: CD (quality) CD+ (24/44.1 and 24/48); HD (quality); LC (lossy compressed eg. MP3, AAC)

AudioData is more detailed with 24/192000, 24/96000, 1/2822400 (DSD), etc

PS. on the other hand I do keep folders for different download sites as occasionally its useful to go back check what I've downloaded from where.

Cool, do you add the index tags to mention above after the album name or at the very beginning of the tag? 

Can you give an example of a CD you have tagged like this?  (example of complete tag).

You don't have to manually tag anything, but taking both of my posts above I end up with the following in naim app...

In a list of albums (this list is just 2015 albums) I get...

from the root of the server (or anywhere else for that matter) I can choose either AudioData or AudioQuality and get...

or

For most of my music the tags are pretty typical - Album, Artist, ArtistSort, AlbumArtist, AlbumArtistSort (the last two where applicable if the Artist varies per track), Year, track Title and Composer.  The Composer is in Lastname, Firstname format {or for classical and other major composers Lastname, Firstname (Birth year-Death year)} which Minimserver presents as simply Firstname Lastname but keeping the sort order as Lastname, Firstname.

I do add a few other items such as ReleaseDate (especially if an album is a compilation where different tracks are from differing years) and for classical music I add Conductor and Orchestra tags and "Composition" and "Movement" tags which I then combine together to get the Track Title (e.g. Composition: "Symphony No. 9 in D minor 'the Choral', Op. 125" and Movement: "i. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestro" becomes Title: "Symphony No.9: Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestro") for simpler applications such as iTunes.  And (for example) on the UnitiQute the display will show the Movement and Composition rather than track title and album title.

Some great tips here thanks. I can't get #AudioQuality to appear, #AudioData yes, will try versions.

For me I use folder view all the time, in albums though only correctly tagged albums appear everything else that can't be seen correctly gets dropped into a [no album] option as artist #, so folder view then allows me to see all the albums as intended but minus the tagging (which for say Eagles entire 192/24 HDTracks download it doesn't split the albums up, just shows one long list of tracks alphabetically)

Still lots more to discover with Minimserver, its very good.

Dan43 posted:

Some great tips here thanks. I can't get #AudioQuality to appear, #AudioData yes, will try versions.

For me I use folder view all the time, in albums though only correctly tagged albums appear everything else that can't be seen correctly gets dropped into a [no album] option as artist #, so folder view then allows me to see all the albums as intended but minus the tagging (which for say Eagles entire 192/24 HDTracks download it doesn't split the albums up, just shows one long list of tracks alphabetically)

Still lots more to discover with Minimserver, its very good.

At the end of the day, to get the most out of MinimServer you need to get the metadata (tags) in order.  Some time with MP3Tag or similar will certainly give something more consistent.

To me: using folder view is like looking at the CDs on a shelf - a static view which is limited to a single ordering; using tagging allows fluid searching / browsing through many more criteria.