Playing WAV files

It might be useful to say what server you are running on the new NAS, as that may well be where the issue lies??

The media server is  ................  UPnP Media server (support for PS3, Xbox, Boxee Box)    ?????  'er don't sound much like audio to me,  maybe more for games.   That I suspect is the problem, it does not recognise WAV.     Suggest install Minimserver,  I expect you need to go search Minimserver www for instructions,    & if not specific for the Dlink then e-mail or post on the forum, they are very good for customer support

I'd suggest you get a 'proper' NAS, such as a Qnap or Synology. 

Wow, what a helpful lot you are, I only posted this half an hour ago! thanks again.

I'm not sure what server means, but it is a UPnP (if that is a server?) However the 2 NAS drives I had previously were also UPnP and they worked just fine.

I am prepared to buy a consider a 'proper' NAS drive, but as I don't have a lot of money I don't want to go to the expense and it still not play my WAV files?

Thanks

The server is software that serves the music. It usually lives in the NAS. Some are better than others. The most straightforward thing is probably to get a Qnap and run Asset ( this is a upnp server). Alternatively you could get a Synology, which has its own server (I'm not keen on it, but others like it) or you can load Minimserver, which is excellent, but a bit fiddly to set up. I bought a new Qnap and two 3Tb drives recently and it cost just under £500. It's a very quick machine and you can get cheaper. 

Any of these options will play your WAV music perfectly. 

Just checked on the D Link site and evidently it does support WAV files, now I am confused!?

http://www.dlink.com/uk/en/sup...on-the-dsm-320-320rd

Thank you Hungryhalibut, is it just just as simple as me going on ebay and buying a Qnap Nas drive, or do I need a specific one and also will I have to install special software on it.

As you can probably gather, there are rainforest tribes who know more about technology than me!!!!

The type of NAS shouldn't make a difference to seeing the .wav files  but the uPnP server software is another matter, and may be worth trying alternatives, some of which are free.

by way of example, on a cheap,NAS I used to have (Zyxel NSA325) I loaded Logitech Media Serveer, which was free and easy to install from attached computer. It worked OK with Naim ND5XS ( though I can't comment on .wav files as I didn't try. However, now not used for audio other than backup, I use as a video server:  It shows up on a smart TV, Apple TV and computers, and can serve  some video files to them but not all. I also have Plex media server on a computer on the network, and it happily servesall video formats on the NAS.

yes it's likely you can get a better NAS, but I would only worry about that after trying different media servers. I changed my music NAS primarily because it was unpleasantly noisy. I was going to go for a QNAP silent one, but ended up with Mac Mini acting as a NAS with the free Serviio uPnP player, which then led me down the path of a different renderer, but that's another story.

I suspect that WAV files are not tagged properly, so except for a 'folder view' they will be invisible if searched, say, by 'artist'

+ get a proper NAS - as mentioned above: QNAP or Synology.

Christopher Oakes posted:

Thank you Hungryhalibut, is it just just as simple as me going on ebay and buying a Qnap Nas drive, or do I need a specific one and also will I have to install special software on it.

 

As you can probably gather, there are rainforest tribes who know more about technology than me!!!!

QNAP HS-251+

When purchasing drives, check the QNAP website for compatible models. WD makes reliable ones - I recommend getting 2 drives of, say 4 TB each, and setting them up in RAID mode.

Christopher Oakes posted:

Thank you Hungryhalibut, is it just just as simple as me going on ebay and buying a Qnap Nas drive, or do I need a specific one and also will I have to install special software on it.

 

As you can probably gather, there are rainforest tribes who know more about technology than me!!!!

I certainly wouldn't use eBay. I got my Qnap 253a from eBuyer, who are very good. The drives to use are WD Red. I have two 3Tb. 

Adam Zielinski posted:

 

+ get a proper NAS - as mentioned above: QNAP or Synology.

The OP says he hasn't got much money...

My guess is that the .wav files are not tagged in a way that the server on that nas and/or the Naim App can see them.  

When I first ripped all my LPs,  before intending to stream, at that time burning CDs, I ripped to .wav. I knew nothing of metadata, and there was none. Later when I went over to streaming I was led to believe that .wav couldn't carry metadata, and also I wanted the reduced storage, so I converted all to flac.

If the matadata aspect is the issue, then that unfortunately means at least a semi- manual job fixing. Regardless of whether they are kept as .wav. If it is simply .wav that is the issue, it is easy to batch convert to .flac (which will keep any metadata as is) the task of batch converting is not onerous.

Hi Christopher, as suggested above, it's the UPnP media server that is responsible for extracting the meta data from the files and presenting it to the streamer / network player. Of course the ripper such as dbpoweramp will need to have written the metadata in the first place.

Wav files contain metadata using two possible methods which can give added flexibility, however some basic or older software but Apple iTunes is included here as well, have decided to ignore the metadata. I really don't understand the reason why, so it is therefore best to avoid such software if using wav.

Quality UPnP servers such as Asset and MinimServer support extensive wav metadata, so might be worth to see either of those run on your NAS.

if you use Windows right click the wav file and you should see basic metadata in the wav file if it's written (name, artist, album, date) . If you install dbpoweramp you can also see extended metadata as well. If you use Apple, you can only see Wav metadata by installing dbpoweramp.

Simon

First thing - WAV does have all the metadata,  its a myth that it doesn't & I really don't understand why.   I'm all WAV, as are many others & I have yet to have any issues or difficulties with anything to do with metadata. What did you use to rip the CD's as all the ripping software that I'm aware of does all the metadata stuff for you.   You can use that same program to look at & edit the metadata that is contained.     Plus if you've converted some albums WAV to FLAC & it then works,  where did all that metadata suddenly come from ???  

Mike-B posted:

First thing - WAV does have all the metadata,  its a myth that it doesn't & I really don't understand why.   I'm all WAV, as are many others & I have yet to have any issues or difficulties with anything to do with metadata. What did you use to rip the CD's as all the ripping software that I'm aware of does all the metadata stuff for you.   You can use that same program to look at & edit the metadata that is contained.     Plus if you've converted some albums WAV to FLAC & it then works,  where did all that metadata suddenly come from ???  

Although the UPnP server is a bit suspect, I think the issue is elsewhare and tent to agree with Mike-B that we should start looking at the tagging. When I moved from Mediatomb to Asset I had the same problem because MediaTomb dynamically builds tags to send to the streamer based on the directory structure and file name (Artist / Album / Track No. Track title) but Asset doesn't. Since I use EAC to get first rate rips, I end up with tagless files.

The simple solution was to use dbPoweramp and download the tagging filter. I then just selected the root folder for my entire collection of music, described how the folder and file name structure related to basic tags and it then went through and added all the tags to the WAV files and the issue was immedately resolved after rescanning the folder.

Generally tags gets missed off WAV metadata on legacy rippers becase WAV is part of the RIFF file enciding format. And while RIFF allows for an defines a field that can be used for tagging, the WAV specification doesn't explicitly say this and very old devices (that no one is likely to have anymore) would not play a tagged WAV file. The WAV format defines it as RIFF file but gives a list of supported field types, of which the one used for adding tagging in RIFF was not explicitly mentioned in the definition for WAV. The assumption (rightly or wrongly) was made that it was not supported.

IBM, who defined the format never actually published an updated spec clarifying this but common concensus for the past 20 years among developers is that, while tagging is not explicitly supported in WAV:

• All modern WAV parsers will understand the tags
• Any truly RIFF complaint WAV parser that is dead set on ignoring tags should ignore unknown fields so that they don't have any negative impact.

FeelingZen, the original WAV specification published jointly by Microsoft and IBM (Media Programming Interface and Data Specification Version 1.0 : August 1991) does define the RIFF chunk structure of the WAV file, and  includes the List Info construct used for metadata. It is interesting that metadata here is far more extensive and for multiple media types rather than simply audio album/track info... which has also been the issue, as not all the values unambiguously map to attributes used by ID3 in consumer MP3 files.

Therefore about 10 years ago a new chunk type called ID3 was added and started to be used.. This does not appear in the original spec, but has been de facto adopted by many (wav allows chunk extensions to be defined.. It's an open standard in that regard). The ID3 tags mapped to the same values used in MP3. These were more consistent for consumer audio media files.

Therefore many quality consumer ripper / editors will write metadata in both formats in the file and quality media servers ( though not all..) will read them.

Commercial WAV files (for prompt files, and recording files) in my experience use only the original and explicitly defined 1991 ListInfo metadata construct.

Simon

@Simon, regarding the INFOLIST I am aware of this but the crucial thing is it doesn't explicitly state how that chunk should be used and that ambiguity is historically the reason why early software would trip on tagged WAV files and while later ripping software would often omit this in order to provide maximum backwards compatibility.

The new defintion with ID3 tags is a new one. Never knew that.

I disagree the List chunk construct using the Info metadata is clear and there are published attribute extensions such as XMP types defined by manufacturers for specific use. As with all the chunks apart from header and data, they are optional and use depends on application. I was certainly using ListInfo professionally around 2004 for IVR systems in call centres etc. for attribute metadata.

But yes, historically wav metadata was used more for commercial/industrial uses rather than consumer... but no issue on how to use and Info extensions as far as I am concerned..

To your point though, a compliant wav/riff reader should skip over a chunk it doesn't recognize (and this is the same for AIFF as well) it should never trip up. Microsoft Windows by default accesses the List Info attributes for media file attribute identification purposes.

These are the original 1991 List Info WAV attribute types - taken from the standard. I guess at this time CD ripping was just seen as a distant idea..

• Archival Location
• Artist
• Commissioned
• Copyright
• Creation Date
• Cropped
• Dimensions
• Engineer
• Genre
• Keywords
• Lightness
• Medium
• Name
• Palette
• Product
• Subject
• Software
• Sharpness
• Source
• Source Form
• Technician

So you can see why mapping to consumer ID3 attributes was sometimes seen as inexact and why ID3 was introduced as chunk type for consumer use.

@Simon, Fascinating discussion and clearly you have more background specific to this than me. I still think we are talking at cross purposes here. The definition of the LISTINFO items is not the issue. It is how they are used and mapped for metadata which is ambigious. For example the LNAM could be the track or album and LART could be album artist or track artist. These are just taken over directly from RIFF and no actual information on how they should be used in the context of consistent audio categorisation are provided.

Interesting that we both had IVR system design in our backgrounds, though mine was more on the API level for triggering playback based on voice analysis cues (stress, voiceprint etc, as opposed to content) and controlling the logic and at the time not related to the audio files at all.

Hi - the standard does have recommended uses described within - but agree as written in 1991 its not specific on how to apply  to ripped CDs and is generic to multi media - hence the need for tag mapping - so for example  the standard states  ' INAM: Name. Stores the title of the subject of the file, such as, “ Seattle From Above.” '  which I have seen used for track name and ' IPRD: Product. Specifies the name of the title the file was originally intended for, such as “ Encyclopedia of Pacific Northwest Geography.” ' used as the album name.

But yes as these attributes were intended for general multimedia - there is no concept of a specific CD album name - hence why i guess ID3 was additionally introduced for consistency. 

My programming of IVR's was for call flow scripting and IVR API interaction on soft switches. We used the Wav ListInfo attributes to categorise and describe the audio prompt files in the IVR flow including content and encoding details.  We couldn't rely on file name itself. Those were the days  and although MP3 was available - we preferred to use lossless PCM for IVR  prompting.

Thank you all for your help, after reading the above I think I have caused the problem.  When I transferred the files to my new NAS, I thought I would 'tidy up' the folders and I deleted all the sub folders which were empty, I think these were the tags to the files.

I'll try dbPoweramp to sort hopefully.

As Columbo would say 'just one more thing' 

If I do convert the files from WAV to FLAC, will that diminish the quality of the sound? Ie will the sound quality of a WAV file converted to FLAC be the same as if I had ripped my CD's directly to FLAC format. (hope this makes sense)

I ripped my CD's a while ago and donated them all to the local charity shop as I didn't think I'd need them again..... 

Christopher Oakes posted:

Thank you all for your help, after reading the above I think I have caused the problem.  When I transferred the files to my new NAS, I thought I would 'tidy up' the folders and I deleted all the sub folders which were empty, I think these were the tags to the files.

I'll try dbPoweramp to sort hopefully.

Chris, the "tags" are data embedded in the .wav file; they are not external to the .wav files themselves.  (EXCEPT in the case of .wav rips created by a Naim ripper/server such as the HDX or UnitiServe; in that case the tag data is contained in an external .xml file.)  I don't think that you deleted the tag info!