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Question: How do I speed up navigation in Asset?
Hardware: Fujitsu laptop, used exclusively as DLNA server and SMB server (to copy files to the music library); various DMRs; iOS DMCs.
Software: Asset 5.1/Win 7.
Library: cca 40k tracks/5k albums; FLAC (cca 90%) and APE (10%), most fully tagged; NO artwork/covers/images, etc (not interested).
Problem: Playing music works fine, but navigation is a pain. Loading the various navtrees is very slow, sometimes I have to try several times, due to timeout errors. Most of the time I use "Folders & Filename Browsing", because it's faster and doesn't generate timeouts (so far).
What I've checked:
- Network. Not a factor, enough bandwidth to play 24/192 FLAC flawlessly.
- DMCs/DMRs. Yes, they do make a difference. Some apps are epitomes of bad design (Pioneer, Cambridge Audio); others are much better (Marantz, PlugPlayer, 8player). More powerful hardware helps (current iPad vs old iPod Touch). The same applies to players. But, in the end, even with my best DMC and DMR, navigation is still too slow. (It's faster to get a CD from the shelf and pop it into the CD player, then to navigate and play the same album from Asset.)
So it's all down to server, Asset, and library.
(1) Server. I suppose new hardware would make a difference, but would it really speed up things significantly? Asset's memory/processor cycles requirements are not high. Perhaps storing Asset's database on an SSD would make a big difference?
I'm not very familiar with Windows. Would turning off unneeded processes and background apps have an impact? Where do I find instructions on doing that?
(2) Asset. All streaming is "as is" (no transcoding), no ReplayGain applied, no resizing of album art. Are there any settings I can try to tweak to speed up navigation?
(3) Library. Is my library too big? Perhaps the best thing to do is split up the library. I'm thinking of separating classical music (which, anyway, is browsed differently from jazz, pop, etc) into a separate library. Asset doesn't allow multiple instances of itself, nor choosing libraries, so I'd have either,
(a) to use it with another server (Minim), on the same machine; or,
(b) to get another device (NUC/Mac Mini/QNAP NAS) for the second library.
So what's your advice? What's the most effective way of speeding up navigation in Asset?
TIA
Hardware: Fujitsu laptop, used exclusively as DLNA server and SMB server (to copy files to the music library); various DMRs; iOS DMCs.
Software: Asset 5.1/Win 7.
Library: cca 40k tracks/5k albums; FLAC (cca 90%) and APE (10%), most fully tagged; NO artwork/covers/images, etc (not interested).
Problem: Playing music works fine, but navigation is a pain. Loading the various navtrees is very slow, sometimes I have to try several times, due to timeout errors. Most of the time I use "Folders & Filename Browsing", because it's faster and doesn't generate timeouts (so far).
What I've checked:
- Network. Not a factor, enough bandwidth to play 24/192 FLAC flawlessly.
- DMCs/DMRs. Yes, they do make a difference. Some apps are epitomes of bad design (Pioneer, Cambridge Audio); others are much better (Marantz, PlugPlayer, 8player). More powerful hardware helps (current iPad vs old iPod Touch). The same applies to players. But, in the end, even with my best DMC and DMR, navigation is still too slow. (It's faster to get a CD from the shelf and pop it into the CD player, then to navigate and play the same album from Asset.)
So it's all down to server, Asset, and library.
(1) Server. I suppose new hardware would make a difference, but would it really speed up things significantly? Asset's memory/processor cycles requirements are not high. Perhaps storing Asset's database on an SSD would make a big difference?
I'm not very familiar with Windows. Would turning off unneeded processes and background apps have an impact? Where do I find instructions on doing that?
(2) Asset. All streaming is "as is" (no transcoding), no ReplayGain applied, no resizing of album art. Are there any settings I can try to tweak to speed up navigation?
(3) Library. Is my library too big? Perhaps the best thing to do is split up the library. I'm thinking of separating classical music (which, anyway, is browsed differently from jazz, pop, etc) into a separate library. Asset doesn't allow multiple instances of itself, nor choosing libraries, so I'd have either,
(a) to use it with another server (Minim), on the same machine; or,
(b) to get another device (NUC/Mac Mini/QNAP NAS) for the second library.
So what's your advice? What's the most effective way of speeding up navigation in Asset?
TIA
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