Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

[tillig]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

Well, for now I can stick with LPCM since getting it to work in Xbox is more important than PS3.

Perhaps a future version of Asset might allow multiple installs on the same Windows Home Server? I wouldn't mind running one to force Wave and one to force LPCM. (Of course, if you could run two copies of Asset at once, it'd be nice to have control over the name so when you're browsing the list of servers one could be like "Asset LPCM" and one "Asset Wave" or something.)

Regardless, this is really cool! Thanks!

[zweep]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

Hi,

I am new here but have spent the last few days trying to get a new WHS up and running. I have tried a few SW items (eg Twonky came with my WHS but has major problems). I have had fairly good luck with Asset in the last couple of days. It is working reasonably nicely for me. You may find this info valuable and maybe I could get a pointer or two of how to improve things.

All my music is in FLAC format ripped in last couple of days with dBpoweramp.
I have latest beta of Asset running on an HP MediaSmart Server LX195 (WHS). Asset is set to force FLAC to WAV (otherwise WMP does not work). I added playlists to Asset Audio Library.

My equipment and status:

HP MSS LX195 - running WHS and Asset
Denon 3808 - plays fine, but no album art, playlists partialy work
DirecTV HR21 - plays fine, but no album art, playlists partialy work
PS3 - plays fine, album art is also fine, playlists partialy work
WMP - plays fine, album art is fine, playlists do not work

Playlists - I added a playlist and it shows up on the Denon, HR21, and PS3 but not WMP. The play list 'works' and plays all the items but the song title shows up as the filename and the rest of the fields are blank (album, artist,...). All I did to create the playlist was create a .m3u file and list several files in it which corresponded to the .flac files I wanted to play together. I am new to creating a playlist (all of this is new actually), is there a better way to create one or do you lose all the details on song title, album, artist, etc when using a playlist?

Folders & File Browse - can not seem to get this to work. I added both "Folders" and "File Browse" to the Browse tree. They show up on my Denon, but are empty. Am I missing something?

Can I get some advice?

Thanks!

[sandrat]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

Hi Spoon

Was wondering how you went with my previous query regarding being able to add a full album under the folders and filename browsing.

I have another query and this may be completely unrelated to the beta release, but i have a sneaky ds, not using cara, and seem to be unable to play music previously ripped in itunes that have a file designation of .m4a (MPEG 4), i have installed the dpoweramp codec m4a but i cant get it too play, any thoughts, i thought i might have to use the force function as the sneaky not capable (i thought it was) so i tried forcing to wave and mp3 those ACC and MP4. Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

[msilverz]

Asset Service Problem

Apologies if this problem has already come up.

The Asset service runs automatically when Windows starts up. (I'm using Vista Ultimate.) However, after a Windows reboot--even though the service is running--my PS3 cannot find the Asset media server. However, if I then run the Asset configuration program and select "Restart" there, the media server appears on the PS3.

Any ideas about what might be going wrong? I shouldn't have to run the configuration program every time Windows restarts, should I?

Matty

[msilverz]

Re: Asset Service Problem

I discovered another strange issue with the Beta release yesterday. When I stream MP3 files to my PS3, Asset ends playback (and skips to the next track, if there is one) anywhere between 5 seconds and 2 minutes before the track is actually over. Strangely, this only happens with MP3 files. Much of my collection has been converted to Windows Media, and all of those files play perfectly.

[paulwa]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

I'm using R2 beta on a WHS (home built) with a Roku Soundbridge. The auto playlists play fine. My own M3U playlists can be found and listed correctly when scrolling through them, but the tracks won't play. There's a mix of MP3 and AAC files. If I scroll through one of my playlists and choose "Get info" instead of "Play tracks", the info field is completely blank. Any ideas?

[bhelton]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

Hi,

I am new here but have spent the last few days trying to get a new WHS up and running. I have tried a few SW items (eg Twonky came with my WHS but has major problems). I have had fairly good luck with Asset in the last couple of days. It is working reasonably nicely for me. You may find this info valuable and maybe I could get a pointer or two of how to improve things.

All my music is in FLAC format ripped in last couple of days with dBpoweramp.
I have latest beta of Asset running on an HP MediaSmart Server LX195 (WHS). Asset is set to force FLAC to WAV (otherwise WMP does not work). I added playlists to Asset Audio Library.

My equipment and status:

HP MSS LX195 - running WHS and Asset
Denon 3808 - plays fine, but no album art, playlists partialy work
DirecTV HR21 - plays fine, but no album art, playlists partialy work
PS3 - plays fine, album art is also fine, playlists partialy work
WMP - plays fine, album art is fine, playlists do not work

Playlists - I added a playlist and it shows up on the Denon, HR21, and PS3 but not WMP. The play list 'works' and plays all the items but the song title shows up as the filename and the rest of the fields are blank (album, artist,...). All I did to create the playlist was create a .m3u file and list several files in it which corresponded to the .flac files I wanted to play together. I am new to creating a playlist (all of this is new actually), is there a better way to create one or do you lose all the details on song title, album, artist, etc when using a playlist?

Folders & File Browse - can not seem to get this to work. I added both "Folders" and "File Browse" to the Browse tree. They show up on my Denon, but are empty. Am I missing something?

Can I get some advice?

Thanks!

I can answer part of the playlist question:
If I understand correctly you created a 'simple' m3u file - which is essentially a list of files

Z:\A Perfect Circle\Mer De Norms\01 - The Hollow.mp3
Z:\A Perfect Circle\Mer De Norms\02 - Magdalena.mp3

What you probably want is the 'extended' m3u file which has a little more data (well - title primarily and run time)

*blooper*EXTM3U
*blooper*EXTINF:179,The Hollow
Z:\A Perfect Circle\Mer De Norms\01 - The Hollow.mp3
*blooper*EXTINF:246,Magdalena
Z:\A Perfect Circle\Mer De Norms\02 - Magdalena.mp3

or alternately a PLSv2 file - which is structured a lot like an ini file:

[playlist]
NumberOfEntries = 2

File1=Z:\A Perfect Circle\Mer De Norms\01 - The Hollow.mp3
Title1=The Hollow
Length1=179

File2=Z:\A Perfect Circle\Mer De Norms\02 - Magdalena.mp3
Title2=Magdalena
Length2=246

Version = 2

I tried 1 pls in asset and it was recognized as a playlist but no items were added - not sure if that means its unsupported ?

That won't help obviously with album, year, artist, etc - but I don't think asset supports the other formats that support that data (mrss or xspf come to mind)

[paulwa]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

I'm using R2 beta on a WHS (home built) with a Roku Soundbridge. The auto playlists play fine. My own M3U playlists can be found and listed correctly when scrolling through them, but the tracks won't play. There's a mix of MP3 and AAC files. If I scroll through one of my playlists and choose "Get info" instead of "Play tracks", the info field is completely blank. Any ideas?

Following up on this, I've tried re-saving my M3U files in UTF-8 formate, then as M3U8 files, and also as "extended" M3U files using Winamp. It doesn't make a difference to the outcome. The Roku shows the playlists, though I note that the songs listed are shown as file names, which won't play.

[ocoro02]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

Running on Vista Business. If I 'Size Ablum Art 16x160' then images appear blue tinged. Possibly the reds are replaced with blues as mentioned here by someone else:

http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=2280&pid=22777*blooper*pid22777

[zweep]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

Thanks bhelton

Your posted helped... I was able to get rid of the filenames and have it display the proper titles. it would be nice to get artist, album, etc but as you say, it looks like that is not part of .m3u or .pls playlists....

[Spoon]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

@Bhelton

"And lastly on my search I am doing upnp:class = "object.container.album.musicAlbum" - but it also returns the [A - Z] container which I didn't expect. Wasn't sure if that was intentional ?"

Yes as design right now as any search is pushed into the album tree. Asset v3 will re-write the search routine.

The album art provisioning can be fooled (an internal static list is created bashed on album artist and album), again for r3 the internals of Asset will be re-written as the envelope of what is does far exceeds the initial design.

[Spoon]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

@zweep

Playlists in wmp - wmp is a different sort of upnp browser, in that it does not brwose the trees asset provides instead it reads everything in one go. I have not look how it is getting the playlists.

As far as metadata for playlists, we would have to live pull from the files - if you have 30 items in a playlist it could be done, but 300 items in a playlist there are issues with control points expecting a return within a few seconds...

[Spoon]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

@sandrat

>Was wondering how you went with my previous query regarding being able to add a full
>album under the folders and filename browsing.

Still on the todo

>"I have another query and this may be completely unrelated to the beta release, but i have a sneaky ds, not using cara, and seem to be unable to play music previously ripped in itunes that have a file designation of .m4a (MPEG 4), i have installed the dpoweramp codec m4a but i cant get it too play, any thoughts, i thought i might have to use the force function as the sneaky not capable (i thought it was) so i tried forcing to wave and mp3 those ACC and MP4. Any help would be appreciated "

You would have to force m4a to wave (current ds cannot play aac), also if the tracks are purchased m4p then they will not play.

[Spoon]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

@msilverz

>"The Asset service runs automatically when Windows starts up. (I'm using Vista Ultimate.) However, after a Windows reboot--even though the service is running--my PS3 cannot find the Asset media server. However, if I then run the Asset configuration program and select "Restart" there, the media server appears on the PS3."

It is likely that asset is starting before the computer has an IP address from your router, I will add a delay in startup of 30 seconds - for now you can go into services and change the startup from automatic to automatic (Delayed Start)

About the mp3 file which finishes early - the PS3 has a bad design (IMHO) in that it will only play to the reported length of an item, so if you had a vbr mp3 file, but with no vbr header the exact length cannot be known without uncompressing the whole file (and the ps3 want that information when browsing the tree, not on file serve). First make sure you are on the latest Asset beta as there were fixes done in there area.
For that mp3 file, hold the mouse over it, dbpoweramp will popup the length - if it is the correct length shown then please send to me.

[Spoon]

Re: Asset UPnP (DLNA) Release 2

@paulwa

>"I'm using R2 beta on a WHS (home built) with a Roku Soundbridge. The auto playlists play fine. My own M3U playlists can be found and listed correctly when scrolling through them, but the tracks won't play. There's a mix of MP3 and AAC files. If I scroll through one of my playlists and choose "Get info" instead of "Play tracks", the info field is completely blank. Any ideas?"

I know what is happening here, I will check our handing (the roko has a different method of playback than most upnp devices).