Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

[kaled]

I primarily use Asset UPNP with my HEOS multiroom system.
It works great. However, one small annoyance I have is that for compilation albums with the album artist marked as various artists, the 'artist' field doesn't show when navigating albums via the heos app, or on the display of heos devices (those that support it).
I've checked the option in the settings menu '[artist] - [title] for Various Artist album tracks: for compilation albums and control points which do not show the individual artists, this option adds the artist name into the title'
I know that the heos system should be able to correctly show the artist name since if I use the music server built into my synology nas, it correctly shows the artist.
Any suggestions on asset ipnp configuration?

[Spoon]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

What happens if you use this to browse:

https://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?20897-Asset-Control

[kaled]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

Thanks, and installed.
When I navigate to an album with various artists, it shows the track number > track name > artist

[Spoon]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

Then it is heos system which is displaying album artist over artist.

[kaled]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

That what I thought, but then another music server (Synology Audio) is correctly showing the artist field, rather than the album artist field. Is there another field in FLAC that should also represent the artist e.g. is there a 'performer' field?

[Spoon]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

Because this other music server does not give out album artist ever, there are players which actually use this field correctly so would not be right to remove it.

[kaled]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

Because this other music server does not give out album artist ever, there are players which actually use this field correctly so would not be right to remove it.

yes, that makes sense.
I've raised a feature request with Denon regarding this.
It did strike me though, whether there is any currently functionality, or future functionality in Asset UPNP that can map a tag field from one place to another. In this scenario to map artist to album artist when playing / displaying track?

[IdrisRoberts]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

I had similar situation using an AssetNas server.
I corrected the problem by leaving the Various Artist column blank, and providing the compilation setting is ticked, it works for me.
I use a Naim streamer to play the music and my Various Artist compilations show the artist and song title correctly.

[Spymaster]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

I'm having the exact same problem - and unfortunately it's not as clear cut as affecting "Various Artists" albums only. A soundtrack album, for example, may be credited to a single composer but also contain 1 or 2 songs. So the album artist is X, as are most of the tracks, but 2 additional tracks may be artists Y and Z. HEOS treats the whole album as artist X and puts that name against every track. Of course, if X is "Various Artists" then that's what it puts against every track. Cambridge Audio's StreamMagic app does the same thing. It's really frustrating.

[kaled]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

I had similar situation using an AssetNas server.
I corrected the problem by leaving the Various Artist column blank, and providing the compilation setting is ticked, it works for me.
I use a Naim streamer to play the music and my Various Artist compilations show the artist and song title correctly.

@idrisroberts could elaborate on this. What do you mean by leaving the Various Artis column blank and providing the compilation setting is ticked?

[kaled]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

I had similar situation using an AssetNas server.
I corrected the problem by leaving the Various Artist column blank, and providing the compilation setting is ticked, it works for me.
I use a Naim streamer to play the music and my Various Artist compilations show the artist and song title correctly.

@IdrisRoberts could elaborate on what you mean by leaving the Various Artist column blank, and providing the compilation setting is ticked?

[mville]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

HEOS treats the whole album as artist X and puts that name against every track. Of course, if X is "Various Artists" then that's what it puts against every track. Cambridge Audio's StreamMagic app does the same thing. It's really frustrating.

Im my experience hi-fi manufacturers haven't a clue when it comes to software/firmware. These are not uncommon issues and something I experienced with Apple, iTunes and the iPod Classic 160Gb, which Apple never resolved.

The way forward would be for the HEOS and StreamMagic developers to fix display issues with Various Artist albums and tracks, or at least comment on their reasoning.

[simbun]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

Unfortunately I don't have a HEOS system to test this with, but have you tried using a normal UPnP control point e.g. BubbleUPnP? Someone suggested this works (requires using the HEOS app to configure the zones though), which means you'll see your native UPnP server browsing tree.

If you don't want to move outside the HEOS app (or the above doesn't work), have you tried using MinimServer? MinimServer allows you to modify tag values or remove them completelty without affecting the underlying files e.g. You could remove the AlbumArtist tag, or change its value to Artist e.t.c.

Apologies for suggesting a competing product, and I don't know if it'll work for you, but why these systems have chosen not to have a compliant UPnP implementation I don't know; I would gladly get some of the NAD/BluOS wireless devices but not given their limited tag support.

[Spymaster]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

Im my experience hi-fi manufacturers haven't a clue when it comes to software/firmware. These are not uncommon issues and something I experienced with Apple, iTunes and the iPod Classic 160Gb, which Apple never resolved.

The way forward would be for the HEOS and StreamMagic developers to fix display issues with Various Artist albums and tracks, or at least comment on their reasoning.

I'm delighted to say that, after months of nagging, Cambridge Audio has fixed StreamMagic so that album artist and track artists are showing correctly. However HEOS is still wrong and Denon haven't replied to my ticket. It seems impossible to get hold of anyone who might help.

[Spymaster]

Re: Various Artists Compilation album display artist name with Heos

Interesting observation:

When streaming to HEOS from Synology's own media server, the "track artist" is displayed against each track correctly (via AssetUPnP the album artist is displayed against each track). So HEOS is reading THAT properly.

Could this be an issue with Asset, or UPnP in general, after all? Or a setting that can be tweaked?