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Messages - zigzag10

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1
I’m a massive fan of MB and I like to be able to export m3u playlists from this to a UPNP music server running on a NAS.  Most of the time MB performs this task admirably, but occasionally I’ve noticed that the music server doesn’t display the first track that features in playlist it’s exported.  

I first noticed this when it ought to have been one by R.E.M. so initially guessed this may be due to certain characters not being supported by m3u.  I tried m3u ascii, m3u #EXT and even m3u8 as well as pls playlists, but none of this was to any avail.

I then loaded a m3u #EXT playlist comprising the track (which was refusing to display) into MP3tag from its ‘Playlist’ options changed ‘Extended Write info’ from ‘%artist% - %title%’  to  ‘%album% - %track% - %title%’ and resaved the playlist file.   As my NAS uses Linux that then had to be modified to ensure it followed the unix path convention (/) et al, but then bingo – the UPNP Server correctly displayed the playlist, starting with the one by R.E.M.!!  I got there in the end!

Maybe I missed something and this particular issue has already been addressed in MB.  The solution I came upon isn’t great.  Ideally, if a m3u #EXT playlist was wanted, there would be an option to change its title mask to ‘%album% - %track% - %title%’.

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Plugins / Re: UPnP/ DLNA device support
« on: October 12, 2020, 03:04:22 PM »
Yup, the likes of SWYH could be used, but that’s going to be limited to PCM L16 and I doubt you’ll have ‘gapless playback’.  Though a good quality third-party UPnP audio server can overcome these limitations, so how about setting one up, that sits alongside MB, instead?  In this case MB remains to mange your collection and is used for local playback et al, while a UPnP audio server (together with a control point) take care of streaming to the DLNA\UPnP device.

IMHO both Asset UPnP and Minimserver are excellent in this regard, as is Linn’s Kazoo Server, which incidentally can easily replicate the contents of MB, including playlists, as it supports the XML library file.  (To enable this, you will need to link Kazoo Server to the XML file MB generates if the ‘export the library as an iTunes formatted XML file’ is selected, but this is a straightforward process).  From what I recall Universal Media Server features this capability as well and its open source...

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Questions / Re: How to convert ACC to MP3/M4A.
« on: April 22, 2020, 01:27:08 PM »
I think fre-ac can convert raw Acc files and whatsmore its free - https://www.freac.org/

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Questions / Re: Does the UPnP plugin work for you?
« on: March 26, 2020, 05:48:45 PM »
I’m a long-standing user of the plugin and have had very few issues with it, though have only enabled it to play content to a pi (with an attached DAC running Moode Audio) acting as an UPnP renderer.  I need to caveat that as the plugin has never been good if ‘output as continuous stream’ is selected, meaning no gapless playback.  Having said that only an exceptionally small number of audio players can actually perform credible gapless playback to a UPnP renderer, and I simply like MB for so many other reasons.  Yup, there’s a couple of components in Foobar2000 which enable it to feature gapless playback using the OpenHome protocol.  One day I’m hoping a developer will step forward and do a similar OpenHome plugin for MB, enabling it to act as an OpenHome UPnP client / control point.   I keep my fingers crossed…

Incidentally, if you want to get a machine to act as an UPnP renderer, I suggest you try OpenHome Player, which is free, easy to setup and IMHO very stable. I’ve only tried the PC version of the player, but there are versions for Mac, Linux and Pi as well: http://openhome.org/pages/use/index.html

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Questions / Re: Copy Ratings to Synology Audiostation
« on: February 02, 2020, 01:39:46 PM »
I have just started to sort out my collection add tags and ratings Music Bee is nice and easy to use but I have eveything on my Synology NAS drive and although it is updating most of the meta data it does not appear to import the ratings to audio station which is what I am using to take my music on the go using my phone to download over wi-fi.

I would like to rate in Music bee then pick out 4-5 star tracks so that it is easier to manage and update to the phone but I can't at the moment does anyone have any ideas that could help?

Thanks

The capabilities of Synology’s Audio Station (aka ‘DS Audio’) is actually pretty limited.  As far as I can tell the only way you’re going to be able to use it to pick out the 4/5 star rated content, is by using MB to create an m3u playlist comprising these tracks and then to copy this file to the music folder on your NAS.  Good instructions on how to achieve this are given here:  https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/10607/Copying-your-iTunes-Playlists-to-a-Synology-NAS-box.html

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Plugins / Re: UPnP/ DLNA device support
« on: January 27, 2020, 10:02:39 AM »
>you can already change the output device to one of the other UPnP devices but i guess you mean output the same sound data to multiple devices at the same time in which case the answer is no, i am not willing to do that

Hi, can I ask why this isn't possible? Most poeple will nowadays have more than one streaming speaker spread about their home. The lack of an option to choose all or some of these speakers seems like a massive misstep. To be able to do so from a pc would be e brilliant piece of functionality to have. It would be really good to have this.

Cheers,

Jason.

Yup, a small number of audio manufactures have developed extensions to the DNLA/UPnP protocol enabling music to be played to multiple devices, but generally this only works within their own bespoke and typically costly eco-systems.  Good examples of this are Linn with Songcast and HEOS by Denon.  So, the mainstay of devices and software that can utilise DNLA/UPnP don’t have this feature and IMHO this has nothing to do with MB, or indeed this plugin.  

However, and this completely untested on my part, but perhaps what you’re looking for could be achieved by using a combination of TuneBlade (http://www.tuneblade.com/) and AirCast/AirUPnP (https://sourceforge.net/projects/aircast-airupnp/)  The former  will  enable you playback music to multiple airplay devices, and if I get it right the latter is intended to make UPnP/DNLA devices into airplay receivers.  Worth trying??

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Questions / Can ‘Picture Type’ for embedded artwork be displayed?
« on: January 07, 2020, 12:54:31 PM »
All my artwork is embedded and MB has no issue in displaying this.  However, not all this artwork is displayed in other devices and/or programs and I think I’ve established that this is maybe due to no value being assigned to ‘picture type’ – that’s to say, in certain cases this field doesn’t contain ‘Album Cover’ etc.

I know it’s possible to view this field in mp3tag with the syntax %_cover_type%, can it also be displayed in MB?  I have incidentally used the Album Artwork Manager, but as far as I can tell this utility doesn’t display this info. 

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Thanks, psychoadept and Zak for the suggestion and comments.  Not what I had in mind, but opening a playlist in a tab is definitely a good alternative, which I'm sure will achieve the same goal.
 
Incidentally the playlists I now intend to open in tabs are 'auto playlists' which have the function of filtering out a particular genre, while the tabs I will shortly customise will be devised so as to only display the sub-genres associated with that genre - something I've been able to achieve by using custom tags.  MB is brilliant  :)

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Plugins / Re: UPnP/ DLNA device support
« on: January 06, 2020, 01:14:38 PM »
It's disabled. I had tried enabling it for testing and then it doesn't work at all. :-\

Sorry that you’re still having difficulties with the plugin.  I’m not its developer and what I suggested in my earlier post was purely based on what has worked for me.
 
Here’s a further suggestion: if you haven’t already, install Bubble UPnP Server and use it to set your DLNA audio device up as an OpenHome renderer.  Then go into the plugin settings and make sure ‘Generic device’ is selected as the DLNA device profile. Having done that restart MB and see whether you can now playback music to the audio device.

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I’ve got quite a few custom tabs, some of which I use frequently, once I’ve selected a particular playlist.  I don’t know if it’s possible, but it would be great if such a playlist could somehow be associated with what I deem is an appropriate custom tab; so that if I then select that playlist MB would automatically display the custom tab its associated with.  Can this be done?

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Plugins / Re: UPnP/ DLNA device support
« on: January 04, 2020, 10:03:11 PM »
Hi everyone,

Great Plugin! However, at the moment, I'm running into either one of two issues:

- loud white noise in the middle of playback
- playback just stops all together

Attached is my log file just after a white noise incident.

Any suggestions what I could do?

Many thanks!



In the plugin settings I don’t know if you’ve got ‘Output as a continuous stream’ selected?  If you have try unselecting it.  In my case, with this option unselected, I get a reliable connection to my UPnP audio device and the plugin doesn't cause any stability issues for MB.

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I use the UPnP plugin and have noticed that when I’ve selected output to my UPnP device (a raspberry Pi/DAC running Moode Audio), I’m unable to fast-forward or rewind some FLACs that have been encoded with MBs built-in FLAC converter, as developed by Xiph.org.
  
A quick google indicates the issue has crept up on several other audio players as well, leading me to conclude that it could be caused by a bug with the converter itself. Maybe I'm wrong to think that but if the tracks I’m having an issue with are instead encoded with dBpoweramp’s Music Converter, which if I get it right comprises a modified version of Xiph’s FLAC codec, or with the MediaHuman Audio Converter, which uses ffmpeg, fast-forward and rewind works just as it should.
 
Ok, so I can get around this issue by using a different converter, but I would much rather use MB for all encoding.  Please, could anyone advise if this issue could be overcome by modifying MBs FLAC encoding parameter, or whether it’s somehow possible to get ffmpeg to carry out the FLAC conversion process within MB instead?
  
Any pointers or suggestions will be really appreciated.

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i believe that its better not to convert existing tag, but instead define new custom tag, which is stored in music files, then copy values from 1st custom tag to the second tag. to copy tags use this plugin:

https://getmusicbee.com/addons/plugins/49/additional-tagging-amp-reporting-tools/


many thanks boroda, I'll try what you suggest

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I’ve mistakenly being storing sub-genres as several custom tags in MBs database and as I’ve no started to use some other software that can handle this info I really want to transfer the sub-genres (contained in the custom tags) so that they feature in individual tracks.  That’s to say, rather than forming part of MBs database I would like the sub-genres to be contained, as metadata, in my music files.

I’ve read various threads about creating custom tags, but couldn’t find anything about this particular issue.
 
I had concluded that it would just be a matter of creating a ‘new Custom Tag Definition’ and then changing ‘the save to music file as tag’, from ‘Save to MusicBee Database Only’ to the appropriate custom tag; and while this caused my collection to be rescanned, the process failed, with only a very small number of custom tags being converted across to the music files.  Fortunately, on that occasion I had backed up MB so nothing was lost, though I would now like to have another go at this, and this time get it right.  Has anybody any pointers? Am I missing something?

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Plugins / Re: UPnP/ DLNA device support
« on: November 27, 2019, 05:00:18 PM »
Brilliant plugin - many thanks Steven for developing it.  I use it solely to steam content to a raspberry Pi/DAC running Moode Audio and have had absolutely no issues with it.

Incidentally, I'm using its Generic Profile and by changing the upper range of the output sample range to ‘192,000’ and the maximum bit depth to ‘24’ I’ve made it capable of streaming HD Res Flacs, so I'm well happy!  As far as I can tell, the default setting for the plugin converts such tracks to a 16-bit PCM stream.

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