Album Art

[billzab]

Would like to add my findings here as I have been playing around with album art a lot lately so that it all looks good on Songbook.

I had a lot of album art that was wrong. i.e. wrong size and even wrong covers selected by RipStation. One thing I found out was that if you are taking the Album art from Amazon, don't take it from the large image as it puts a white border around it and it then looks small when displayed in Songbook (and possibly other controllers).

After changing/correcting my art, I found that it didn't matter what I did with twonky 4.4.11 as far as rescans, rebuilds, etc. it did not change the displayed art to the new file. The only way I could get it to work was to rename every file that needed changed from Folder.jpg to anything else, do a rescan (allowing it enough time to complete), going back and renaming back to Folder.jpg and a further rescan. Only after that did things start to display properly. Not sure why this should be, but this was the only way I could get around it.

Hope this helps someone.

Cheers, Bill.

[Sound Hound]

Hi Bill,

I have not tried what you suggest, but certainly will next time Ripstation attaches the wrong art - which it does surprisingly often. As I may have said previously, adding art is no problem, but changing it IS. My method of re-ripping forcing no art, then adding art after works every time (so long as there are no apostrophes etc - well documented by Bri et al). Getting art from Amazon works well - if there is a white border around the image, which is quite common, I use a photo edit app to crop it down - it takes very little time. It's a real pain having to do all this BS though !!

[DS Nathan]

Briain Wrote:Hi

The correct ReadyNAS file is here: http://www.twonkyforum.com/unsupported/4...4.4.11.bin

As you can see, it is a binary (ends in .bin) and you can't simply run it as you would with a Windows exe file (if you could, that would be incorrect as running it on the PC would try to install it on the PC; you want it installed on the NAS).

Don't worry though, the upgrade process is really easy to do:

Open ReadyNAS Frontview either by typing its IP address followed by /admin into your browser (like 192.168.1.10/admin) or by using RAIDar to find it.

Select System (left menu) then Update then Local (one of the tabs) then browse to the file (TwonkyMedia_4.4.11.bin) and select Upload and verify image.

Once uploaded, you'll see that it's Twonky and can then hit the update button

After a minute or so, you will be directed to the reboot page where you select Shutdown and reboot then hit the Apply button (bottom right).

After it has booted up, finished the installation and finished rescanning the library (the activity light has stopped flashing) which could take 20 mins or longer (if it's a large collection), reboot the NAS once again (you can do this much later but remember to do it sometime today or the NAS won't hibernate properly; best to do it now so you don't forget).

Once booted, if you select the internet radio tickbox (Twonky config pages) and do a full database rebuild, you will find you now have internet radio as well!

Hope that makse sense; it's pretty easy but please ask if you are unsure of any of the above (send PM to alert me if you have a question).

Bri

I have twonky 4.4.5 i think. Will i be charged if i move to 4.4.11?

Cheers

[Sound Hound]

Hi DS user,

I carried out the above upgrade last night - no charge requested - the link takes you straight to the download. But be advised 4.4.11 does not seem to handle playlists other than Last or Most played. Only on reversion back to my 4.4.6 was I able to get my personal playlists back. Beware of "upgrading" !!

[Briain]

Hi

People must be getting really confused by which version of Twonky to use so to try and help address this, below is a history of the various versions and a brief summary of my understanding as to what they can, and indeed can’t do. It looks like the best versions are TMS 4.4.6 or TMS 4.4.9 (or possibly 4.4.11) but unfortunately, this choice depends on what you most require; saved playlists or radio.

My understanding of Twonky Media Server (TMS) version history and key deliverables is as below:

Below TMS 4.4.4, artwork wasn't supported.

TMS 4.4.4 - TMS 4.4.6 worked with art (but there are bugs) and worked with saved playlists.

To avoid getting too techincal, Shoutcast then suddenly changed their radio delivery 'format' (they actually changed the API) which broke the internet radio capability.

Twonky released TMS 4.4.9 which fixed the internet radio but this caused problems with saved playlists. Possibly also very slightly more artworks had problems than with 4.4.6.

Twonky released Twonky Media Manger 1 (TMM1) along with Twonky Media Server 5 (TMS5)

The above caused a licence problem in that whilst TMS5 licence worked with all versions of TMS4, some people bought TMM1 licences which didn't work with TMS4.

TMS 4.4.11 was brought out which accepted either TMS5 or TMM1 licence keys.

I'd heard that TMS 4.4.11 had the playlist issue sorted but it seems that this is not the case (I never use them and thus hadn't noticed).

TMS5 has major problems in that it cannot handle large collections and in that it no longer has a configurable music tree (essential for our use). TMS5 does have some of the tag issues sorted and the composer tag issue has been fixed (but TMS5 must be avoided until the other, more key issues have been fixed).

My findings were that TMS 4.4.11 mostly seemed to handle art slightly better than TMS 4.4.9 but that it seems to have another art bug (it sometimes drops a picture which it had already picked up; very odd). Others have reported that TMS 4.4.11 does not handle art as well as TMS 4.4.9; I've yet to figure that one out.

Summary

If you want internet radio to work, you need TMS 4.4.9 (or possibly TMS 4.4.11) but these will not pick up saved playlists.

If you want to use saved playlists, you need TMS 4.4.6 (but it will not work with internet radio).

I hope the end result will be TMS5 with a configurable music tree and with the database fixed (to handle large collections) and know that they are working towards these goals.

Hope that helps in making the decision on which version best suits your own personal requirements. It's very frustrating as all the bits are in place but they are scattered across several versions; if you combined all the good bits from the various versions, it would be excellent. As I say, let's hope that can be done sometime very soon!

Bri

[TomBK]

Hi Bri

Just want you to know(again), that I truly respect the way you administer/deal with this issue, as well as all the other threads you post in. I just don't hope that you take "our" problems too seriously! We are hopefully all grown ups and therefore capable of coping with these minor problems!!! I can still play my music, cover art or not and it sounds bl..dy great - no, fantatstic! Thanks to the guys at Linn!!!

In short, please don't let these issues keep you awake at night If however you are related in a businesslike manner to these problems - then it is up to you how you deal with them

But nevertheless - keep up the good work and please do keep us informed

[Sound Hound]

TomBK Wrote:Hi Bri

Just want you to know(again), that I truly respect the way you administer/deal with this issue, as well as all the other threads you post in. I just don't hope that you take "our" problems too seriously! We are hopefully all grown ups and therefore capable of coping with these minor problems!!! I can still play my music, cover art or not and it sounds bl..dy great - no, fantatstic! Thanks to the guys at Linn!!!

In short, please don't let these issues keep you awake at night If however you are related in a businesslike manner to these problems - then it is up to you how you deal with them

But nevertheless - keep up the good work and please do keep us informed

Spot on ! - Thanks Briain. I'm sure you'll Let us know just as soon as TMS5 arrives (Then we can all get started identifying the bugs in it )

[Briain]

Thanks folks! I'm not linked to these companies in any way and my interest is simply that I'm a technical person so have a natural drive to investigate these things, and that I like to get things to work well in my own system.

Since it was raised though, I'll 'declare my interests' as they say (but don't do) in politics. I do have some very minor involvement in this business though: having recently taken a voluntary release package from my technical/commercial desk job (difficult to explain what I actually did but it involved everything from new-wave network products for the mobile phone industry, microwave radio links, utility company networks and anything bespoke which vaguely involved radio), I do now occasionally work with a good friend (a Linn dealer) to help out with some installations (mostly AV stuff) which apart from the occasional IT/NAS technical bits, involves lots of crawling about in attic spaces, on roofs (antenna work, but I’m qualified to climb up high radio towers so that’s cool) and this week even involved digging up a garden and burying duct with CAT5 and coax in it; just great fun to get my hands dirty again!

Having spent so much time sorting things out for my own knowledge and my own system, it seems sensible to post some tips simply to save others having to reinvent the wheel (or more often put the wheels back on the wagon).

Bri

NB I have arranged to send a copy of my FLAC library to TM such that it can be used to check an issue I have with TMS5; I've stopped causing chaos in the comms business but am now becoming an international menace in the media industry

[vicdiaz]

Wow! I was wondering were you worked at since you spent a huge amount of time 'debugging' TMS 4 & 5. If things were more 'positive' in the local banking industry I'll even offer you am IT Manager position here in the Caribbean, but I'm sure that you're enjoying what you're doing now (I would!)

[Briain]

Hi Vic

That would be very tempting; it's rather cold here in Scotsvilles!

Bri

NB Though I did have a working interest in IP etc, my main 'network' experience was more to do with neutrally hosted platforms for other comms operators (like radio over fibre, distributed antenna systems, radiating feeders in tunnels and wireless access). Eventually I was involved more with the bigger picture (things which didn't even involve radio) but most of my knowledge working on things like tags and TMS comes from simply experimenting with it. Before I did all the above network stuff, my job was commissioning new equipment/systems (for a while, I even commissioned the multiple (diversity) large microwave dish systems on links over tidal water; that was the best job as it involved van loads of expensive test equipment and lots of really cool scenery). This means I have a natural tendency to do everything I can to find out how to 'break' things, then really wish I hadn't, then have to fix them again quickly (and before anyone finds out). The only snag is that I'm still like that, but now I'm doing it with stuff I've actually paid for myself; that's maybe not so wise!!