DLNA Navigation [#8740] FIXED

[KEP]

!!!!!!

I was kidding! But that's great. You saved me a google.

Thanks much...

[Milquetoast]

Excellent suggestions, Lowlander. I'm really quite excited about the DLNA/UPnP capabilities, as I don't have to run a separate server anymore. It's not that it's BAD as-is, but I think just a couple of tweaks and it could be really awesome.

[KEP]

I've been thinking on this for a while and have added the following to Mantis.

Well, I got the XBox talking to MM4, and for video it's very cool. (Though it *sucks* major CPU on the server! Would need to double my cores if I wasn't watching the movie. )

But for music? It's nuts! Endless lists. So now I'm even more in agreement that something needs to be done to aid navigation through a large library (~88k tracks, here).

[Lowlander]

I strongly suggest you go the Playlist route. I only use AutoPlaylists for playback and it works wonderfully.

[Scott]

I strongly suggest you go the Playlist route. I only use AutoPlaylists for playback and it works wonderfully.

Nohitter151 mentioned that as well. Is there some way to get Autoplaylists to break up tracks into chunks of 200 or so? Or do you just mean you know in advance which tracks you'll want available via DLNA, rather than making everything available?

I've been messing with this for days and I can't find a way to make my whole collection available via DLNA. I have gotten magic nodes to work under DLNA in theory, but in practice it's not manageable.

I think the best solution would be to use the Location node as Nohitter151 suggested, but unfortunately I have a lot of Virtual CDs. The Location node treats each Virtual CD as a location, and the root node where I'd actually navigate to tracks appears after all of them. That's past the 1000 item DLNA limit, so it doesn't appear on the client. Is there an option to make MM not consider a Virtual CD as a location?

[KEP]

I strongly suggest you go the Playlist route. I only use AutoPlaylists for playback and it works wonderfully.

Child of the 60s/70s. Albums are my "playlists" of choice.

I mean, I do have a few, to run "endless" Christmas music, and so on, but for the most part it's just not something I'd use.

Different strokes, eh? ::shrug::

[Lowlander]

I have a few random playlists based on Genre/Rating that I choose from. I don't need to play specific Artists/Tracks. I do have one manual playlists where I can add songs in MediaMonkey itself so the DLNA client has quick access to them. You'd need to prepare what you'd want to listen to in MediaMonkey itself, but it works much faster than through most DLNA clients.

[KEP]

Yeah, I understand. I'm just not quite that organized, it seems.

[Milquetoast]

Child of the 60s/70s. Albums are my "playlists" of choice.

I mean, I do have a few, to run "endless" Christmas music, and so on, but for the most part it's just not something I'd use.

Different strokes, eh? ::shrug::

Have to agree with you on that one. Some might say I'm too lazy to create playlists, but in my mind I shouldn't have to create playlists for things I already have broken down into neat little chunks (artist -> albums) in my library. It has the potential to get seriously out of control, and then all of a sudden playlists become just one more thing I need to maintain on top of everything else.

I'm an impulse listener. I just decide what I want to listen to, and then I play it. In my mind, planning out ahead of time what I'm going to listen to takes away some of the thrill from hearing something I haven't heard in a long time.

[KEP]

I'm an impulse listener. I just decide what I want to listen to, and then I play it. In my mind, planning out ahead of time what I'm going to listen to takes away some of the thrill from hearing something I haven't heard in a long time.

Well put!

[Lowlander]

I'm an impulse listener.

To workaround the current limitations you'd just need to create/add files to the playlist just before you're going to listen to it on the DLNA client. You'd still be able to be somewhat impulsive. And this would be needed until node configuration becomes customizable as requested.

[Scott]

To workaround the current limitations you'd just need to create/add files to the playlist just before you're going to listen to it on the DLNA client. You'd still be able to be somewhat impulsive. And this would be needed until node configuration becomes customizable as requested.

Well for me that defeats the purpose of DLNA. If it were convenient to add files to the playlist just before I want to listen, it would be convenient to just use MediaMonkey to listen in the first place. If I knew in advance what I wanted to listen to, I wouldn't need DLNA at all.

Did you catch my question above about the Location Node? My collection is well-organized, so if the Location node weren't cluttered by Virtual CDs I could navigate with that. Is there a setting somewhere that tells MM not to treat Virtual CDs as Location nodes?

[Lowlander]

I don't think so/not sure. The criteria Status doesn't have Not in VirtualCD as option. But maybe with criteria Path you can force to just look for normal files.

[Scott]

I don't think I understand - where do I specify criteria for the Location node?

[Lowlander]

You can change the Collection criteria (or create a new Collection) under Tools > Options > Media Tree. As criteria you could try Path.