by yamaha » Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:59 am
[quote="khelsing"]Some of you obviously haven't fully understood the concept of MediaMonkey's method of sharing media (which is
UPnP-AV/
DLNA).
Talk about how to win friends and influence people!
I have the same sorting problem, and a hint. I have a Yamaha rx-a1010, and apparently they have no idea how uPnP works either, since the track list comes up sorted wrong using MM. Of course, it I use Twonky media server, the track list comes up in the right order, so I guess khelsing should write to both companies and set them straight.
The sort order is not random. It is based on the filename (not the real filename but the index to the track that is used to build the url). You can see it by setting up a second MM, opening the first MM's library using it, and making sure that the "filename" column is visible. If you sort an album's tracks by this mess, the order will match the incorrect order you're seeing in the dlna client. You can do the same thing using WMP as the client. Twonky also has these indexes for the filename, but my Yamaha still gets the track order correct.
Now why would the dlna client (my Yamaha, in my case) sort by this goofy thing? I'm guessing because it can't determine the file type from the metadata that MM sends, so it doesn't think it should sort on track. Why it would try to sort on filename as a fallback is beyond me, but maybe it doesn't have anything else to work with. Perhaps in some cases, MM isn't even sending the audio object's metadata at all. This obvioulsy isn't always the case, because some clients are getting it. Perhaps it depends on the specifics of the query method.
If I open the MM library in WMP, and display the TYPE column in the track listing, I notice that sometimes the TYPE is flac, while other times this column is emtpy. I have 2 MM's installed, and one always has this column set, while the other doesn't. Perhaps there's something else I'm doing to cause this that I haven't deduced, like how I'm getting to album track listings, but I don't think so. Very confusing, and I imagine it would be to a client. However, using either server ends up with the wrong sort order.
For those of you with receivers, set up a Twonky server and see if it solves the sorting issue. I wouldn't recommend using it instead of MM (assuming this issue gets resolved), the interface is clunky compared with MM and it's not really designed well for sharing music, but at least you can reassure yourself that your $500-$5000 receiver is actually working.
For MM, if you can use MM as a dlna client and sniff the metadata, perhaps you can compare the output from Twonky versus MM. If there is a way I can do this with some logging option, I'd be happy to have a go. It would be part 1 of making MM really useful to those of us with AV receivers. (Part 2 would be to get MM media descriptors (the index url stuff) compatible with WMP. I can use WMP to see a MM library, and do a "play to", but when it tries to play, it gets an error trying to get the media (I'm guessing this has to do with a res that is slightly out of spec, but just guessing). This same setup works with Twonky, which means I can use WMP as the DMC for Twonky serverd files. It would be sweet to do that for MM as well, until you guys get around to putting DMC into MM.)
[quote="khelsing"]Some of you obviously haven't fully understood the concept of MediaMonkey's method of sharing media (which is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play#UPnP_AV_standards]UPnP-AV[/url]/[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Living_Network_Alliance]DLNA[/url]).
Talk about how to win friends and influence people!
I have the same sorting problem, and a hint. I have a Yamaha rx-a1010, and apparently they have no idea how uPnP works either, since the track list comes up sorted wrong using MM. Of course, it I use Twonky media server, the track list comes up in the right order, so I guess khelsing should write to both companies and set them straight.
The sort order is not random. It is based on the filename (not the real filename but the index to the track that is used to build the url). You can see it by setting up a second MM, opening the first MM's library using it, and making sure that the "filename" column is visible. If you sort an album's tracks by this mess, the order will match the incorrect order you're seeing in the dlna client. You can do the same thing using WMP as the client. Twonky also has these indexes for the filename, but my Yamaha still gets the track order correct.
Now why would the dlna client (my Yamaha, in my case) sort by this goofy thing? I'm guessing because it can't determine the file type from the metadata that MM sends, so it doesn't think it should sort on track. Why it would try to sort on filename as a fallback is beyond me, but maybe it doesn't have anything else to work with. Perhaps in some cases, MM isn't even sending the audio object's metadata at all. This obvioulsy isn't always the case, because some clients are getting it. Perhaps it depends on the specifics of the query method.
If I open the MM library in WMP, and display the TYPE column in the track listing, I notice that sometimes the TYPE is flac, while other times this column is emtpy. I have 2 MM's installed, and one always has this column set, while the other doesn't. Perhaps there's something else I'm doing to cause this that I haven't deduced, like how I'm getting to album track listings, but I don't think so. Very confusing, and I imagine it would be to a client. However, using either server ends up with the wrong sort order.
For those of you with receivers, set up a Twonky server and see if it solves the sorting issue. I wouldn't recommend using it instead of MM (assuming this issue gets resolved), the interface is clunky compared with MM and it's not really designed well for sharing music, but at least you can reassure yourself that your $500-$5000 receiver is actually working.
For MM, if you can use MM as a dlna client and sniff the metadata, perhaps you can compare the output from Twonky versus MM. If there is a way I can do this with some logging option, I'd be happy to have a go. It would be part 1 of making MM really useful to those of us with AV receivers. (Part 2 would be to get MM media descriptors (the index url stuff) compatible with WMP. I can use WMP to see a MM library, and do a "play to", but when it tries to play, it gets an error trying to get the media (I'm guessing this has to do with a res that is slightly out of spec, but just guessing). This same setup works with Twonky, which means I can use WMP as the DMC for Twonky serverd files. It would be sweet to do that for MM as well, until you guys get around to putting DMC into MM.)