Alternative to Auto-Conversion for DLNA server?

[tom@harlin.com]

I've got a spiffy new home receiver that has the ability to browse and play from a DLNA server. I also have my library organized with MediaMonkey Gold (of course). The catch is all of my music is kept in a lossless format that isn't compatible with the DLNA client. No problem, that appears to be what the Auto-Conversion configuration is for.

However, I haven't gotten that to work in this case. It appears that the client times out before the file gets converted (pretty quickly, within a couple of seconds). This actually happens with other DLNA clients, such as Windows Media Player, so it doesn't seem to be a problem with the receiver. Plan B is to simply keep a second copy of the library in a compatible format. Hey, drives are cheap. There are other reasons to do this too - The receiver's DLNA client browsing is better if some of the tags are removed from the media files.

But how to manage the synchronization? The behavior I want is to have a network drive location that has auto-synchronization set up in MM exactly as if it were a removable USB drive. MM seems to be a bit fancy there, though, and recognizes the difference between a removable device and network drive, even if it is mapped to a drive letter.

Suggestions? In case this matters, I'm using the latest MM beta as of this date, 4.1.0.1685.

[nohitter151]

I think auto-conversion is the way to go here, solving that is going to be easier in the long run than managing two libraries.

Generate a debug log and report your issue in the beta-testing section.

[Lowlander]

Tag display issue has a request: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=8742

[dtsig]

To be fair that mantis issue appears to have been around since 2011. Another 'forgotten' issue?

The ability to define output for dlna would be wonderful. I know that something like this can be/will be done in magic nodes but again this is something that should be part of this great product. Anyone see the South Park Episode Simpsons Already Did It? That is like the cry ... you can do it in MN <G> (just kidding still love MN)

[Peke]

This is talked about See http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=10254

[tom@harlin.com]

Interesting about the configuration proposal for DLNA media types - My situation is a little different. Getting a smidge off-topic, but one reason why maintaining a "DLNA-friendly" copy is desirable is to remove tags so as to cater to the browsing deficiencies of the client (in this case a Yamaha Aventage receiver). 99% of my audio is full albums, and I (and the rest of the household) browse by genre, then album artist, then album. The DLNA client insists on showing track artist instead of album artist if that tag is present, thus fragmenting all jazz albums not to mention soundtracks and other compilations. Simply clearing the artist tag works perfectly well, but obviously I don't want to do that on the master libarary.

But I'll debug the auto-conversion further as suggested - Maybe that will help out others even if I stick with the manual transcoding method.

[Lowlander]

I (and the rest of the household) browse by genre, then album artist, then album. The DLNA client insists on showing track artist instead of album artist if that tag is present, thus fragmenting all jazz albums not to mention soundtracks and other compilations.

The browsing structure should be presented by the server not the client. Thus it would be Genre > Artist > Album as that's how MediaMonkey presents the Genre node. You should be able to create Genre > Album > Artist > Album using Magic Nodes: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... agic+nodes

[tom@harlin.com]

Just to close the loop on this discussion, I was able to get this working exactly as you kind folks advised. First, it turns out that auto-conversion depends on the client being able to play the media as it is being created, in other words you need to use a streaming-compatible format. MP3 and AAC work well here, but I was trying to do this with WMA on the misguided theory that the transcoding would be more efficient.

And while daunting in its complexity, Magic Nodes also did just what I wanted. By creating just a single "node" (which is really a path) of Genre -> Album Artist -> Album and then using that for the DLNA server source, the client navigation behaves in a much more natural fashion.

Cheers!