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+-- Forum: MinimServer (/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Music Tagging (/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: Display trakck artist for compilation albums (/showthread.php?tid=2040)
Display trakck artist for compilation albums - GPOJim - 15-12-2014 21:12
I've very recently installed MinimServer on my QNAP NAS so am new to the product.
I've seen this question asked and answered several times in the forum but I've not understood some answers and tried to apply others without success.
I have chosen to have the <n>Albums view divided alphabetically.
When I select <n>Albums from the top level, then the first letter, then the compilation album I see the list of tracks.
But the artist shown against each track is the album artist (usually 'various artists') and not the artist performing the track.
When I choose the AllArtists view from top level I see that the track is correctly shown against the track artist's name indicating that the metadata field is correctly filled.
I'm sorry to put this question yet again but if anyone can walk me through a fix for this I would be delighted. Twonky by the way, also installed on the NAS and working on the same folder set of music, gives the correct track artist name when an album is selected.
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Server: QNAP NAS running MinimServer 0.8 update 42.
Control point: various, including Panasonic Viera smart TV, and several Android apps all give the same result.
Renderer: Panasonic Viera and a number of Android devices.
RE: Display trakck artist for compilation albums - simoncn - 16-12-2014 00:27
(15-12-2014 21:12)GPOJim Wrote: I've very recently installed MinimServer on my QNAP NAS so am new to the product.
I've seen this question asked and answered several times in the forum but I've not understood some answers and tried to apply others without success.
I have chosen to have the <n>Albums view divided alphabetically.
When I select <n>Albums from the top level, then the first letter, then the compilation album I see the list of tracks.
But the artist shown against each track is the album artist (usually 'various artists') and not the artist performing the track.
When I choose the AllArtists view from top level I see that the track is correctly shown against the track artist's name indicating that the metadata field is correctly filled.
I'm sorry to put this question yet again but if anyone can walk me through a fix for this I would be delighted. Twonky by the way, also installed on the NAS and working on the same folder set of music, gives the correct track artist name when an album is selected.
---------------
Server: QNAP NAS running MinimServer 0.8 update 42.
Control point: various, including Panasonic Viera smart TV, and several Android apps all give the same result.
Renderer: Panasonic Viera and a number of Android devices.
This usually means the control point is not implementing the UPnP protocol correctly. For compilation albums, MinimServer sends the following XML tags to the control point:
<upnp:artist role="albumArtist">Various Artists</upnp:artist>
<upnp:artist>The Track Artist</upnp:artist>
If the control point doesn't parse the 'role' XML attribute, it interprets this XML as if it were the following:
<upnp:artist>Various Artists</upnp:artist>
<upnp:artist>The Track Artist</upnp:artist>
and it then ignores the second value for artist, so you end up with:
<upnp:artist>Various Artists</upnp:artist>
This doesn't happen with Twonky because Twonky uses an incorrect XML tag "upnp:albumArtist" for album artist, as follows:
<upnp:albumArtist>Various Artists</upnp:artist>
<upnp:artist>The Track Artist</upnp:artist>
These tags dosn't have any role attributes, so the control point reads these two values correctly. The control point is compensating for Twonky's incorrect usage by adding code to handle the incorrect "upnp:albumArtist" tag (which isn't part of the UPnP specification).
MinimServer implements the UPnP specifications and uses standard tags only. This works with any control point that implements the UPnP standards.
You mentioned that you have tried some Android control point apps. if you install BubbleUPnP (an excellent control point app for Android), you should see these albums displayed correctly.
RE: Display trakck artist for compilation albums - GPOJim - 16-12-2014 19:43
Many thanks to simoncn for a very clear explanation of the likely problem and for the pointer to an Android app that interprets the XML correctly.
I have installed BubbleUPnP and it works correctly; showing 'Various Artists' against the album and the correct individual artists against each track.
The control points that I have used, and that got it wrong, were:
- Panasonic Viera 'smart' TV
- MediaHouse Android
- Panasonic Music Stream Android
- Sony Walkman Android
As these are mostly mass-market products (especially the TV) it makes me wonder whether we might suggest to the developers of MinimServer that they could incorporate a 'switch' to force it to send the wrong data so that it becomes compatible with devices that interpret the standard wrongly. I appreciate that the MinimServer interpretation of the standard is correct, but the reputation of MinimServer could be affected by the incorrect interpretation by popular products.
Thanks again to simoncn
RE: Display trakck artist for compilation albums - simoncn - 16-12-2014 20:55
(16-12-2014 19:43)GPOJim Wrote: Many thanks to simoncn for a very clear explanation of the likely problem and for the pointer to an Android app that interprets the XML correctly.
I have installed BubbleUPnP and it works correctly; showing 'Various Artists' against the album and the correct individual artists against each track.
The control points that I have used, and that got it wrong, were:
- Panasonic Viera 'smart' TV
- MediaHouse Android
- Panasonic Music Stream Android
- Sony Walkman Android
As these are mostly mass-market products (especially the TV) it makes me wonder whether we might suggest to the developers of MinimServer that they could incorporate a 'switch' to force it to send the wrong data so that it becomes compatible with devices that interpret the standard wrongly. I appreciate that the MinimServer interpretation of the standard is correct, but the reputation of MinimServer could be affected by the incorrect interpretation by popular products.
Thanks again to simoncn
Thanks for the feedback and this suggestion.
As the developer of MinimServer, the reputation I would like to see for MinimServer is that it implements the standards correctly and enourages developers of other software to do the same. The only exception would be if the standards don't support some important capability, which doesn't apply in this case.
I appreciate that some users might not see things this way and might think there is a defect in MinimServer because it doesn't work with some other software, even though the defect is actually in the other software.
If all products violate the standards to interoperate with other products that also violate the standards, the standards become weak and meaningless. If some products stay true to the standards and as a result they influence other products to also be true to the standards, the standards become stronger. I am committed to the latter approach.
RE: Display trakck artist for compilation albums - alexinc - 28-01-2015 19:29
just want to add samsung smart tv and their home theatre systems to the list of devices that only show album artist as artist on compilations...
