aggregation over multiple sources (NAS systems)

[simoncn]

There is no formal standard for tag names or tag values (such as genre names). The tagging standards allow you to use any tag names and values, subject to some technical limitations (for example, a tag name in a FLAC file can't contain the '=' character).

MinimServer supports all tag names and values, subject to technical limitations of the various tagging formats. Most tagging programs also do this but some tagging programs are more restrictive. Also, most tagging programs (for example, Mp3tag) have some predefined tag names and also allow the user to add their own custom names.

There are online databases (for example, MusicBrainz) containing tag names and values for a large number of albums and songs. The quality of the data is variable, so you can't assume that everything in the database is correct. If you use a program that takes tag values from these databases and applies them to your files (such as SongKong), your tag names and values will match those used by the program.

If you purchase music downloads, the files will come with a small set of standard tags such as Album, Title, Artist, AlbumArtist, Date, Genre and possibly Composer. Beyond these, my advice is to find a tagging scheme that works for the way you browse your library rather than feeling constrained to conform to some supposed industry standard.

[Marcus]

So we started last night (and we're still at it) experimenting with aggregation both with and without specific aggregation functionality on several different NAS systems (qnap, asustore, wd, netgear, the last two are pretty old by now). In our experimentation, we took Simon's solution for granted as we figured that it would work as described. The problem we ran into was the naming of the shares that feed the music library. Our goal became creating a method that would enable using duplicate share names across several NAS systems. The first difficulty came with the older NAS systems, in terms of the latest software functionality. We started trying out some ideas with virtual folders. Later on we installed twonky on 3 servers. Now we found Twonky does indeed have an aggregation feature. We first we thought it would work with installing Twonky on all 4 NAS'es, only. When we set that up, we noticed that it works with MinimServer as well! When Aggregation Mode is activated, Twonky will search and show all mediaservers on the LAN. Now, that did not work particularly well at the first try, because two instances of twonky became stuck in an indexing loop. I think that with right setup, we will be able to create a setup that will allow us to use duplicate share names across multiple systems.

Cheers and thank you, marcus