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Author Topic: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues  (Read 4484 times)

Djon

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uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« on: March 01, 2008, 07:07:21 am »

I am trying to decide between buying Twonky or J River Media Center 12 and really want J River to be the winner as I already use the Media Jukebox.

However I have a few issues concerning the uPNP plugin when used with XBMC on my XBOX.

Is it not possible to create your own nodes? If I for instance wanted something else than the standard

Hip Hop*
Metal*
Pop*
Techno*
Artist/Album
Disc Location

etc.
*my genres


For instance I don't want all the genres just lying in the root on the same level as the other nodes. I want something like:

Artist/Album
Genres
Top 100 listened
Newest entries

Can this be setup?

Also, when I go into an album the songs are sorted by filename and not by track number, which is very impractical.
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John Gateley

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2008, 07:35:23 am »

You can create your own view schemes (make sure they are visible in theater view) to show your media as you wish.

j

Djon

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2008, 08:02:20 am »

I can't quite see how I can sort by track number instead of alphabetical. Could someone show me an example?
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Matt

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2008, 09:26:11 am »

I can't quite see how I can sort by track number instead of alphabetical. Could someone show me an example?

Try sorting things the way you like in Standard View.  You can click column headers to sort, or pick "Customize Current View" for a more powerful editor.

UPnP should use the same sorting afterwards.

Let us know how it goes.
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

Djon

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2008, 10:12:19 am »

I don't think clicking the column headers in the Windows program does much good for XBMC via uPNP. It's sorted correctly here, but I think the problem is that uPNP does not send the track number to my Xbox, because the track number is not shown anywhere.

I can click

Foo Fighters

this will show

ALL
In your Honor
One By One

I then click One By One which will show:

All My Life
Burn Away
Come Back
Danny Says
etc

which is alphabetical. I need it to show:

1. All My Life
2. Low
3. Have It All

by track number, but I have no clue how to do this either with column headers or the view schemes as that option just does not seem to be there.
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Matt

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2008, 10:24:43 am »

JRiver Media Center provides the track list to the UPnP device.  We should sort using the sorting defined in the view scheme.  You can change this sorting the ways I described.

It's possible the XBMC sorts (again) the files and disregards the ordering we give it.

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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

John Gateley

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2008, 10:28:37 am »

Matt beat me to it. Some UPnP devices apply their own sorting rules, ignoring the sorting that we do. I'm not sure if this is the case with xbox or not.

You can also add columns to any view scheme (such as track number).

One way to test what is going on is to make a network sniff, described here:
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Sharing_Plug-in_Debugging_Hints

Read the sniff and see if what is being sent is in the correct order.

j

Djon

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2008, 09:39:04 am »

Okay... can we agree that you can only set sorting as Ascending or Descending?

And for me it sorts by track name and not by track number. which is the whole problem and I have no idea where to change it.

If I made a scheme looking like this:

Album Artist
Album
Track #

I would click this artist:

Foo Fighters

this will show

ALL
In your Honor
One By One

I then click One By One which will show:

1
2
3
4
etc

when I click 1 I get

All My Life


That's just one click too much. The part where I click the track number AND THEN click the track title isn't what I'm looking for.


Am I the only one that wants albums to be sorted by track number or does it just happen automatically for everyone else?
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John Gateley

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2008, 09:50:57 am »

Take the track # out of the view scheme.
Click on the view scheme so you can see some files, click on the header, and add the field for track number.
Then click on the header track number so that is the sorting order.
Then give it a try on the xbox.

Let us know...

j

John Gateley

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2008, 11:07:23 am »

I just tried this (Roku, not XBMC), and tracks play in track order, not alphabetical.

Look for options controlling sorting on the XBMC...

j

dajackel

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2008, 10:57:26 am »

Hello!
Can you say me, how do you configure MC to work with XBMC. I see that the upnp Server is connecting with xbmc, but when i want to connect from xbmc it doesnt work.
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Seviien

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2008, 10:48:11 am »

Hello!
Can you say me, how do you configure MC to work with XBMC. I see that the upnp Server is connecting with xbmc, but when i want to connect from xbmc it doesnt work.



I'd also find a quick primer on this helpful.
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Robo983

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2008, 01:58:34 pm »

I got this working once but quit using with my XBMC but can't remember why and for the every google search I do and searches on this forum I can not find the link to the configuration needed to work.

I am going to send SteveC a PM and see if he will post to this thread. He is on the XBMC forum and this one seems to have been posting since late 2006 regarding this and can maybe share some stuff with us.
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Seviien

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2008, 08:47:32 pm »

I got it working!

It was basically a firewall issue.  That plus MC had issues auto detecting XBMC, so I had to fiddle with the UPnP settings.  Last played and play count updates work.  I even got it to sort (most stuff) properly.  The GUI on XBMC is freakishly skinnable, and the skin used appears to have some impact on the sort ordering.  When sorting by "file" using the "project mayhem iii" skin, view schemes sort the way they're supposed told in MC.  But there are a couple wrinkles:

1.  playlists do NOT sort the way MC tells them to.
2.  top level view schemes like "Audio, "Images" and "Video" still show up even when they're set to not appear in theatre view.
3.  coverart is no where to be found.

Could someone on the jriver side check to see if (1) and (2) are on the MC side?  I've spent the day with this, and I think everything is in line from the XBMC side.

Has anyone gotten coverart to work with XBMC?
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John Gateley

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2008, 09:57:15 pm »

1) This is a common problem - I can't verify for XBMC, but often the UPnP device will sort the results MC sends it, thus trashing the MC order.

2) Yep. The top four, "Audio", "Images", "Video", and "Playlists" are hard-coded into the UPnP server...

j

John Gateley

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #15 on: April 02, 2008, 09:58:16 pm »

I got it working!

Oh yes: Congratulations!

j

Seviien

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2008, 10:11:17 pm »

1) This is a common problem - I can't verify for XBMC, but often the UPnP device will sort the results MC sends it, thus trashing the MC order.

The odd thing, though, is that things other than playlists sort fine.  All levels of the view schemes work the way they're supposed to.  I'll try to do a little more homework on the XBMC side to see if there's a way to remove any and all sorting, but I thought I was seeing something fishy, and wanted to come here first.

Thank you for your help, John.
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SteveC

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #17 on: April 03, 2008, 05:15:32 am »

I am going to send SteveC a PM and see if he will post to this thread. He is on the XBMC forum and this one seems to have been posting since late 2006 regarding this and can maybe share some stuff with us.

I'm afraid I abandoned JRiver as XBMC's library improved sufficiently to almost make the rather useful schemes and views redundant.  However, for what it's worth, I don't recall anything specifically difficult about making the connection in the first place.  It pretty much worked uPnP out of the box as I recall.  Sorry.
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Robo983

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #18 on: April 03, 2008, 09:18:28 am »

Thanks Steve, I think the redundancy was what I remember why I quit using it but do not remember any problems other than having to check or uncheck some specific boxes on the options in MC. I can not remember on playlists if the smart list showed in XBMC.

One problem I always had with XBMC was in older revs I had to keep separate playlists with the full path of the media (\\Office\Music\...M3U). I discovered during testing the UPNP that the new version of XBMC actually played the relative path m3u playlists I export from JRiver and store in my network share for my HH. Since I have discovered how to sync HH with MC and have it automatically store the m3u with the sync I do not export them now from MC. So, I need to check into this again to see how playlist show on the XBMC.

I use to have the D-Link DSM320 and I could completely see how this would be the only way to go if I was still using it since there would not be any redundancy to the menu tree. Setting up the menu tree is a little more complicated in the XBMC as it is an xml that you have to FTP. If your network shares change or you want to add one it is rather invovled. It would be much easier using MC UPnP to add the media to its library.
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Robo983

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Re: uPNP and XBMC, a few issues
« Reply #19 on: April 03, 2008, 09:32:47 am »

I am trying to decide between buying Twonky or J River Media Center 12 and really want J River to be the winner as I already use the Media Jukebox.

Oh, Djon surely you can't be serious that Twonky comes close to JRiver  ;).

I suppose if you are only looking for the best of breed UPnp maybe Twonky has something JRiver doesn't but for the price of Twonky vs JRiver you get way more capabilities with JRiver but if you are using XBMC doesn't seem it would be worth it to go with Twonky. It looks like Twonky is strickly UPnp. If you ever decide to abondon your UPnP device and go HTPC, MC is there for you. If you ever want to do some kick ass midia library management MC is there. Anyway I am a little biased.
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