Onkyo Net-Tune & ID3v2 tags

[ArmyEarl33]

I have the Integra DTR 7.3 and noticed last night (while searching for a specific artist) that Net-Tune was skipping about 1/2 of my MP3 files in the database creation (about 1500 songs).

Took some work at it this morning, didn't see it anywhere on the website or in the forums, so figured I'd post why in case anyone else now or in the future has this issue.

I'd noticed that Windows Explorer showed different information in the file properties window for accepted files vs. unsupported files. The unsupported files would only show 44khz and stereo while the accepted would show track info. But I knew there was track info, because I use MusicMatch to build all the tagging, and reloaded my MusicMatch library a few times to ensure the tags were built.

Apparently Net-Tune does not support MP3s with ID3v2 tagging, only v1. So I used MP3 Book Helper, a freeware GNU program, stripped the ID3v2 tags, and now it reads every one of the files, no problem. I had tried building fresh ID3v2 tags with Helper, and it still wasn't read by Net-Tune.

While searching, noticed that some people mentioned how annoying the interface is on the receiver. It is, especially how uncertain the joystick works, sometimes it 'enters', sometimes it moves up or down. But I found using the OSD on my screen makes it easier to quickly navigate the album/artist lists, and when to press 'left' to jump back to list because of an inadvertant 'enter'.

Earl

[Andrew67]

Did you happen to have album art along with the ID3v2 tags? I know that Net-Tune does not support MP3's with embedded art.

[ArmyEarl33]

Nope, I've been keeping the album art as 'folder.jpg' in the applicable album folder. One thing I have to be careful of is that MusicMatch defaults to using the v2 tag version, so I will probably have to use MP3 helper to revert the tags after putting the CDs on my harddrive. About the only difference in MusicMatch is it won't add the jpg to the little box on the player, not that big an issue to me.

Sure would be nice if they had added the streaming of pictures to Net-Tune. Considering that most companies are charging $100+ for their standalone devices, if they'd added streaming pictures and video to the same transport mechanism as the Net-Tune, it would really make the Integra/Onkyo receivers more attractive at their price point.

Earl

Quick Edit: Might have misunderstood your leading question at first. That might be why Net-Tune didn't like alot of my MP3s with v2 tags, because Musicmatch had automatically associated album art with them as I ripped the CDs.

[Andrew67]

Originally posted by ArmyEarl33
Sure would be nice if they had added the streaming of pictures to Net-Tune.

There's alot of things I wish Onkyo would do with Net-Tune. A start would be publishing the protocol between the receiver and the server. I get tired of having to reverse engineer things whenever I want to add new functionality. I'd like to write my open source server, preferrably tied directly into iTunes. I've developed work arounds to add my own radio stations, and scripts to import the the iTunes database into Net-Tune. I just don't have the time to tackle the server and reverse engineer it as well.

[NVboy]

Originally posted by ArmyEarl33

Quick Edit: Might have misunderstood your leading question at first. That might be why Net-Tune didn't like alot of my MP3s with v2 tags, because Musicmatch had automatically associated album art with them as I ripped the CDs.
All of the MP3's I've ripped over the years have been done so using different software, which I tend to change on a regular basis. I've never done anything with album art, just pure music rips. I run Net-Tune quite often, and it reads/displays all of my files just fine.

Andrew,

If you can ever figure out how to update or modify the server address from within the hardware, let me know.

[guido5059]

Wow!! I just stumbled across this forum after months of googling about net-tune to no avail. I have an Onkyo TXNR-801 and I have my Net-Tune Central software set up to run as a service on my file server that has all my MP3s. It works great except there is no way to browse MP3s by directory listing. The software didn't do that great of a job reading all my ID3 tags so I'm forced to go through and edit most of them manually. (I have over 100,000 MP3s). So effectively, it is very difficult to find the song I want to play on my stereo.

Andrew67, I'd love to find out how you added your own radio stations. I wish they would just open source this software so someone could come up with something better.

[Andrew67]

Originally posted by guido5059
Andrew67, I'd love to find out how you added your own radio stations. I wish they would just open source this software so someone could come up with something better.

I'll give you the quick run down, but I'm at work and don't have all the details.

Here's what I did... In the receiver, change the DNS servers to point to a local machine that's running it's own DNS and http servers. Add a DNS entry so that www.xiva.net points to your local web server. Write a server script (I've done this already, just need to find them) that will return a list of radio stations to the Net-Tune receiver. The Xiva (net-tune) servers are simply web servers that return XML files containing a list of radio stations. I used a port sniffer to to capture the format of the XML files. Saved a copy of the xml files, added my own stations, and use the server script to return my custom xml files with my own radio stations. I hope you can follow this, it's sort of pieced together and is a bit of a "kludge". One downside to this is that to listen to your custom stations, you always need to talk to your web server. When you add a station to the receiver presets, it doesn't store the IP address in the preset, but an station index that corresponds to the XML files. So if you shurt off your web server and use the Xiva servers, then you'll be listening to some random station.

I'll try to put together a better write up and post all of my files for you, along with my script that converts the iTunes music database to a Net-Tune database. This makes it much easier to manage playlists, edit mp3 info, etc..

I could also give you the URL for my web server so that you could point to that instead of setting up your own. You'll still need a DNS server though.

If you don't hear back from me in a few days, feel free to bug me. I may have forgotten about this post.

[guido5059]

Can you post a copy of your XML file? I have my own DNS and web server and I created a forward lookup DNS zone for www.xiva.net. All I need now is the XML file.

I tried using ethereal to do a packet capture but it didn't show very much.

[bshor]

Have there been any recent updates to the Net-Tune Central software?

[Wellsie]

There is a version 2 available from Onkyo now. Being a new member I can't post the link for another 5 posts so look below...

[Wellsie]

post 2...

[Wellsie]

post 3...

[Wellsie]

post 4...

[Wellsie]

post 5...

[Wellsie]

Here is the link to the Onkyo Net-Tune Central download page (http://www.us.onkyo.com/download/download_nettune.cfm) where you will need to choose your download region and enter your product serial number.

They really should be using the UPnP/AV protocol now rather than their own.

[bshor]

Wellsie, thanks!

Wow, what a re-write! The previous GUI looked like it had been written by an amateur programmer in the US for his first year English course...

This one looks much, much better, and the help is written far more clearly.

There still seem to be bugs. In the Net-Tune Library Manager, I see my imported music files, and they can be sorted by different columns, but the "Album", "Artist", "Genre" and "Playlist" tabs are empty.

Oh, and I havn't been able to successfully play music on my NR801 yet (it worked fine with the older software) Still working on that... :(

Finally, it appears to be implied from the text of the help file that copy-protected WMAs CAN be played with this version of the software, but only from the computer on which they are registered. The wording is confusing, though -- I could be wrong.

Here's the text from the help file:

[FONT=courier new]Content protection for WMA format files
When you record your CDs in the WMA format using software including Windows Media Player, the recorded WMA files with the content protection enabled can only be played on the PC you use for making those WMA format files. And those WMA files cannot be played, copied digitally, or converted into other digital format files on the PCs other than the one above for the purpose of content protection. When you make WMA format files with the content protection enabled on a PC, other PCs or playing devices will be recognized as unsupported files in regard to content protection, and those WMA format files can be played only on the PC you create them. However, when the created files are played for private use only (for example, when using the Net-Tune system to play WMA files), you can create the WMA files with the content protection disabled and use them. Before creating the WMA files, be sure to check the content protection setting.[/FONT]

[bshor]

Got the software to work. Took a lot of fiddling in the receiver setup and stopping/starting the server a bunch of times, but works beautifully. Wonderful to hear your music in Dolby Pro 2 Music mode on all your speakers ... !

Still doesn't play super-high bitrate WMA (>224Kbps). I guess that's a receiver limitation. I would imagine, but havn't tested, that this would be the same with lossless WMA.

Maybe XBox Media Center is the long-term solution. But how can it sound better than the built-in media receiver in our Onkyos and Integras? It certainly won't produce Dolby PL2, will it?

[guido5059]

Does anybody know of a way to import the old database into the new Net-Tune Central software?

I have over 10,000 MP3s and Net-Tune Central has a hard time reading the ID3 tags on about 80% of them. Many would show us as "Unknown Artist," etc. Back in the pre-2.0 days I found I was able to import the libext.tsv file (the MP3 database) into excel and manually edit the missing artist/album/title information by hand. This was MUCH easier than trying to use the horribly-written and buggy database editor. Anyhow, I had my database almost completely finished and to a point where I was happy with it. I "upgraded" to 2.0, which really just installed alongside the old appliction and found that it uses a completely different format.

Also, the help wasn't very informative on the "Starts the server automatically when the PC starts up" option. Does this install Net-Tune as a service? I ask that because it asks for a username and a password to "register to the task scheduler." I'm running Net-Tune Central on a Windows 2003 file server that contains all my MP3s. Again, back in the pre-2.0 days, I used srvinst to manually register NCentral.exe as an NT service. This was done so I didn't have to stay logged onto the server all the time and so it would have some level of fault tolerance after a power outage. (the service would automatically start after the server rebooted without requiring someone to physically log onto it)

[bshor]

Hmmm. Sounds like maybe it would be better to get some program to go through all your MP3's tags and convert them? Something like what was discussed earlier in the thread? There's got to be something like that out there.

[Dwomel]

I just upgraded to 2.0 and now I can't get the music server to connect up. I know I have connectivity since I can ping and use INet stations but I can't get it to connect. Although I didn't have a XP Firewall setup the help files talk about configuring 4 services that allow the internet to access them. In that setup it asks for an IP address of where these services are running. Should that be the IP address of the DTR7.4 or the pc running Nettune. Bshor-do you have any hints how you got yours going? Did you have to configure these services?
Guido-It does appear to add an executable as a service but I don't think it's ncentral.exe. It doesn't appear that you have to be logged on for it to launch it.

[bshor]

I didn't set any IP addresses (nor any port forwarding for that matter). My Onkyo is set to get an address automatically from DHCP. I have XP SP2, and set the 4 files as exceptions to the firewall. I think you only need to do this when you have a firewall.

I didn't do anything special. Actually, since I recently manually stopped the Net-tune server and restarted it, I can't get it back up. I kind of turned things on and off for a while, then they worked. I'll keep plugging away, and see if I see any patterns. It worked just fine the past couple of days.

[petersk]

Two things:

1) Thanks for the heads-up on the update being on their web site. I had been checking regularly, but only was looking at the top.

2) When you asked about the published protocol... is the protocol published on the XIVA web site the one being used by the Onkyo? I haven't used a sniffer or anything yet to compare them, but the XIVA one seems well-documented.
K

[bshor]

The Net-Tune 2 server is working again. Strange. Looks like--at least in my setup--if you shut down and restart the server, you get connection problems.

[rocket91fm]

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to listen to your own list of radio stations that are not available thru nettune or the Xiva server. I have requested a particular favorite of mine on the Onkyo website for over a year with no luck. I read a previous post from Andrew67 who gave some information on reverse engineering the Xiva software allowing him to modify the station database. Thanks

[bshor]

By the way, I read in the AVS receiver forum that the Japanese version of Net-Tune is up to 3.x. Apparently, it can do some really cool stuff, like transcoding of high-bit-rate and lossless codecs (sending it along as WAVs to the receiver).

Interesting...