Who has Nuvo Music Port?

[Sokoloff]

Ah gotcha, my music port is sitting in the box waiting for me to get around to building the (or repurposing a) host computer.

If the sound is the only issue, you can open up mstsc, go to the options and tell it to "leave sounds at remote computer", save the connection settings as an rdp file and then later launch RDP with:

mstsc c:\temp\server.rdp /admin

(Or use VNC, which can't screw with the sound, at least as far as I've updated VNC.) Hard to tell if you're having two complaints (that the wife needs to listen AND that the sound gets screwed up, or whether those are the same) until I install my MP and get used to it.

 

[broconne]

The Nuvo keypads do this very nicely as does their Music Port GUI software which i run on a touch screen.

Have a screen-capture of the GUI software on the touchscreen to share?

 

[felixrosbergen]

I've started to research ways to have itunes automatically import a playlist....nothing yet...but haven't looked very long.

I did try the following which worked:
- Create playlist on the kitchen PC itunes (which is getting it's music files from the server MUSIC share)
- Export the playlist from the ktichen PC itunes to a folder on the server
- RDP using admin and 'keep sounds at remote computer' into the server, open itunes there and import the playlist.
- Do a full server restart or from the Nuvo Keypads do a 'restart' of the application. A 'rescan media' will not work and hang/abort once you've opened itunes on the server once.

I'm not that familiar with WMP, but would it 'find' and 'import' automatically if i placed a playlist on the server somewhere? Moving to WMP woudl be a big step since the wife is familiar with iTunes and a good bit of our music if purchases from iTunes some time ago and is still 'protected'. I don't feel the need (yet) to give iTunes additional money to remove the protection.

The fact that it did interface with iTunes and was able to play DRM'ed files was a big plus for me on the Music Port. Many other solutions cannot do this, with iTunes recent announcement that new music will be DRM free (but more expensive) and old music can be 'upgraded' to be DRM free maybe this is a less important issue now than before.

 

[Neurorad]

The big reason I went with WMP years ago, and avoided buying music on iTunes, was the DRM issue. I hope someday to be able to buy lossless music on iTunes.

Yes, WMP will monitor specified folders, and automatically add music to the library that is present in those folders. I mentioned that I heard of some 3rd party software that will monitor for iTunes...

Found 1:
http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes/down...ater-145098.php

 

[sic0048]

Actually Apple recently announced they are going to DMR free music only. I think I also read you can upgrade your existing DMR music to DMR free for another 30 cents a song. Not sure if that is worth it or not, but I think they have seen the advantages to DMR free music.

 

[sbwright]

From the webinar: you can use an existing iTunes library.

I recommend you check out the webinar. Some useful tips.

Again, I apologize for misleading.

Neurorad, wanted to say thanks for the info on the webinars. It was well worth signing up to get access they provided additional positive data and direction I was unaware of.

Thanks again.

 

[felixrosbergen]

The big reason I went with WMP years ago, and avoided buying music on iTunes, was the DRM issue. I hope someday to be able to buy lossless music on iTunes.

Yes, WMP will monitor specified folders, and automatically add music to the library that is present in those folders. I mentioned that I heard of some 3rd party software that will monitor for iTunes...

Found 1:
http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes/down...ater-145098.php

thanks for the link...getting the Music Port /itunes to pick up the added music is not so much my issue anymore. A 'restart' command from the Nuvo keypad menu takes care of that. What I really want is to be able to have it automatically import/load playlists. Then i could have the wife make the playlist on the kitchen computer and export to a network location. If itunes or WMP woudl monitor that and automatically load these playlists we'd be in great shape. Exporting the list from itunes to a network location is somethign i can get my wife to do i think.

 

[Neurorad]

I just did a little bit of online research on using iTunes with WHS, and I've again come to the conclusion that I dislike iTunes.

I only use iTunes to load my iPod. WMP has been more than adequate for managing my library.

I'm sorry I don't have the time to research your specific problem any more, MavRic, but I do gather that there are a lot of people with the same problem of copying locally created playlists to the server, and if you keep looking, you'll find a solution.

Instead of google and combing through messes of forums (what I've done), use HP or WHS/Microsoft professionally administered forums.

 

[Neurorad]

From the webinar: you can use an existing iTunes library.

I recommend you check out the webinar. Some useful tips.

Again, I apologize for misleading.

Neurorad, wanted to say thanks for the info on the webinars. It was well worth signing up to get access they provided additional positive data and direction I was unaware of.

Thanks again.

No problem.

 

[felixrosbergen]

ok, just follow up on the Music Port to assist those considering it.

After spending countless hours trying to figure out ways to make things work nicely when the music port software run on a headless server in combination with itunes I have given up.

I have decided to no longer bother with itunes and simply convert everything to a Windows Media Player supported format. Windwos Media Player can automatically monitor folders for new/deleted files and it then automatically updates the keypads.

I was able to get Windows Media Player to play non-DRM itunes files, in the end I decided to even convert those to MP3. Although i didnt spend a lot of time on it, it seemsed the tag support in combination with monitoring folders under Windows Medua PLayer (with the recommended plugins) was still a bit flaky.

My setup now allows me to drop any mp3 files from anywhere into the MUSIC folder on the server and within seconds it shows up on the keypads without touching the server at all.

I havent started to look into the playlist issue, thats next. But i suspect this shoudl be a bit easier as well with Windows Media Player.

 

[forgets]

hey, i'm thinking of getting a music port soon.. i'm probably going to be running it on my mini-itx box, which is 1.2ghz, with 1GB of ram.. just over the required minimum processing power, and at the minimum ram recommended.. is anyone running it with specs like those? i wanted to know if it's prone to slowing down.. I know nuvo recommends not running anything else on the host computer, but most of us will be anyhow, any slowdown with other programs (CQC, mainlobby, etc) doing other things? My system only has a stripped down windows running AutomationEngine, so it shouldn't be too bad, but i wanted to see if others had experiences with it.. also how fast does it let you cycle through your library?

Let me know fellow cocooners, i don't want to bite the bullet on one of these then find out i'm going to need a better computer. Thanks

 

[felixrosbergen]

I don't have expeirence running it on minimal hardware, but consider how many channels you want to use and for started run that many sessions of your player and see how it does.

The load imposed by the instances of the player would be the primary resource driver IMHO, the overhead for browsing the library woudl be pretty minimal i would guess.

Do you plan to browse from the keypads (i.e text only) or from their client software (GUI)? This woudl make a differnce due to transfer of coverart, etc. Their GUI looks pretty slick and is quite usable, but could still use some further development IMHO.

Mine runs on a pretty powerfull server with other services running on it as well so it's hard to judge.

 

[royalj7]

MavRic,

I was going to ask about the EG6 keypads. How does the metadata look on them? I tried to get some pictures from Nuvo's website, but they only show one that I can find. How many characters across is the OLED display? The main reason I'm considering Nuvo is the access to my MP3's from the keypad locations, and I just had a horrible realization the keypad might make looking at the song title, artist, etc a tedious event. Like me standing there for a minute as Disturbed - In to the Fire scrolls pass.

--Jamie

 

[felixrosbergen]

I can try to shoot a smal video or something to help explain...but in general the META data is scrolled on a singel line and concists of artist/title. It scrolls pretty fast and i haven't found it annoying. It's probably about 12-16 characters wide i think. Not sure where i can post a piece of video, but PM a e-mail adress and I'll try to send you something tonight.

 

[singeroi]

hello mavric sent you a pm!