TwonkyVision MusicServer v2.7 Documentation

   Upgrade to the full MediaServer
   
 

The free MusicServer is a subset of the full MediaServer which does not only add other
content types like pictures and videos but also provides more advanced music features such as :

  • Customizable tree view:
    In additon to the simple navigation tree the MediaServer provides a much more structured
    navigation on the song library - e.g. navigation by album/artist or genre/artist/album is
    available. In addition the tree can be fully customized - as described in the online manual.
  • Support for network attached storage devices (NAS):
    If you do not want to use a PC as a server, both - the MusicServer and MediaServer come
    as NAS versions as" part of the full MediaServer package.
  • Customization of the displayed server name.
  • Multiple server instances on one machine to separate the content for different users.

The full MediaServer package is available at http://www.twonkyvision.com/UPnP

 

   about this documentation
   
 

The TwonkyVision UPnP Media Server is available in two different versions: the freely available MusicServer and the fully-fledged MediaServer. The MusicServer is restricted with regard to the supported content types as well as the navigation structure. The documentation below always refers to the MediaServer even though most of the information also applies to the MusicServer. Options which are only available for the MediaServer are marked with the icon to the left.

   
The TwonkyVision UPnP Media Server is highly customizable by means of options described below. A number of options require an in-depth knowledge of the underlying platform. Misapplication might result in disfunction of the MediaServer. These options are marked with the icon to the left and recommended for experts only.
   
Additional information about setup and usage of the MediaServer can be found at our FAQ and at the Media Servers Forum.
     
     
 Index
     

Installation on PCs

Installation on NAS devices

Supported content types

 

Locating content

Integration of 3rd party databases

Basic options

Platform-specific options

Client-specific options

Advanced options

 

 

 
 
   
 MediaServer installation on PCs  
     
Copy the file musicserver.exe or mediaserver.exe to the directory where all your content is located. Start the server with a double click. The server will display a startup message and disappear to the systray - it is running now and you can find and use it with your UPnP client device.  If the server can not be found by the client device check your firewall settings.  
     
Copy the file musicserver or mediaserver to the directory where all your content is located. Start the server with a double click. The server will display a startup message and keep as log window open. You can minimize this window to the systray. The server is running now and you can find and use it with your UPnP client device.  If the server can not be found by the client device check your firewall settings. When the server is shut down with CTRL-C it will send a bye bye message to the UPnP network to let the devices know that it disappeared.  
     

Copy the file musicserver or mediaserver to the directory where all your content is located. Make sure that the file has the exe bit set - if not try a "chmod 700 musicserver" or "chmod 700 mediaserver". Make sure that you have a multicast route set for the server by issuing a "route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev eth0". Start the server with "./musicserver" or "./mediaserver" . The server will display a startup message. The server is running now and you can find and use it with your UPnP client device. If the server can not be found by the client device check your firewall settings. When the server is shut down with CTRL-C it will send a bye bye message to the UPnP network to let the devices know that it disappeared.

For further installation instructions see here

 
     
   
   
  MediaServer installation on NAS devices  
   

The MediaServer has been tested with the network attached storage devices listed below. The corresponding binaries are part of the MediaServer distribution package.

   
  • LinkSys NSLU2

The Linksys NLSU2 (Network Storage Link for USB 2.0) is based on an IXP425 processor (ARM machine architecture) and runs Linux. MediaServer binaries for this architecture as well as installation instructions are available in the Nslu2 folder of the MediaServer distribution package. For further information have a look at
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/UseTheTwonkyVisionUPnPMediaServer

 

  • Asus WL-HDD

MediaServer binaries for this device are available in the asus folder of the MediaServer distribution package.Information how to install the MediaServer are provided at http://wl500g.dyndns.org/.

 

  • Buffalo Linkstation
MediaServer binaries for this device are available in the buffalo folder of the MediaServer distribution package.Information how to install 3rd party software on this device is provided at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LinkStation_General/message/1 and
http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=186
 
   

norescale

  • norescale

By means of this option you can supress picture rescaling by the MediaServer. This is in particular useful if you run the MediaServer on a NAS device with low memory.

Example: norescale=1

Default: norescale=0

 
   
 Basic options  
   

How to select/change options

The MediaServer can be customized through a number of options. Selected options are persistently stored in configuration files (twonkyvision-mediaserver.ini / twonkyvision-musicserver). There are three different ways to configure these options explained below. Please note that a few options can only be specified as command line parameters.

  1. Options can be specified as command line parameters when starting the MediaServer. If you want to use command line parameters on a Windows system, you can first create a shortcut to MediaServer.exe. Then under properties you can just add the command line parameters behind the name of the executable.
  2. The second way to select the options of the MediaServer is to use the configuration webpage. Upon startup the MediaServer creates a twonkyvision-config.html page in its startup directory. To access this configuration page, you can simply open this page with a web browser. The page can also be accessed with Windows XP systems by just opening the presentation page of the UPnP device - in this case the MediaServer. If you have not changed the default settings this page is always found at the following location:
    http://your-ip:port/configpage/index.htm, where "your-ip" is the IPaddress of the machine where the MediaServer is running and the port is the port number of the MediaServer HTTP server (8080 by default).
  3. The third way to select options is to open and edit the configuration file of the MediaServer directly with a text editor. This is recommended for experienced users only. Depending on the type of server you are using, the filename is either twonkyvision-mediaserver.ini or twonkyvision-musicserver.ini. The file is created on first startup of the MediaServer automatically - on Windows systems in the Windows directory, on UNIX and Macintosh it is found in the MediaServer startup directory. If you want to reset at any time the MediaServer to the default configuration you can simply delete this file - the MediaServer will recreate it with the default settings. The same applies to resetting single configuration options - locate the option in the .ini file and delete the line from the file - on next startup the MediaServer will re-insert the corresponding line for that option with the default value in the .ini file.

Most changes to the configuration require a restart of the MediaServer. You can use the restart button in the web-configuration or simply stop the MediaServer and start it again.

 
   

Reset to default values

If a single setting shall be reverted to its default setting just delete it from the .ini file. On startup the MediaServer will add the option with its default setting to the .ini file. If all settings shall be reverted the complete .ini file shall be deleted.

 
   

Access to web configuration page

The web configuration page is by default available for the local client only. You can disable access to this page completely or enable the access also for other clients in the network.

  • enableweb

Set enableweb to

  • 0 to disable the web configuration page
  • 1 to enable web configuration for local clients (web browser running on same system as the MediaServer)
  • 2 to enable web configuration for all networked clients (may be a security issue)

Default: enableweb=1

 
   

.ini filename

  • -inifile [filename]

By means of this cmdline option one can specify which .ini file shall be used by the server. This is for example very usefull if the server shall be started serveral times with different content directories and user preferred names to set up different servers with different content repositories on one machine (e.g. for different users)

Example: -inifile fathers-server.ini

 
   

MediaServer name

  • friendlyname

By means of this option the MediaServer name as displayed by the client can be changed.

Example: friendlyname=My MediaServer

Default: friendlyname=

 
   

MediaServer database

The MediaServer supports a number of 3rd party applications and their corresponding libraries, like Winamp, iTunes or Adobe Photoshop Album. In addition the MediaServer supports its own persistent database file. All of these databases are optional - the MediaServer does not need any persistence at all. In absence of any databases the MediaServer will simply scan the file system for available content and build a database in memory. Specifying one or more of the database options can however be useful to integrate the MediaServer with a specific application and/or speed up the availability of the MediaServer content directory on startup of the MediaServer. If you have several thousand content files and the system is not running all the time it may be useful to specify the MediaServer database file. Please see also the options winamp, ituneslib, ipoddb and adobedsn for details on these options.

In any case will the MediaServer handle duplicate references to content. If for example the same content is found via the file system  and via the iTunes library it is only added once to the MediaServer database.

  • dbfile

Set this parameter to a full qualified filename, where the MediaServer can store a persistent database.

Example: dbfile=c:\Windows\mediaserver.db

Default: dbfile=

 
   

Metadata adjustments

  • adaptcase

The MediaServer can adjust the case of some content attributes like Title, Artist or Album. When this option is set to 1 the MediaServer will correct the upper/lowercase writing of these properties, so that each content item will start with an uppercase letter and the rest of the word is in lower case. The MediaServer will also move strings like "The", "Der", "Die", "Das" to the end of a title, prepending a comma, for example "The Beatles" will become "Beatles, The", so that the beatles are found under  "B" and not "T". This option can be disabled by setting the adaptcase to 0.

Example: adaptcase=0

Default: adaptcase=1

 
   

Auto-generated playlists

The MediaServer auto-generates two playlists:

  1. most played songs contains the songs with the highest play count
  2. last played songs contains the songs which have been played last

The number of songs per list and the names of these playlists can be customized via the following options:

  • playlistnumentries
  • playlistlastplayed
  • playlistmostplayed

Defaults:

  • playlistnumentries=10
  • playlistlastplayed=- Last Played -
  • playlistmostplayed=- Most Played -

The names can only be changed when using the MediaServer.

 
   
 Locating content  
   
Initial setup  

The MediaServer can import existing databases from 3rd party applications to locate content and find metadata (such Winamp, iTunes or Photoshop Album). However, the most common way for the MediaServer to locate content is to search the local hard disk for files of specific file types, like mp3 or jpg files. The locations where the MediaServer shall look for such files can be set by the following options:

  • contentdir
  • ignoredir

The default setting for the contentdir is an empty string. With this setting the MediaServer will scan its current working directory and all subdirectories for content. The contentdir option can be set to a comma separated list of values, which each can be prepended by a M|, P| or V| to limit the added content to music (M|), pictures (P|) or videos (V|) only. To limit a directory to a specific content type is useful as sometimes applications tend to create temporary contents which should not be served - for example a number of applications create the embedded album art from music files as jpeg files under the music folders - but these jpegs should not be served by the MediaServer as pictures.

The ignoredir parameter is a comma separated list of strings which specify directories which shall be ignored while scanning for content. This may for example be directories for temporary files, or auto generated directories like AppleDoube which exist on apple share directories. The strings specify a substring of the path to the directories to be ignored, e.g. specifying the string AppleDouble would ignore directories like c:\content\.AppleDouble and c:\somewhere\.AppleDouble\music as both paths contain the string "AppleDouble".

Examples:

contentdir=
ignoredir=

 

use the current working directory including all subdirectories to scan for content, do not ignore any directories

contentdir=c:\My Content
ignoredir=temp

 

scan under c:\My Content for content,
ignore all directories which have the substring "temp" in the path
contentdir=M|c:\My Content\Music,
P|c:\My Content\Pictures,V|c:\My Content\Videos
ignoredir=AppleDouble,temp
scan under c:\My Content\Music for music only,
under c:\My Content\Pictures for pictures only
and c:\My Content\Videos for videos only.
Ignore all directories which have the substrings "AppleDouble" or "temp" in the path.
 

Default:
contentdir=
ignoredir=AppleDouble

 

Rescan for content

  • scantime

The MediaServer scans the contentdir on startup. With the scantime parameter it is possible to specify a period in minutes after which the MediaServer shall scan the content directories for updates. It will discover new files, updates or removed files and synchronize its internal database correspondingly. The scantime can be set to 0 to disable automatic rescans.

A rescan of the content directories can also be triggered manually by the MediaServer's configuration web pages by selecting the "rescan now" link, or on Windows systems by selecting the "Rescan content directories" menu from the tray icon.

Example: scantime=60 result in an automatic rescan of the content directories every 60 minutes.

Default: scantime=15

Note for experts:
a rescan of a specific subdirectory can also be triggered manually by appending the subdirectory name to the "rescan now" link mentioned above.

Example: If "URL http://127.0.0.1:8080/rescan" is the "rescan now" link use the
URL http://127.0.0.1:8080/rescan/C:%5CMy%20Content%5CMy%20Music%5CAbba in order to rescan c:\My Content\My Music\Abba

 
   
 Integration of 3rd party databases  
   

Winamp support

  • winamp

If you have Winamp installed the MediaServer can use your Winamp Library as a base for finding music files on your system. You can also create playlists in Winamp which are then available via the MediaServer. To enable this option the path where Winamp is installed has to be specified. The Winamp library and folders are rescanned regularly by the MediaServer - so when the Winamp library is changed the MediaServer will reflect the updates after a few seconds.

If you want to use the winamp library only, the contentdir should be set to an invalid path, e.g. contentdir=NULL.

Example: winamp=C:\Program Files\Winamp

Default: winamp=\Program Files\Winamp

Note: The Winamp plugin which was part of older releases of the MediaServer is no longer supported. It is replaced by this option. The MediaServer is working as a standalone program now, available with - or without Winamp. However, the ability to use the Winamp library and playlists still remains.

 

 
   

iTunes

  • ituneslib

For iTunes Library support set the fully qualified path to the iTunes XML library file. The library will be parsed by the MediaServer to locate the songs which it serves. The iTunes Library also contains information about compilations. When the iTunes Library is used there is no need to specify a content directory for music under the content directory setting. You can specify a non-existing directory at the content dir parameter if you do not want to include any other content - and to speed up the MediaServer startup.

Example: ituneslib=c:\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml

Default: ituneslib=

 
   

iPod

  • ipoddb

For iPod Library support set this option to the fully qualified iTunes XML library file, when the iPod is attached to the system and available as a normal USB hard drive. This enables systems which can not host the iTunes application to use the iTunes library, e.g. NAS devices. The iTunes Library is then parsed by the MediaServer to locate the songs which it serves directly from the iPod. The iTunes Library also contains information about compilations. You can specify a non existing directory at the content dir parameter if you do not want to include any other content - and to speed up the MediaServer startup. However when the iPod is disconnected there will be no music content available.

Example: ipoddb=/mnt/iPod/lib.xml

Default: ipoddb=

 
   

Adobe Photoshop Album

  • adobedsn
  • adobepath

The MediaServer supports the Adobe Photoshop Album database file. You can use Adobe Photoshop Album to organize your pictures, add notes to the pictures and use the tagging feature of the application. The MediaServer will import the notes to the picture description, which is visible by some UPnP clients. The tagging information is used by the MediaServer to build a second logical view on your pictures, where you can navigate and locate your pictures. If you have for example a tag James, which is located under Friends and allocate this tag to a picture, you will find the following navigation path at the MediaServer:

Tags -> Friends -> James -> picture.jpg

However the current setup of this feature is not so easy, as the MediaServer needs the full path to the Adobe database, a ODBC database name (DSN) and the directory where the pictures are located.

First you need to find out the name and path of the database file Adobe Photoshop Album is using. The file has the extension .psa. One way to locate it is to use the "save as" menu from Adobe Photoshop Album to save the current catalogue under a new name - when the dialog box is open you can see the name and the path of the current catalogue file. Press cancel here. Set adobepath to the full qualified name to the .psa file. Now create a ODBC database name for this file. Adobe Photoshop Album uses the MS-Access engine to store its data. New ODBC database sources are defined under the Windows System Settings. Locate the ODBC icon and use that application to define a datasource named "AdobePictures" where you specify the MS-Access jet engine as driver and the pathname to the .psa file. The third required setting is that you specify for the contentdir (see contentdir param) the directory where your pictures are located. You may use the prefix P| here to specify that the sub tree contains pictures only.

Example:
adobedsn=AdobePictures
adobepath=c:\my documents\my pictures\adobe.psa
contentdir=P|c:\my documents\my pictures

Default:
adobedsn=
adobepath=

 
   
 Supported content types: music  
   

Supported audio formats

The MediaServer supports the following audio formats:

  • MP3
  • WMA
  • WAV
  • LPCM

Please note that the content format is determined through the file extension.

 
   

WAV support

WAV files do not carry any metadata. Therefore a naming schema like genre_artist_album_tracknumber_title.wav should be used to provide as much information as possible to the MediaServer. It is possible to omit unknown values from left to right, so you may also specify artist_album_tracknumber_title or album_tracknumber_title or tracknumber_title or just the title.

 
   

Playlists

The MediaServer supports the following playlist formats: m3u (Winamp), wpl, and pls (Windows Media Player). It is possible to create playlists with these applications and the MediaServer will import them. The playlists have to be available under the directory which is specified by the contentdir option.

Note: Playlists can be transferred from one system to another (e.g. created with Winamp on Windows and transferred to a Linux system), but the filenames referenced in the playlist must be valid and resolvable by the MediaServer. If a playlist was created with relative pathnames under Windows and is then transferred to a Linux system the Playlist must be edited with a text editor and all pathnames have to be adjusted. The MediaServer tests each item of a playlist and tries to locate it in the file system (if it is not an Internet Radio Station). On failure the item is not added to the MediaServer database, resulting in empty or not displayed playlists.

If the playlist itself does not contain any information regarding the Playlist title, the MediaServer will generate the title from the filename, e.g. "beatle songs.m3u" will get the title "beatle songs".

The m3u playlist format has a very simple format and can also be used to specify custom Shoutcast Radio Stations for the MediaServer - see Internet Radio support.

Playlists can be randomized by the MediaServer when it reads and imports the playlists:

  • randomizeplaylists

Set randomizeplaylists to 1 to randomize your playlists on import.

Default: randomizeplaylists=0

 
   

Compilations

Compilations are music collections like "Best of rock 2004", which contain a number of songs from different artists. Therefore - if sorted by artist, one compilation CD would lead to as much artist entries as songs on the CD - and each of these artist entries would contain exactly one song. To prevent the cluttering of the database with lots of such single entries it is necessary to identify compilations. When identified the MediaServer will add these compilations to the album tree, but for artists just adds the album under the artist "various". Compilations can be identified via the iTunes library - as iTunes marks compilations with a specific flag, or they can be stored under a special folder in your content directory and then be identified by the compilationsdir parameter:

  • compilationsdir

Set this option to a comma separated list of directory names which are used to store compilations.

Example: compilationsdir=Compilations,Sampler

All directories and songs located in Compilations or Sample, e.g. "My Music\Compilations\MTV TOP 20" will be treated as part of a compilation - and as such be sorted into the database under artist->various.

Default: compilationsdir=Compilations,Sampler

 
   

Internet Radio

The MediaServer also supports Internet Radio. The current version is restricted to Shoutcast Radio Stations. There are two ways of Shoutcast Radio Station support built into the MediaServer. One option is to create special playlist files with your favorite Shoutcast Radio Stations. This can be done with Winamp by using the "send to playlist" option when a Shoutcast Radio Station is selected. A sample .m3u file can be found in the MediaServer distribution.

The second option is that the MediaServer contacts the Shoutcast website on its own and downloads the list of top radio stations into its database. These radio stations are then available - sorted by Genre - under the Muisc->Internet Radio node. Please note that a number of Internet Radio Stations have only a very short lifetime. When a connection to a Radio Station is refused the MediaServer will respond with an appropriate error message to the client. There are three parameters which can be used to adjust the automatic provision of the Internet Radio stations:

  • radio
  • numradiostations
  • radioreread

The radio option can be set to 0 or 1. If set to 0 the Internet Radio support is disabled and the MediaServer does not contact the Shoutcast website.

The numradiostations option specifies the number of stations which the MediaServer will download and import to its database. If you want to have 100 Radio stations available set it to numradiostations=100.

The radioreread option specifies how often the MediaServer reconnects to the Shoutcast website to refetch the top list of Radio Stations. As most of the smaller Radio Stations have a very short lifetime it is wise to update the list of Radio Stations at least once per hour. The radioreread option specifies the reread time in minutes. If this is set to 0 (zero) the radio rescan is disabled - the MediaServer will fetch the list of Radio stations only once on startup.

Example:
radio=1
numradiostations=100
radioreread=30

Internet Radio is enabled. The MediaServer will fetch the Top 100 Radio Stations from the Shoutcast Website and will update this list every 30 minutes.

Defaults:
radio=1
numradiostations=50
radioreread=60

 

 
   
 Supported content types: pictures  
   

Pictures

The MediaServer supports pictures and images in the following formats:

  • JPEG
  • JPG
  • GIF

For JPEG the MediaServer has integrated a complete EXIF parser, i.e. the MediaServer is capable of extracting the metadata which are stored in the header of such a picture. In general the metadata provided by digital cameras are just the date and time when a picture was taken, and its size and resolution. Any existing picture organizing tool may be used to include additional information into the EXIF header which then can be used by the MediaServer.

It is quite common to organize pictures in folders, by foldername - and very seldom pictures are given meaningful names. This is reflected by the MediaServer as it mirrors the local directory tree where pictures are located on the UPnP side. You can navigate to the pictures on your UPnP client in the same way as you have organized them on the PC.

For a more sophisticated logical view on the pictures the MediaServer has also integrated support for the Adobe Photoshop Album library (Windows only).

For JPEG pictures the MediaServer supports server side resizing. This is used by a number of UPnP clients. Please be aware that resizing large pictures on the fly is a CPU-intensive process and that you will get some delay when the MediaServer is hosted on systems with poor performance, e.g. Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.

Picture descriptions

  • descriptions

Most pictures do not carry any description. However, JPEG pictures may contain descriptions in the EXIF headers and there are a number of tools available to edit and manipulate descriptions for pictures. When a description is available it may be useful to make this visible during a slideshow. This can be done with the descriptions parameter. By setting descriptions to 1 the MediaServer will pre-render descriptions into the pictures before delivering them to the client, so that the description is visible as part of the picture. Set this parameter to 0 to disable the inline rendering of descriptions.

Example: descriptions=1 will enable the inline rendering of descriptions into JPEG pictures.

Default: descriptions=0

 
   
 Supported content types: video  
   

Video

The MediaServer supports a number of video formats, but does not transcode any video from one format to another. Therefore the ability to play a certain video totally depends on the client device. So far the MediaServer serves the following video formats:

  • AVI
  • MPEG
  • MPEG2
  • MPG
  • MP4
  • WMV
  • VOB
 
   
 Platform-specific options    
   

Windows only: service version

Please note that the following options can only be specified through the command line. The values will not be stored in the .ini file.

  • -install
  • -uninstall

On Windows platforms, the MediaServer can be installed to run as a background service. This has the advantage that no user has to be logged in to the system while the MediaServer is running. To install the MediaServer as a background service open a command prompt in Windows (run cmd as an application). Navigate to the directory where the MediaServer is located and issue a "mediaserver -install". A Message Box will pop up to inform you that the MediaServer is now installed as a service. The MediaServer is now running - and will be running immediately on system startup. To uninstall the MediaServer as a service issue a "mediaserver -uninstall" at a command prompt. A Message Box will pop up and inform you that the MediaServer has been removed from the list of services.

Note: When you want to upgrade the MediaServer the service must be stopped - or you can not copy a new executable over the existing one. Please stop the MediaServer service by using the Computer Management Menu under Windows System - or uninstall the service before updating the MediaServer.

 

 
   

Windows only: restart on network changes

  • nicrestart

For Windows systems it is possible to automatically restart the MediaServer on network changes. This is especially useful when the MediaServer is started on a Laptop and the Laptop is changing the connection (moved around between Networks). To enable the automated MediaServer restart set the option nicrestart to 1.

Example: nicrestart=1

Restart the MediaServer automatically on TCP/IP address changes.

Note: Set this option to 0 if you get disconnects when you have a dynamic DSL connection set.

Default: nicrestart=0

 
   

Unix/Linux only: launching as daemon

  • -D

By means of the -D command line parameter the MediaServer the MediaServer is launched as a daemon. It also generates a file "/var/run/mediaserver.pid" with the process id of the MediaServer. This is used by the sample scripts provided with the MediaServer to start, stop and restart the MediaServer background process.

Please note that this option can only be specified through the command line. The value will not be stored in the .ini file.

 
   
 Client-specific options    
   

Noxon client

  • noxonclient

It is possible to specify a number of IP adresses (separated by comma) to identify Noxon clients at fixed IP adresses. The autodetection of Noxon clients does not work reliable - but the Noxon needs special handling for special characters - as it does not understand UTF-8 encoded characters (which is the default for UPnP clients). If your characters look garbled at the Noxon please try to set the IP adress of the device by means of this option.

Example: noxonclient=192.168.1.50,192.168.1.60

 
   

DLink client

  • dlinkclient

It is possible to specify a number of IP adresses (separated by comma) to identify D-Link clients at fixed IP adresses. The autodetection of D-Link clients does not work reliable - but the D-Link needs special handling for pictures. If your pictures look to small - and you do not get icons for your folders, please try to set the IP adress of the device by means of this option. This option also helps in case of a lockup during intensive navigation.

Example: dlinkclient=192.168.1.50,192.168.1.60

 
   

Roku nosearch

  • nosearch

The nosearch option allows you to disable the search support of the MediaServer. The default of this option is nosearch=0, so search is enabled. However some clients, e.g. the Roku devices, show their own user interface ignoring the custom tree settings of the server,
when they discover that the MediaServer supports search. For MediaServers which do not support search the device falls back into
a simple browse mode, showing exactly the logical tree view as defined by the MediaServer. To get back your custom tree for navigation (which is the logical tree view of the MediaServer) set the nosearch option to 1.

However you can than not use the "search" key of the device, as search is disabled - but for now there is no solution available to have both - search support and a custom user interface.

Example: nosearch=1

Default: nosearch=0

 
   
 Advanced options  
   

MediaServer IP address and port

  • httpport
  • ip
  • dev

The MediaServer tries to start a HTTP server on HTTP port 8080. If this port is not available it will automatically scan for the next free port. If this dynamic behavior is not desired, specify a specific HTTP port with the httpport option. The server will then try this port only - and it will terminate if the port is not available! Set the httpport value to 0 (zero) to enable the dynamic port allocation.

Example: httpport=8090

Start the MediaServer with the HTTP server listening on port 8090. If port 8090 is not available the MediaServer will not start! So if you intend to specify a particular port you should check first with netstat -a whether it is already blocked.

Default: httpport=0

A similar behavior is available for the IP address used by the MediaServer. The default behavior of the MediaServer is to scan the system for available network interfaces and their corresponding IP addresses and to launch a listening instance of the MediaServer on every network interface. Therefore a system with 3 network cards would have a visible MediaServer on all 3 connected networks to this system. Sometimes the MediaServer fails to identify the IP address and sometimes it is also not wanted to have the MediaServer available on ALL connected networks. Therefore a specific IP address can be specified which is used by the MediaServer. On UNIX/Linux systems it is also possible to specify the network card (device) which the MediaServer shall use.

Example: ip=192.168.1.10

Start the MediaServer on the network interface which is bound to the IP address 192.168.1.10. Set the ip parameter to an empty string to enable the dynamic scan for network cards.

Example: dev=eth0

Start the MediaServer on the IP address which is assigned to the network adapter known to the system by the device name "eth0". This option is available only for UNIX/Linux systems. It is more flexible than specifying an IP address as this enables the usage of the MediaServer system as a DHCP client - where the IP address is not always known but directed through a DHCP server. Set the dev option together with the ip option to an empty string to enable the dynamic scan for network cards.

Defaults:
ip=
dev=

 
   

Music client

  • musicclient

The MediaServer identifies a number of music-only clients, like the Netgear MP101 or the Noxon audio player automatically. These clients will always be directed to the music sub tree of the MediaServer, as it does not make sense to navigate on pictures and videos with these clients. However, the MediaServer does not know all existing music clients - therefore if your music client is not detected automatically and you see the picture and video nodes on a pure music client, it is possible to specify a comma separated list of IP addresses of known music clients. These requests are automatically pointed to the music subdirectory when the client starts to browse the server.

Note: there is no option for picture-only or video-only clients, since we are not aware of such clients so far.

Example: musicclient=192.168.1.11,192.168.1.20

The clients with the IP addresses 192.168.1.11 and 192.168.1.20 are pure music clients and shall not be provided with pictures and videos.

Default: musicclient=

 
   

Sort behavior

  • ds
  • ms
  • ps

Most UPnP clients specify the requested sort order in conjunction with a browse call. However, a few clients do not specify any sort order - which puts the burden on the MediaServer to deliver the content with a default sort order. As the same default sort order does not make sense for all types of containers and items there are three options available to specify the default sort order. The ds parameter specifies the overall default sort order, the ms option is valid for all containers which contain music items and the ps option is used for all picture items. The sort options are set to a comma separated list of properties, each one prepended with a plus or minus sign to specify ascending or descending sort order. The available properties are:

dc:title Title of the item
upnp:album Album of the song
upnp:artist Artist of the song
upnp:genre Genre of the song
dc:date Date of the item
upnp:originalTrackNumber Track number of the song

Example:
ds=+dc:title,+dc:date
ms=+upnp:originalTrackNumber,-dc:title
ps=+dc:date,+dc:title

In the example above the default sort order is by Title and then by Date, both in ascending order. For music containers the sort is first by Track number (ascending), then by Title, but descending. For picture containers the sort is by date (ascending) and then by Title (ascending).

Notes: Please note that these options are only used when a UPnP client does NOT specify a sort behavior. UPnP clients should specify a sort behavior. For the attributes the second property is only used, when the first property is equal for several content items - so two Tracks with the same Track Number will be sorted by Title, but the Track Number is the main sort criteria in the above sample.

Defaults:
ds=+dc:title,+dc:date
ms=+upnp:originalTrackNumber,+dc:title
ps=+dc:date,+dc:title

 
   
Netgear upgrade
  • netgearupgrade

The Netgear MP101 can be upgraded by the MediaServer when a new ROM version is available. This is very useful when no Windows system is available - or the Netgear Server Software is not available for the upgrade. Just unzip the downloaded upgrade files to a directory and specify the path to the directory at the netgearupgrade parameter. The MediaServer will then offer the new ROM images to the Netgear MP101.

Example: netgearupgrade=/tmp/netgear

This will tell the MediaServer that it finds the Netgear ROM images under /tmp/netgear.

Note: Please set this option to an empty string to disable this function. You should also reset the option to an empty string when the update is completed, as the MediaServer no longer needs to perform the Netgear upgrade process after an update

Default: netgearupgrade=

 
   

Configuration of the tree view

The navigation structure (tree view) of the MediaServer can be fully customized. However please note that some clients, like the Netgear MP101 are searching for tree nodes with specific names to enable the hot keys on the remote control. The names which need to be available for the MP101 are: Playlist, Genre, Artist, Track, Internet Radio.

The following nodes are predefined, but can be renamed to custom names:

Option Default value Tree Node
rootmusic Music Music
alltracks All Tracks Music->All Tracks
playlists Playlists Music->Playlists
internetradio Internet Radio Music->Internet Radio
allownradiostations Favorites Music->Internet Radio->Favorites
rootpicture Pictures Pictures
allpictures All Pictures Pictures->All Pictures
rootvideo Videos Videos
allvideos All Videos Videos->All Videos

Note: When a root name is set to an empty string the MediaServer will not provide content for that sub node and suppress that content type completely.

In addition there are 20 customizable nodes of the MediaServer, 10 for the music tree, 5 for the pictures tree and 5 for the video tree:

  • musicnode1
  • ...
  • musicnode10
  • picturenode1
  • ...
  • picturenode5
  • videonode1
  • ...
  • videonode5

Each node is defined by a comma-separated values string, which specifies the root name of the node displayed by the MediaServer, and the total tree branches under this node. The tree is specified by attributes of the content (metadata) - for these attributes the following macros are available:

%TITLE title of a song, picture or video
%ARTIST artist of a song
%ALBUM album of a song
%GENRE genre of a song
%YEAR year attribute of the item, year when the song was release, year when a picture was taken
%MONTH month attribute of the item - month when a picture was taken
%DAY  day attribute of the item - day when a picture was taken
%DESCRIPTION description of a picture
%DURATION duration of a song or video
%TRACK track number of a song
%WIDTH width of a picture
%HEIGHT   height of a picture
%PATH complete physical path (relative to a content root) to the item

In addition to support alpha search on each node for devices which do not have client alpha search capability each macro name can be prepended by square brackets with a number, to specify an alpha search auto-generated root.

Example: prepending [3] would create the following sub notes for an entry:  ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL, MNO, OPQ, RST, UVW, XY

Note: Please note that the alpha sort criteria (square brackets) can not be combined with the %PATH macro. The whole path is always generated as one tree which should reflect the physical path on the device.

Music examples:

Lets assume a song with the following metadata

Title Let the music play
Artist Twonky
Genre Rock
Album Greatest Twonky Songs
Year 2005
Duration 3:05
Track 3
Path My Music\Twonky\Greatest Twonky Songs\let the music play.mp3

 

Option settings Tree View
musicnode1=
Artists,%ARTIST
Music->Artists->Twonky->Let the music play
musicnode2=
Albums,%ALBUM
Music->Albums->Greatest Twonky Songs->Let the music play
musicnode3=
Artists/Albums,%ARTIST,%ALBUM
Music->Artists/Albums->Twonky->Greatest Twonky Songs->Let the music play
musicnode4=
Folders,%PATH
Music->Folders->My Music->Twonky->Greatest Twonky Songs->Let the music play
musicnode5=
Genre/Artists,%GENRE,%ARTIST,%ALBUM
Music->Genre/Artists->Rock->Twonky->Greatest Twonky Songs->Let the music play
musicnode6=
Genre/Artists,%GENRE,[3]%ARTIST,%ALBUM
Music->Genre/Artists->Rock->RST->Twonky->Greatest Twonky Songs->Let the music play
musicnode7=
Year/Artists,%YEAR,%ARTIST,%ALBUM
Music->Year/Artists->2005->Twonky->Greatest Twonky Songs->Let the music play

Defaults for music nodes:
musicnode1=Artists,%ARTIST
musicnode2=Genres,%GENRE
musicnode3=Albums,%ALBUM
musicnode4=Folders,%PATH
musicnode5=Artists/Albums,%ARTIST,%ALBUM
musicnode6=Genres/Artists,%GENRE,%ARTISTS,%ALBUM
musicnode7=Year/Albums,%YEAR,%ALBUM
musicnode8=Year/Artist,%YEAR,%ARTISTS,%ALBUM
musicnode9=Alpha,[3]%ARTIST
musicnode10=

Picture examples: Lets assume a picture with the following metadata

Title DSCM2003
Path My Pictures\20040101-holidays\dscm2003.jpg
Date 01 Jan 2004
Width 2048
Height 1536

Option settings Tree View
picturenode1=Folders,%PATH Pictures->Folders->My Pictures->20040101->DSCM2003
picturenode2=Date,%YEAR,%MONTH,%DAY Pictures->Date->2004->01->01->DSCM2003
picturenode3=Year/Size,%Year,%WIDTH Pictures->Year/Size->2004->2048->DSCM2003

Defaults for picture nodes:
picturenode1=Folders,%PATH
picturenode2=Date,%YEAR,%MONTH,%DAY
picturenode3=
picturenode4=
picturenode5=

Defaults for video nodes:
videonode1=Folders,%PATH
videonode2=
videonode3=
videonode4=
videonode5=

 
   

Send buffer adjustments

If the music or video is played choppy at the client player the reason may be that the MediaServer does not send the content with the right buffer sizes. The default buffers are tested with quite a number of clients and should work. Please note that the buffer you set in the .ini file is allocated for each stream that is served by the MediaServer. Therefore for small systems like NAS devices it is advised to keep the buffers small - even for video. The buffer size is given in bytes. Values less than 1KB will be ignored. The options to change the buffers are:

  • musicbuffer
  • picturebuffer
  • videobuffer

Defaults:
musicbuffer=2048
picturebuffer=2048
videobuffer=2097152

For more information regarding the right buffer size have a look at http://www.media-servers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=520

 
   
Debugging and bug reports
  • -v

With the -v [n] command line option it is possible to get a number of messages from the MediaServer, which may be helpful to find problems with the installation, or which can be sent to our support team when there are problems with the MediaServer. Bug reports can be submitted at our Mantis issue tracking system under http://www.twonkyvision.com/mantis. When this option is specified the MediaServer creates a file under Windows which has the same name and location as the executable file of the MediaServer, but which has the extension .log. On UNIX/Linux systems the MediaServer will output the debugging messages to stdout and critical messages to stderr. Together with the -v option the debugging level can be specified:

meaning value
system messages 1
ssdp messages 2
database related 4
http related 8
client identification 16
UPnP eventing 32
EXIF parser 64
HTTP radio proxy 128
XML parser 256

If you want to get messages from several system components, just add their values.

Examples:
-v 8     provides all http related messages
-v 7     provides all system messages, all ssdp messages and all database related messages
-v 511 provides all messages

 
   

 

 

 
   
   
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  Page last modified 2005-03-29