Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming dBpoweramp Plug-in

The Meridian dBpa plug-in is available.

Please use this thread for specific questions, issues and observations.

Cool. Haven't had time to try this yet - anyone know if this finally allows the retaining of track level metadata if such is available in dBpa?

From the very limited play I have had with it I would say that it does NOT do anything with track level artist data once imported to Sooloos.

HOWEVER, the individual tracks (called Track01.FLAC, Track02.FLAC) etc. DO have metadata tags for artist.

This is significant as Control:PC rips would never preserve the meta tags.

If you have another system (Sonos, Squeeze etc.) scanning the library then it will now work just fine.

I tried a first rip. The rip in dBpoweramp was no problem. After 'restoring' the file into PC:Control you have to go to play to see the result of the import. In my case the credits were not filled with the metadata that were given in dBpoweramp as artist and composer.

Pieter

Hi Nick,
Just to clarify...

dBpa, XLD and other ripping programs always wrote the Artist, Album Name, Artwork and other info to the Embedded ID3 Tags within the FLAC files and then other players could read them from those ID3 Tags.

Importing those dBpa Rips into Sooloos in the "old" commonly used fashion never did alter those same ID3 Tags i.e. the information stayed in those Tags allowing the Track Files to be read and played on Sonos, SB and other systems from the Sooloos Store, all while properly displaying Artist & Album Name and Artwork etc.

Ripping via Control:PC, Control:Mac or C15 never did write any information to the ID3 Tags of the Track files, so while e.g. a Sonos / SB could play the file, it would not "know" the Artist Name or display Artwork etc.

As regards Track Level Data within Sooloos, the SQL Database simply does not have the requisite "Fields" within the Track tables to hold what we would consider to be "Track Level Data". So, for example while it has a field to hold the Track Name, there is no Field for Artist Name as such (just a relational GUID), which is why Artist Name is at the Album Level only, as we all know.

Track Level Data within the Sooloos Architecture would require a MAJOR Re-Write by Meridian and is not something they would simply slip into a point release of the software / firmware.

Hi Ronnie,
That's my understanding too (on all points). Thanks for adding the clarity.

You could do a quick and dirty rewrite of the Sooloos front end to get track level artist data - that would be fairly easy.

Making the features like Focus and Swim work would be bloody difficult.

I'd encourage you to look at how the "Relational" information is held together at the back end before making a claim that changing the front end was "easy".

Re-Writing would be doable but long-winded, but the real challenge would come in validating that the SQL Tables & Fields changes didn't end up corrupting User's Libraries when it was rolled out to Users'.

It's this last point that I believe will be the ultimate stumbling block to us seeing a true Track Level Sooloos implementation that will not involve a quite laborious Export and then Import into a new Architecture.

Does the plugin work with ripping to WAV or AIFF? I know most here don't believe there is a sonic difference between WAV and FLAC but others elsewhere do. I would be intersted to know if it is possible.

I did say 'quick and dirty', are you honestly saying that you are able to critique my suggestion and yet you've never done a horrible software bodge?

FWIW I was suggesting something along these lines - import the album artist data as 'Various', when it comes to playback, use something along the lines of REGEXP to read the track name, which will contain the artist name if you set it to do so at time of import and substitute that information into the control app instead of 'Various', all without breaking Meridian's precious database.

You might have noticed I pointed out that Swim and Focus wouldn't work, this should have been a clue that I was not talking about adding anything to the database.

Now now, Gentlemen!

I think I offended Ronnie's SQL purism by suggesting such heresy. He's correct of course, my vague suggestion was/is only a workaround for the lack of flexibility in the back end database.