bigdude99
07-16-08, 02:53 PM
I have set up a Zyxel NSA-220 NAS for use as a media server for my music into my Pioneer Elite 94-TXH. Some features were a major headache to set up so I thought I would share my experience and perhaps save someone else the trouble.
My setup is the NSA-220 with 2 Seagate 500GB drives in Raid 1. It comes with pre-made shares for music, video and photos with the media server activated. There are few options for the media server and I left them at default.
I have my 94-TXH set up with a wireless G connection using a wireless bridge. This was the first challenge. Two tips are that the bridge has to have an IP address that is in the same subnet as the media server - unfortunately some routers with firmware to allow bridging do not work properly in this mode. The second tip is that you should have the bridge MAC clone the 94-TXH or it won't work (the downside is that you may no longer be able to manage the bridge wirelessly so make sure your wireless and static IP setting are what you want).
I use Mediamonkey to manage my music files. I have the NSA-220 set up as a sync device with "music" mounted as a drive and I can sync the music at will. Mediamonkey if configured correctly will sync my music into subdirectories of ABC, DEF, etc and then by each single letter and artist.
The NSA-220 pulls the tags from the music right after files are put on it and has it ready for the media server fairly quickly (a few minutes). I wanted to use .m3u playlists and this is where the trouble occurred. Every media client I tried would list every playlist as empty whether I browsed it by file or directly from the "Playlists" folder.
After days of trying every permutation of file naming and organization in the .m3u files, I found my very simple error: Windows shows the NSA-220 directory structure in its usual normal format, but since it is a Linux device, the internal directory structure uses a slash rather than a back slash.
\music\DEF\F\Feist\1234.mp3 in the playlist should be:
../music/DEF/F/Feist/1234.mp3
I modified Mediamonkey's export script to correct the playlists after they are synced. Now it works great. Credit goes to a kind soul on one of Qnap forums who pointed this out - I suppose this issue applies to Qnap, Thecus or other Linus based NAS devices also.
Now a question: does anyone know if embedded album art can be made to be displayed?
My setup is the NSA-220 with 2 Seagate 500GB drives in Raid 1. It comes with pre-made shares for music, video and photos with the media server activated. There are few options for the media server and I left them at default.
I have my 94-TXH set up with a wireless G connection using a wireless bridge. This was the first challenge. Two tips are that the bridge has to have an IP address that is in the same subnet as the media server - unfortunately some routers with firmware to allow bridging do not work properly in this mode. The second tip is that you should have the bridge MAC clone the 94-TXH or it won't work (the downside is that you may no longer be able to manage the bridge wirelessly so make sure your wireless and static IP setting are what you want).
I use Mediamonkey to manage my music files. I have the NSA-220 set up as a sync device with "music" mounted as a drive and I can sync the music at will. Mediamonkey if configured correctly will sync my music into subdirectories of ABC, DEF, etc and then by each single letter and artist.
The NSA-220 pulls the tags from the music right after files are put on it and has it ready for the media server fairly quickly (a few minutes). I wanted to use .m3u playlists and this is where the trouble occurred. Every media client I tried would list every playlist as empty whether I browsed it by file or directly from the "Playlists" folder.
After days of trying every permutation of file naming and organization in the .m3u files, I found my very simple error: Windows shows the NSA-220 directory structure in its usual normal format, but since it is a Linux device, the internal directory structure uses a slash rather than a back slash.
\music\DEF\F\Feist\1234.mp3 in the playlist should be:
../music/DEF/F/Feist/1234.mp3
I modified Mediamonkey's export script to correct the playlists after they are synced. Now it works great. Credit goes to a kind soul on one of Qnap forums who pointed this out - I suppose this issue applies to Qnap, Thecus or other Linus based NAS devices also.
Now a question: does anyone know if embedded album art can be made to be displayed?