bill_s

Absolutely wrong regarding fat32 HD size limit. Without getting overly technical, the accepted limit for a fat32 HD is 2TB. Just realize that Microsoft Windows Format tools will not format a disk larger than 32GB, they prefer you use NTFS. So, though you cannot format a fat32 disk larger than 32GB using Windows, you can if you start a command line session, i.e. the MS-DOS Prompt. There are also 3rd-party MS Windows-based partition/format tools that will do the format if you do not want to use the MS-DOS command line.

Rene, You do not have to drag the cover art file to 'now playing' playing every time. Unless you only have to do it once and GMPC remembers the cover art for that album the next time you play it. Anyway, here's how I would do it in advance for any albums that are missing art. Most of your albums will have cover art that was retrieved from the internet by the metadata fetchers. Some albums will have incorrect or missing cover art, so those are the ones we will need to fix. You need to turn off the fetchers now because if they remain enabled, they will again retrieve cover art for albums that might be incorrect because the logic is stupid. So, go to 'Preferences' > 'Plugins' and un-check all of the boxes EXCEPT 'Album View'. If you un-check that one you will not have an 'Album View'. A little note here: because GMPC lets you manually pick the file to associate with an album, it does not have to conform to a common naming convention such as 'folder.jpg'. What that means is that you can have a single folder on your desktop named, for example, ‘Cover Art’ which contains all of your cover art files named, for example, artist-album title, like this: Audra McDonald - How Glory Goes.jpg B.B. King & Eric Clapton - Riding With the King.jpg Barbra Streisand - Love is the Answer.jpg etc… If you do it this way you do not need to have a separate folder for each album's cover art. So, assuming you did it this way here’s how you assign cover art for each album that needs to be fixed. If you have a folder with folders inside for each album with the correct art instead, I assume you will figure out what adjustment to my instructions you need to do! Now, with the fetchers turned off, you are ready to assign cover art for albums where the cover art is missing or incorrect. You want to be in 'Album View' now so you can easily see the albums you need to fix. Right click on an album that has missing or incorrect art and click on 'Select File'. A small window titled 'Select File' will open. This window has 2 panes, labeled 'Places' on the left and 'Name' on the right. In the left-hand 'Places' pane you can navigate your computer's hard drive. In the left-hand pane look for 'Desktop' and click on it to select it. Now in the right-hand pane you will see all the folders you have on your desktop. Double-click (or click once to select it , then click on ‘Open’) on the folder named ‘Cover Art’ that contains your cover art to open it. Click on the file named for the album you are fixing the cover art for and then click on ‘Open’ at the bottom right of the window. Repeat for all albums that need to be fixed. As long as the fetchers are off, GMPC will use the art you selected for the albums that needed to be fixed. Hope this is helpful.

Rene, stick with version 0.20. I have been playing around with 11.8 and it has a few glitches. I will use only until I have found as many bugs as I can and pass them on to the developer of the Windows port of GMPC. Let me know how the work-around works for you.

Rene, I thought of a work-around for you to use local cover art with GMPC and your Auraliti. Simply, use the fetchers to retrieve most of your cover from the internet. For any art that the fetcher cannot find, do this. Create a folder on your Windows PC and create sub folders for each album that you need local art for. Place a jpg of the missing cover art in each album's folder. Now you will have locally accesible art on your PC. Now you can manually select that art for your missing art. Hope this helps.

AZ, ted_b is correct. You should not have a problem (and you do not) using MPod or MPaD. My exchanges with Rene were specifically about using the Windows version of the Gnome Music Player Client (GMPC). Clients like MPoD, GMPC, Teremin, etc are "front-ends" to the Music Player Daemon (MPD) server. In simple terms, we call the software architecture of a software system like this, where there is a separation of a computer program into 2 or more distinct parts, a client/server architecture. The separate parts can run on the same physical computer or on multiple computers connected by a network. Again, that is a really simplified description of client/server software. In fact, AudioDoctor runs both GMPC and MPD on the same computer. In your case, you run MPoD (the client) on an iThingy and MPD runs on your Auraliti. Now, if you also want a client to run on your desktop PC, GMPC is a good choice and is a cross-platform application. That is, there is a version of GMPC for Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Windows. I can only vouch for the Windows version but from what I have seen the Linux version is great (that is the original anyway). Perhaps AudioDoctor can give you his perspective since he does use the Linux version.

Hi Rene, I got an email from Avuton a little past midnite, I am in New York City. He sent me a fixed version of Windows GMPC, (gmpc-11.8.16-1-win32.exe) and I am using it now. No crash so far. So that's good. I just checked and he has posted the new version. Here's the url if you are interested: http://download.sarine.nl/Programs/gmpc/11.8/ FYI, I passed on to Avuton Olrich that it would be nice for release 12 if GMPC could be instructed to automatically retrieve local art using a defined filename (e.g., folder.jpg) or, even better and perhaps easier, make a new fetcher for local art that uses a web server on the player. If they implement the last then all of the Bryston, Auraliti and DIY Voyage MPD users who use a usb hard drive on the player for music will benefit since all of those Voyage MPD based players have a web server (lighttpd). That is how MPoD gets local art from Voyage MPD, and it works great. I think it would be easy for them to implement since they already employ similar logic to retrieve art with the DiscoGS and LastFM metadata fetchers. Until then, you will just have to accept using the internet cover art. At least the new version uses different colored fake covers for albums it cannot find art for. But I still to prefer to use exclusively, my cover art. So, I have to manually select the cover art for every album in my collection!

Rene, what version of Windows GMPC are you using, version 0.20 or the new 11.18.16? I am limping along with 11.18.6 and I do not see what you see, I think. Anyway, the easiest way to associate your local cover art is by album. So, assuming you are in 'Album View', right click on the album (CD icon if there is no cover displayed), then click on 'Select File'. A new window titled 'Select File' will open displaying the locally attached drives on the PC that GMPC is running on. Now, that's the catch for you. For you this is not going to work. The reason is that the USB drive plugged into your Auralti will not show up in the list of drives attached to your PC (the one running GMPC). The Auralti does not share its USB drive to the network and GMPC was written to only look for a locally attached drive. That would be the same location you entered in the Preferences>Connection Music Directory box. In my case, my files are on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box and I map the music directory as my M: drive on my PC. But you cannot do that. So, bottom line for you is this: You can not manually select local cover art. I think I understand the "hit or miss" experience. With the fetchers enabled, GMPC will always retrieve cover art from the web sources if it exists, regardless of you manually selecting local art (which you cannot do anyway). At first, this behavior drove me crazy. I would select my own art which was higher resolution, page down and then page back up and see that it had gone back to the art retrieved from the web. That's when I figured out I had to turn off the fetchers. I have communicated to the developers that this is not good behavior. I don't know if they will do it the way I think it should be implemented which is to simply look for a defined filename (e.g., folder.jpg) in the album folder and display that art work. Unfortunately, that still will not help you. Music Player Daemon (MPD) running on the Auraliti does not have cover art retrieval built in to it. It will serve other metadata such as artist,album,title,track,name,genre,date,composer and disc to a client (like GMPC or MPoD) asking for it, but not cover art. MPoD will display local art but requires a web server to be running on the MPD server (Auraliti). Fortunately, Voyage MPD (the operating system the Auralti runs) has a lightweight web server built in. The web server gives (serves) the cover art to the MPoD client application. I might mention that to the GMPC guys becuase that would work well for Auralti, Bryston and VoyageMPD DIY types who use a USB drive on the player itself. I will send an email to Avuton Olrich right away. Who knows, they might consider it if they are too far along on GMPC ver.12

I built a player a while back, not using the D525 but Intel's older D510, using the motherboard SPDIF and the Realtek HD driver. It worked just fine and the good thing is your board does have a pci interface should you wish to try a better quality soundcard at a later date, like the ESI Juli@. While I was not using Foobar (think I played with it) I did use MediaMonkey and ASIO. No problems with that but I only had a 96Khz 24bit DAC back then, using RCA COAX input. Of course, your issue would be the case you have chosen. I don't think (did not look it up) it will accommodate an expansion card. If you go this route you might want to find a case that can allow you to use a sound card in the PCI slot in the future. Look up Perfect Home Theater. They have Origen cases and other, more cost effective cases from Wesena and Streamcom that would work for you. Nice looking also. Currently, I use Intel's D945GSEJT (same choice as Auralti) board which is a low-profile board with the ESI Juli@ providing digital out to my DAC. Voyage MPD software and custom case.

AudioDoctor, Rene, I have been in contact with the developers of GMPC, specifically the Windows version. AudioDoctor, this does not much apply to you but I thought you might be interested. The new release of GMPC (11.8.16) is definitely broken for Windows. It crashes due to a problem with the gtk module. So, I am back to using version 0.20 of GMPC on Windows (sigh). Now, on to cover art. This was my only nit with GMPC before. I always want to use my own local art. I store an image in every album folder named 'folder.jpg'. I do this because I prefer high quality artwork and often I rename the album title, e.g., 'Eat A Peach 96Khz-24bit'. Of course a metadata fetcher will not find this title. This works fine with my iPhone using MPoD. But, with GMPC, after turning off all the metadata fetchers (DiscoGS, LastFM, etc.), you have to manually select the local cover art for each and every album. Obviously, this is a royal pain in the derriere if you have hundreds if not thousands of albums. The developers of GMPC have informed me that they are working on GMPC ver 12 and cover art handling will be completely re-done. I will be looking forward to that!

Fantasy is good for our mental state. I am listening to "The Look of Love" right now.

I am sure Elvis Costello will not mind!

Ps... gotta pick up an album by that chanteuse you used in another post. I am a sucker for "headlights". :=)

AudioDoctor, Unfortunately, as I said earlier this morning, The Linux and Windows versions of GMPC are different. Even after I installed version 11.8 for Windows, it did not look like your Linux version for "Preferences". FYI, one of the things improved in the new version is "Album View" and local cover art fetching. Bummer for me on Windows!

Hi AudioDoctor, I do not use the plugins. Never have, since I started using GMPC several years back. All my cover art is named "Folder.jpg". Yep, know about nix case sensitivity. Have used nix variants since the early 1970s. I am an old software developer. :=) Now, If I could just get the Windows version of GMPC ver 11.8 to run. I assume you are running that now since you did a total re-install. Unfortunately, since I am not doing any Linux development these days, I do not have (or need) a Linux PC.

Well AudioDoctor, I am back on version 0.20.0 again. I am disappointed. Feel like a kid who opened the gift-wrapped box and found a broken toy inside.