I’m happy with my upgrade to the DMP from the PWT, once I got an ID number programmed into the DMP. Unfortunately, it left the factory without one. Now, I find the connection to the internet worthless. I have received 1 or 2 pieces of artwork. That is it!
My screen reads internet ok and artwork is enabled. Anyone know what’s wrong? The sd card is in place etc. The cd’s I’ve played are not obscure, some being Grammy winners. -Still no artwork!
I’m about to disconnect the DMP from my ethernet, unless I can remedy the situation.
With CDs, I have found the artwork to be a hit or miss proposition. Some CDs that I think are popular don’t find the artwork, while others that I never expected to work do. So don’t expect to get artwork consistently. But you should certainly get more than one or two covers – try the steps that PB outlined.
With SACDs, it’s different. We are limited to discs that users have entered into their own playlists and then shared with the community. There just isn’t a big database out there as there for Redbook. So again, it’s hit or miss.
I have had similar experience with CD/SACD metadata, including title, artist and artwork. I don’t know what source PSA is using to search for metadata. My old Oppo used Gracenote (and advertised as such in it’s display) and it resolved virtually everything I played.
With my DMP, when I see unresolved title/artist or artwork on my playlist, it’s not hard to highlight it and enter/update the title and artist data. For artwork, I open a window to Discogs and search for the specific release that I own. (check label, format, and release date, since the artwork can differ for different editions). Then one can copy the artwork image on the upper left and paste it into a folder local on your PC. Then, you click the unfound artwork image on your PS playlist, browse to your local folder (your playlist browse function remembers your local folder), highlight/open the just downloaded artwork file, and click upload on your playlist. Your playlist then is updated and ‘remembers’ the metadata for that item in your collection. Unfortunately, for an item with no metadata initially found, you don’t have the tracklist either. I’ve not had the energy to enter the whole tracklist and timings. OTOH, the DMP does find the tracklist/timings on the actual CD/SACD table of contents and so, does display the playing track/timing on the DMP display.
That’s a really SIMPLE way to get the artwork. -Not my cup of tea. I’d rather listen to my music.
I really think that having offered this service to PWT and DMP owners, PSA should find a smoother solution. The DMP wasn’t cheap. It just couldn’t be that difficult to accomplish this task with all of the software engineers employed at PSA.
Hi John… I agree with you…and no need to apologize. Currently, I update my playlist sometime after listening…usually with a beer. I’m not sure how long I’ll want to continue with the not-simple process I described above.
Hey Paul… Would/could the Gracenote metadata service be integrated into the PS Playlist search??
John Wyant said
The DMP is disconnected from the network for now.
Sorry for the cynicism,
Your reaction is not misplaced. The database the PWT and DMP use is far from complete and is a bother to manually supplement. Album artwork is not important to me, but I can understand the appeal to others. It should work as advertised and too often does not.
I would prefer getting rid of the touch screen and the pictures, to be replaced by dedicated buttons and a simple crisp display for track number, time, etc. Fortunately, there is the option of turning it off.
I think of the display and its quirks as a small price for great sound.
For a long time I was playing SACDs so I figured it’s normal. Now I’m trying to play a CD - the soundtrack from Beauty and the Beast (the original animated version) and nada.
I checked the status read out on the bottom…
It says Internet OK, SD Card OK
Then it says Downloading… then says file r/w error
Hi John… I agree with you…and no need to apologize. Currently, I update my playlist sometime after listening…usually with a beer. I’m not sure how long I’ll want to continue with the not-simple process I described above.
Hey Paul… Would/could the Gracenote metadata service be integrated into the PS Playlist search??
Thanks!
Nom plans for that right now. That database is bloody expensive to use and we believe we may have worked out a plan (for the future) to get the same results with a less costly one. Still working on it. Metadata is the hardest of all things to figure out and takes a long, long time to get it right. Years, in fact.
Thanks Paul… I know that nothing is easy nor cheap. I agree with Elk that the display/playlist issues are a small price to pay for Great Sound. I didn’t even have a saved playlist with my Oppo, and now that I do, it’s better than not having it.
Just a thought: Discogs seems to have compiled info on much of the world of recorded music. I know nothing about the structure of their database…I wonder if they might have a business case for providing a metadata service…
Apparently it is more difficult to create such a database than it appears. But the system PS Audio uses is at least improving. Previously I would receive no information on many discs. Now there are more that at least trigger album and track information, even though album art is often missing. I am certain this is a function of what one happens to listen to.
I find the artwork display rarely displays on my DMP as well, but it does find the album and track names nearly all the time.
I also find the sound quality of my DMP connected to my DirectStream DAC to be unequaled! When I read things like “jaw dropping” in some of the early reviews, I thought “really”? But I must say, the longer I enjoy this pair, the more I find myself describing the musicality and detail I’m enjoying, I would characterize it as “jaw dropping”.
I’ve found that when artwork for a disc record you’ve added does not display on the DMP but IS present on My Playlist that doing the following usually fixes it:
Make sure the artwork you've uploaded is a .jpg. Although My Playlist will accept other bitmap formats, they don't seem to work so well.
Make sure the artwork is at least 300x300 pixels and, if needed, crop or resample the artwork so both the rows and columns are equal. Larger sizes are fine, but anything below 300 pixels seems to have a high likelihood of not loading.
Use a bitmap editor that allows you to save the artwork at 100% quality or with no compression. The DMP does not handle compressed JPEGs well.
When loading the disc, allow the artwork to finish loading before beginning play. Playing the disc while the artwork is loading appears to interfere with the load (though not always!).
Perhaps these observations will help the new DMP programmer, though I think much of this could be addressed with a bit of coding on the My Playlist side of the equation (i.e.: feed the DMP a proper diet and it will be happier).
^ Unregister the DMP and reregister it as a DirectStream Memory Player (two items below the one you chose). Also, double check the s/n on the back of your unit. It looks right but it doesn’t hurt to verify.
I recently replaced my PWT with the DMP. Sonic improvement is amazing. The artwork seems to be an issue. I have spent many hours programming 1150 cd’s into my playlist. Thanks to James for getting that merged from the PWT ID to the DMP ID. I still have an issue with the artwork. I get the track info but the artwork is hit or miss. I never had an issue with the artwork on the PWT. I have tried rebooting everything to no avail. I do believe this is a bug in the firmware that hopefully will get corrected when the new load comes out. It is interesting if I watch the DMP when I load a CD to see it collect the track info and than report that no artwork found. i go on the computer and check for the artwork and it is there. I thought I would avoid all this by copying the DiscData file from the PWT SD card to the DMP SD card but for some reason the DMP does not find the info or artwork there. I will be patient and wait for the next update to see if this issue is corrected.