[bordonbert]

Hi. First time post here, hope I don't tread on toes. I've looked for postings on this topic and some touch on it but I can't find anything which explains simply what is the best way to approach naming and listing and cue/m3u files.

I'm using XBMCLive in an Acer Revo, booting from a nice new Verbatim micro USB key. I use exclusively .flac format and will either use cue or m3u files with them if I can find a way to make either work. No problems with the general running of things, folder/album/artist structures correctly so navigation is fine, and music plays well outputted to my USB DAC. I know about the "list by" options and have run through them all in the process of testing.

My problem would become a non-issue if flac+cue/m3u is not supported so first question is, is this doable? If it is.....

The problem is that I can't get the system to reliably recognise file names and order them correctly within an album or folder listing, or when it does display correctly the play order doesn't follow the listing. I have tried ripping to both individual track flac files and to a single album file, neither works. I have set the file name format for reading to be "(%N) %T" and the file names and cue sheet shows all tracks named correctly, eg "(03) River Runs Deep". I then tell the folder to display based on "File" which I thought should force it to list based on the track number because of my naming format. I have tried all other listing options too but they still don't both list and play in order, generally one or the other for different albums.

I wonder if I should be going into the .m3u route instead of .cue? I can post examples from my files if it helps, but it makes for a long first posting for others to troll through. Can anyone point me to the best way to approach this?

[Balthazaar]

I can vouch that xbmc + flac + cue works fine in both file mode & library mode. I use %N %T for name format. Albums tracks are displayed and played in correct order in both modes. That's flac image + cue. Stupid question - You are using image files right? One big flac plus cue? if you are using individual flac per track AND cue files, I fail to see the need for a cue file...? (oops, I re-read you post that you'd tried both...)

I think you will need to post an example cue file and an example of your track naming format and an OS level directory listing example.

[pike]

There's great chances to confuse library with cuefiles

I think it depends if cue contains VA, eg various artists &/ different artists for each track. This is a recipe for disaster I predict

[Balthazaar]

Oh..and another (stupid) question..

You are sorting by track or name, and not time or artist etc?

[bordonbert]

Hi guys. Thanks for the assistance. This is bound to come down to a dumbass issue which my lack of experience is causing. Just got to identify where the dumbass is applying his dumb ass!

Balthazaar, sounds like you are suggesting that the best approach is to go for the 'single flac+cue file' approach. Would that be right? I have tried individual files both with and without a cue file, and a single with cue file. I have trouble with all 3. I'll stick with the single file approach from now on until I sort the problem out and understand more.

What Pike says is also interesting because the thing which pushed me into really trying to get to grips with this problem was a 'Various artist' CD which just refused to display the track names no matter what I did and inserted the artist instead.

I use EAC to rip cds to flac. Because of the required external conversion from wav to flac after extraction it leaves me with a cue file built around wav. I open them in a text editor and change the extensions and filetype declaration to .flac/FLAC manually. (Actually I'm in the process of automating this with a piece of custom software which will rebuild the cue file from the original and the EAC log file but that is in the pipeline at the moment.)

My file naming convention is '(%N) %T' as I said, and folders are always structured 'Artist\Album'. I add a '\Disc 1' etc to that for multidisc albums. I assume I am right in dropping the cue files into the 'Playlist\Music' folder on the Revo as the manual said?

I have to say that at the moment the basic process produces some strange looking cues. Each line looks fine individually but they do seem to come up in a strange order. But then I'm no expert on cue files so they may be fine! Here is an extract:

Code:

REM GENRE Rock
REM DATE 2002
REM DISCID BC0B360D
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb5"
PERFORMER "Bryan Ferry"
TITLE "Frantic"
FILE "\Bryan Ferry\Frantic\(01) It's All Over Now Baby Blue.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "It's All Over Now Baby Blue"
    PERFORMER "Bryan Ferry"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Cruel"
    PERFORMER "Bryan Ferry"
    INDEX 00 04:05:43
FILE "\Bryan Ferry\Frantic\(02) Cruel.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Goin' Down"
    PERFORMER "Bryan Ferry"
    INDEX 00 03:55:15
FILE "\Bryan Ferry\Frantic\(03) Goin' Down.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "Goddess of Love"
    PERFORMER "Bryan Ferry"
    INDEX 00 03:08:21
etc........

This is before I make my manual changes but everything else stays fine. The inclusion of INDEX 00 and INDEX 01 is a bit random, some tracks within an album will not have both, only a INDEX 00 00:00:00.

Another big issue which occurred to me is that the addresses of the files are incorrect. These seem relative to a base address defined where the file was ripped and my media files are not left there. I rip onto my PC and then drop them to their final location afterwards. I have all media source files stored on a Stora NAS drive on my home network. The NAS drive is recognised in XBMC under UPnP not Samba at the moment as that just upped and worked first time. I can navigate to that and the music is picked up fine, but it leaves me thinking that the cue file is just being ignored completely and the basic filenames are all that is being used.

How should I define that relative file address for my current hardware and UPnP connection? The Stora is reported onscreen in XBMC as 'Stora:UPNP-AV' and on a PC as just 'Stora'. Will it be simply something like '\\Stora:UPNP-AV\FamilyLibrary\FamilyMusic\[Artist]\[Album]\[File.flac]'. This is the Windoze address which would take me there. But this is an absolute address of course so maybe I would need to include navigating from the XBMC Playlist folder too.

Another strange thing is that changing an individual filename on the drive and rebooting XBMC to force an update so I would recognise it onscreen does not change the onscreen display of that track. Then neither does changing the names within the cue file. So where is my system picking the display names up from? (And isn't there a manual way to force this update so I don't need a reboot?)

Oh, and yes, I am sorting by file usually. As each fie is named with its track number at the front this should give me the correct running order in the display. I have realised that this is not a global setting and check each folder as I use it at the moment. It could be just me but the system does seem to forget this setting for an album occasionally though that may be because of some change I make which it sees as deleting an album and replacing it with a different one.

Not sure of where to go from here. I'll play with a couple of albums ripped to single file and try various addresses for the file in the cue.

Thanks for the help so far, hope you can set me straight with this. I love the product and do want to get it working as it obviously can.

[bordonbert]

I should heve pointed out that the extract from a cue file I posted was from a multi track rip. Here is a bit of a single track rip for comparison:

Code:

REM GENRE "Classic Rock"
REM DATE 1978
REM DISCID DF0C9F0D
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb5"
PERFORMER "10cc"
TITLE "Bloody Tourists"
FILE "Bloody Tourists.flac" FLAC
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Dreadlock Holiday"
    PERFORMER "10cc"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "For You And I"
    PERFORMER "10cc"
    INDEX 00 04:27:71
    INDEX 01 04:29:54
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Take These Chains"
    PERFORMER "10cc"
    INDEX 00 09:46:56
    INDEX 01 09:48:39
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "Shock On The Tube (Don't Want Love)"
    PERFORMER "10cc"
    INDEX 00 12:23:62
    INDEX 01 12:25:45

Interestingly the system gave this file the correct .flac extension whereas it normally leaves all files with .wav. But it still left WAVE as the designated file type. I changed it to FLAC manually. Looks much more orderly to me.

[bordonbert]

Booting to XBMCLive on the Revo leaves me with a restricted list of tasks I can do. I have found the File Manager type interface. Is there a way to manually edit cue files on the machine available? A simple text editor would be useful and I have no idea if XBMC has this or can support it.

At the moment I can't see the Revo from other machines on the network, (UPnP not Samba), so maybe I need to set up the Samba side correctly too then I cna do this from another machine.

[bordonbert]

Yay! A breakthrough on the Samba front. I think a change of WINS server to my router has opened it up. I can now see other machines on my network and I can also see the Stora. It won't see a full list of the available folders on the Stora though.

It is organised into a common 'Family' area which all users should have access too, and a number of 'My' areas which should be per user. I can immediately see My Computers and My Music but not the larger common repository Family Music. Guess where all of the music files currently are!

So I have set up a network location and told it where to look for it. It seems to have found the Family area and reports it as an available location. The login details seem to have worked too although entering them was odd. They were accepted but I couldn't get out of the entry screen with all fields filled. Still, it seems to be done now.

I can play an album where the only available cue file is in the Playlists folder on the Revo. They are now displayed and played in the correct order. A few more simple tests to check what I am seeing is really what I think it is and I may be home and dry.

[bordonbert]

I've moved on again and I think this problem is now sorted.

I have now set up FTP access on the Revo and am uploading my cue files to the playlist folder there. They then just seem to tie up with the files on the NAS drive automatically without the filepath in the cue files being any accurate representation. I'll keep an eye on that as I suspect that if the path in the cue file conflicts with where actually they sit in some way it may lose track. But for now XBMC seems to link the cue and flac files correctly. Display and playback are in the right order.

Thanks for the advice. It is proof that all that is needed is a little hand up by someone who knows and the rest can be done by even the rawest rookie. And I have a much better picture of all of this now.

I'm very grateful Balthazaar and Pike.

[Balthazaar]

I didn't do anything other than confirm cue files work. You did all the hard work. Well done.