Album downloads

[craig c]

I have several download coupons that came with recent records. How do I get them into the B2?

[PMB]

Hi Craig,

Not sure exactly what you are asking but I think you will need to download the Albums to your computer first and then transfer to the B2.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[craig c]

Hi Paul, yes that’s what I’m asking. Once they are downloaded to my computer, how do I transfer them to the B2?

Thanks

Craig

[craig c]

And here’s another question: why is there no (at least that I know of) proper, comprehensive manual for the B2? For those of us that are not particularly tech savvy, the Brennan can be somewhat intimidating. Questions and problems seem to be dealt with through the forum as they come up, likely again and again

Craig

On Thursday, December 23, 2021 at 4:40:34 AM UTC-5 PMB wrote:

[Daniel Taylor]

I'm not familiar with the download coupons that you mentioned.  But if they allow you to download songs, I can tell you how to transfer them to the B2 after you've downloaded them to your computer.

There are three ways to transfer music to the B2:

1) Import from a USB disk plugged into the B2's USB port (either A or C).  The USB stick must be formatted as FAT32 (no other format will work).

2) Upload via the WebUI.

3) Direct tranfer from your computer to the B2 when it is set up as NAS (Network Attached Storage).

In all cases, the music must be arranged in a folder structure where the Artist folder contains the Album folders, which each contain the song files.  Artist\Album\tracks.

The Brennan website is effectively the manual.  The advantage over a paper manual is that new information can be added any time, and can be updated as needed.  Most of what a user needs to know is on the website.  IMO, every new owner should spend time reading the information on the website.  Before I received my B2, I spent over a month reading the website and hanging out in the forum reading about how to do things, and about problems and how to solve them.  There are a bunch of us here who are happy to help.  Different ones of us explain things in different ways.  Hopefully, one of those ways will make sense to you.

[JFBUK]

Hi Craig,

Paul is best placed to comment on the status, or not, of a manual but there is a lot of info on the Brennan website and there are several ways you can upload music to the B2.

1. use the web UI upload functionality

2.  Use the Import from C menu function.
This will upload music from a USB drive in USB C. The music should be organised in folders artist->album->track.

3. Enable NAS (network attached storage) on the B2 and copy from your computer to the B2. You will need to do a scan disk afterwards to update the B2 database

John

[Daniel Taylor]

The Brennan website is https://www.brennan.co.uk  (IMO, don't bother with the US version.)

I always keep tabs open for the Menu page and the Latest Software page.  The Menu page lets me find a description for every command and tells me in which sub-menu it can be found.  The Latest Software page describes what changes went into each version of software.  Although you can update to the latest software using the Web Update command, I always download each new version so that I have a copy just in case I don't like how the new version works and I want to go back to a previous version (you can only do that if you plan ahead).

[Daniel Taylor]

I am taking the liberty of re-posting here what Craig sent to my private email.  I think his comments are worth considering.

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Thanks Daniel. I understand it is much more efficient to have a web based manual. My issue is it’s just not organized well. For example, I didn’t find what I wanted using your suggestions. I had to go to the home page, look through multiple selections on the left menu before finding a link to uploads on the Web Interface page. That page then shows the upload panel and I could figure it out from there. The problem is finding the info one needs. There should be a comprehensive index that takes a user directly to what they need. Getting one’s music into the B2 is primary. Make it easy, especially for those of us who aren’t particularly tech literate. Computer folks tend to assume everyone knows how to do computer stuff, like uploading a file. Anyway, thanks very much for your help. 

Craig Cox

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Craig,

I agree that it could be better organized.  Sometimes it's difficult to find what you need, or to even know if it's really there at all.  An index would be a good step in the right direction.  Personally, I wish for a search function.

[PMB]

Hi Craig,

Thank you for the useful feedback.

Paul

Brennan Support.