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Andy1
Contributor I
Feb 17, 2019 3:31 AM UTC
Answered

How to show length of songs in WIndows Sonos app?

The Windows Sonos app doesn't seem to show the length of songs either in the queue or the library. I can't find anywhere in the options or settings to enable that either. How can that be shown? Sometimes it is highly relevant to choosing which cut(s) I want to play.
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    Alan_6Answer
    Prodigy II
    Feb 17, 2019 10:41 AM UTC
    To efficiently use the limited memory (and maybe also to keep the UI "clean" and uncluttered) Sonos stores and displays the absolute minimum number of tags for each track. Your Sonos system probably doesn't know how long an individual track is until it starts playing. This is why you can't (and probably won't ever) see either individual track lengths or album running times.

    So if, say, you have 35 minutes to kill and want to stick on a short album, you'll need to rely on a different music app like iTunes to tell you how longs things are.
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    7 replies

    Alan_6Answer
    Prodigy II
    Feb 17, 2019 10:41 AM UTC
    To efficiently use the limited memory (and maybe also to keep the UI "clean" and uncluttered) Sonos stores and displays the absolute minimum number of tags for each track. Your Sonos system probably doesn't know how long an individual track is until it starts playing. This is why you can't (and probably won't ever) see either individual track lengths or album running times.

    So if, say, you have 35 minutes to kill and want to stick on a short album, you'll need to rely on a different music app like iTunes to tell you how longs things are.
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    controlav
    controlav
    Lead Maestro
    Feb 17, 2019 2:11 PM UTC
    Alan_6 is correct: the database does not contain any length information for tracks.
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    Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
    Andy1Author
    Contributor I
    Feb 19, 2019 2:44 AM UTC
    I agree that not showing the length of each cut keeps the UI simple and clean, and that is needed especially on a small display such as phone or small tablet. But there should be an option to show this, since it is relevant to how some people play songs or choose which cuts to play (such as when I want a 20 or 30 minute track from an artist, not a 3 or 10 minute track).

    Memory is not a limitation. This is just a few more bytes per track in the Sonos library, and terabytes of disk space are almost typical on house NAS servers.

    The player app has access to online databases and the song metadata would include the track length and can be obtained from those music info databases. MediaMonkey as an example lists the length of each track. Sonos does know and show the track length, when it's playing.

    The info is in there, so it would be nice to have a user preference option to show this in both the queue and the library views.

    I don't think I like the workaround of using iTunes to check the length of songs before choosing what to play on my Sonos, though 😉
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      Airgetlam
      Airgetlam
      Feb 19, 2019 5:12 AM UTC
      Heh. You obviously haven't read the many threads decrying the 65K(ish) limit of library size on these forums. Every "few more bytes per track" would reduce that already decried limitation.
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      Bruce
      Alan_6
      Prodigy II
      Feb 19, 2019 7:04 PM UTC

      Memory is not a limitation. This is just a few more bytes per track in the Sonos library, and terabytes of disk space are almost typical on house NAS servers.

      By my estimation, I'm using over half my available Sonos memory with my library. I'm not sure I'd like to eat into the remainder on an extra tag per song. NAS space, on the other hand, is a non-issue as the files used to feed your local library can already reveal their track length. But again, see all the other threads on memory limits.

      What would be awesome is for Sonos to extend the "reading more info about the current selection from tags at run-time" from artwork into other tags not already cached in memory, so that the UI could display more (imagine if the "info" screen gave you actual info). But I don't really expect that to happen.
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      Andy1Author
      Contributor I
      Feb 20, 2019 4:06 AM UTC
      Airgetlam - I hadn't heard of the 65K limit! That takes me back in time - to 16 bit computers. Now I see where the problem is.

      Alan_6 - that would be a solution, pull in that data when needed but not keep it in the 65K library file.
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      Airgetlam
      Airgetlam
      Feb 20, 2019 6:14 AM UTC
      Well, Sonos' software still supports their earliest hardware, and since that's where all the work is done, any effort is likely restricted by how much available memory and CPU they were able to get in those original speakers.
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      Bruce
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