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Author Topic: Sharing Media Files but not tags  (Read 1962 times)

Dantos

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Sharing Media Files but not tags
« on: April 03, 2016, 01:52:48 am »

Is there any easy way of sharing media files but maintaining user defined fields for each person?

I want to share one physical media library between multiple friends at different physical locations but still maintain my own tagging system/ library [field]s.

It is easy for each user to have the same media on an external drive and periodically syncing those drives thereby sharing (swapping) media. This would be one of the main benefits, sharing media. The other obvious benefit is having multiple off-site backups.

Also, each user can have their own MC Library on their individual machines, customizable to their liking including custom library views and MC library fields.

So far, so good but once media drives are next synced not only are media files exchanged, so are their tags (file metadata). This would include user A's tags which have been modified/updated from the library since the last syncing. Those altered media file tags (metadata) from user A will become library [fields/properties] for user B once imported into user B's MC library. All of a sudden "user B" might find his field properties all altered such as a 5 star rating now 2 star rating or the [name] of an album changed from "xyz" to "xyz remastered HDTracks 24-96".

I'm not sure sharing and syncing the one MC library (as opposed to maintaining separate libraries) would offer any advantage and would seem to cause the same problem.

Others must have encountered this scenario between family members or friends so keen to hear how they resolved it. Any other related tips like custom tags to identify different users' music files etc also appreciated.

Many thanks


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Arindelle

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Re: Sharing Media Files but not tags
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2016, 08:51:58 am »

Before my sons left the nest all of their music was combined with mine ... as they grew older, they started to like more and more my Rock, Jazz, and Classical stuff, and they gave me a taste of what good hip-hop and electronic music is in return. SO in a way I'm sort of in a similar situation as you, although I'm really the keeper of a master "family" library.

So, if you can all agree on a standard ripping "mask" or template so you don't need to mess too much with repointing anything other than a drive letter ... there are a bunch of things you can do .... but easy .... not really

1) Basic syncing, you can all define which fields would be truly user fields and fields which you only modify if there are errors ie. The Album Artist, Artist, Album track name become sacrosanct. In your example if they want to separate versions by album name rather than use use a "version" field you are going to have problems. This can be a mess if people do not agree on genres etc. But if there are only a couple of fields like ratings, you can just mark the fields you want to be individualized to not write the tag to the file and be library based only. Pretty hard to get everybody to agree on things though so probably not the best scenario. And frankly its a real PITA in practice.

2) One person's library is the master and this writes tags to the file; things like ratings would not be written to the file again, but before syncing the physical files, you would create playlists for all five star, 4 stars etc.  All you need to do is pull up the playlist select all files in the 5 star list and retag once. Done. Review all tags that write to the files and remove only the most critical ones, that way you can use syncing software instead of copying 4tb worth of stuff all the time, when there have been no changes.  However, if you have a significantly different tagging system this is still not great. You can also play with the option to not update the library for external changes, depending.

3) Have an archive copy of your media files -- clear all tags on this cloned drive (or keep only the "key" tags in the file. Probably have to do this in an external tagger, not sure actually if you can selectively clear only specific tags in JRiver or not). If the filename/path contains: Album Artist, Artist, Track number, track name and maybe some rule to differentiate versions and disk number. The basic metadata can be simply rebuilt, but you will have to tag new music yourself as per genres etc.  When finished syncing, you can select the files and use the library tool and update tags from library. This is pretty easy to do, but lots of problems can crop up.

4) This is what I do now.

You only share new music that each family member has ripped/downloaded. If the ripper permits, auto tag a field (I use keywords, but you use what you want) so that you know who bought the music.  Set-up views or a smartlist based on the keyword and date imported (or another date field if you prefer). So eg. there is me and my 2 sons .. so the tag might Say Papa, Son1 or Son2.  Make two of these views for each ... so I know that all music to give to son1 comes from Papa and "Son2". Son2's view will have just the music from Papa and Son2. Each of my sons have the two views. Now either son can share their stuff together or with me or as it works out each one of my children get my music and their "other" brother's and they are only transferring the music they purchase. 

This is date filtered so for instance if you have added 10 albums one comes over and I give them a copy. Right away I change the date in the view for that night. So you are only "syncing new music.  Then you "sandbox" ... meaning that you set up your import to include a temp directory for this new stuff; then each person can filter the new music and verify and retag if necessary.  When satisfied you can use the Move, rename, copy tool to move it into the main library path. (I have a second field to tag if they have been verified or not. In this way, you can write what you like to the files and as long as each person tags their rips/DLs and each person changes the date on the views after a transfer,  I find the best of both worlds.  The only down-side, is you might have to do a lot of retagging, but I'm pretty obsessive about my tags, and my kids could care less or are more interested in DJ tags.

There are other ways I have experimented with ... like separate libraries and such, but once you get the "family" collection set-up initially, I find it painless.  If you mess up and forget to reset the date field or for some reason people don't fill in the who ripped what field ... just setup a good duplicate smartlist and erase the dupes from the sandboxed (temp) directory.  Another benefit is that these "transfer views" all you need to do is select all and use the MRC tool again and copy them to a usb key or drive.  No need to mess with selecting stuff manually via Windows.  Once the first "batch is copied", you are not adding hundreds of cd each time so it becomes really very easy, and not difficult to setup (well you need to know how views work)

If you really want to toy with the first couple of options, just make doubly sure you have multiple backups of the JRiver Library files.  I'm sure there are other ways to do this.  Sharing physical media like this is doable (euh make sure its legal right ;) - don't forget to support your artists!! ). Sharing metadata is a lot more complicated. You can share a backup library file, but you need to know what you are getting into, and what you are describing is not one master library. I think it is better to have independant "main" libraries for each family member.

Of course you have to maybe train your "family" members so they are not JRiver noobs, but I set up my sons systems for them and they just have to have a little discipline and not be total couch potatoes.

Hope this helps
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Dantos

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Re: Sharing Media Files but not tags
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2016, 06:16:10 pm »

Thanks Arindell for your reply and benefit of your experience.

Just to clarify, as I understand it, you currently maintain the master "family collection". Each of two sons maintain their own "main libraries". Originally the sons' start-up libraries were formed by either cloning your library or simply just importing your media files, complete with your tags (metadata).

Now you just swap or "transfer" any *new* downloads/rips between respective family members. The big difference here, from my original post, is that there is *no* syncing as in using a syncing program that copies *all* changes to a *whole* drive. Therefore there is no potential for corruption of your existing file tags (and subsequently, to your library fields).

The mechanics of this is where I am struggling. You set up "transfer" library views on each computer based on ripper identifier keyword and import date. On the day "ripper 1" comes over he changes the date for transfers to the current date. He uses the Move, rename, copy tool to transfer those files to an external usb stick or external drive. The "recipient" takes the external device and  "sandboxes" the files by copying media to a separate folder on his computer. The recipient then imports that "single folder" and applies whatever additional optional import tags desired. Inside of MC the recipient further verifies that all the [fields] are as desired. If so, he then uses the MRC tool to transfer the media into his "Music" folder.

Thanks again for any help

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Arindelle

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Re: Sharing Media Files but not tags
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2016, 04:32:32 am »

sure .. well here goes another wall-of-text  ;D

Just to clarify, as I understand it, you currently maintain the master "family collection". Each of two sons maintain their own "main libraries". Originally the sons' start-up libraries were formed by either cloning your library or simply just importing your media files, complete with your tags (meta-data).
More or less yes. When my eldest moved out I didn't have the system down pat. So it was sort of a merge (frankly a mess).  For the second I restored my library backup file to his computer, then reset his access key. Changed his audio device setup to suit, and created a couple of zones for him (as they are using monitors there are a lot of DSP corrections. Then he ran a full auto-import off a backup hard drive of my stuff (which included there music until they left the roost so to speak.  We agreed on a ripping template so that the file structure/name is the same (this is not necessary, but avoids having to rename files to keep everything consistent -- I am a big supporter of being able to rebuild meta-data from a filename as a final way of disaster recovery). I have made them aware that it is their responsibility to backup their JR library backups zips. If lost their fields and changes to my tags would be gone.

Quote
Now you just swap or "transfer" any *new* downloads/rips between respective family members. The big difference here, from my original post, is that there is *no* syncing as in using a syncing program that copies *all* changes to a *whole* drive. Therefore there is no potential for corruption of your existing file tags (and subsequently, to your library fields).
Yes, exactly. It is also very fast once the initial data is transferred and usually can fit easily on a 32gb USB key if I see them regularly. I do import some tags I don't use, but I don't bother with them.

Quote
The mechanics of this is where I am struggling. You set up "transfer" library views on each computer based on ripper identifier keyword and import date. On the day "ripper 1" comes over he changes the date for transfers to the current date. He uses the Move, rename, copy tool to transfer those files to an external usb stick or external drive. The "recipient" takes the external device and  "sandboxes" the files by copying media to a separate folder on his computer. The recipient then imports that "single folder" and applies whatever additional optional import tags desired. Inside of MC the recipient further verifies that all the [fields] are as desired. If so, he then uses the MRC tool to transfer the media into his "Music" folder.

It seems like you understood... is there a question?.

I actually use the [Keywords] field and a custom field that uses the date imported field data (this is not required but if for some reason you have to re-import everything from scratch, it is a JRiver system field and it will be replaced with a new date.  This only happened to me once, and now I know better so it is not necessary, but just putting it out there :p )  In my [Grouping] field which also serves as my Top Genre field I put "zRetag" in this and base the admin views on these two. Some people prefer to use a logical field (like verified T/F), but I sometimes re-tag stuff after the fact once it is in my main area but this is personal choice. You could also simplify by just using a Ripper ID, date field, and path, but I prefer the extra tag. In case you move more than you should have you still can find the non-verified media.

So then the “transfer” view for Son1 shows tracks if ripped by Son2 or Myself equal  to or after X date. The View for Son2 shows tracks if ripped by Son1 or Myself = to or after X date. When one of the sons leave with their stuff, I customize the view and put in a new date, and the view is empty again. Now for me this is easy because it is very rare that they exchange their music between themselves. But if they were to do so, they would have the same two views slightly modified of course. If this happens a lot where one family member doesn't always exchange to the same person. You can get duplicates. This is not an issue if you have a find duplicates smart-list or view as part of your work flow. If there is a duped album, just remove the one from the temp directory. Easy and fast.

Note you need OR conditions for the View to work. They will show up in parenthesis in the customize box. If you need help on this I can post the code or screenshot. But it would look something like this for my youngest

Code: [Select]
[Date Imported]=>04/03/2016 ([Keywords]=[MY Rip] or [Keywords]=[Son1 Rip])
For my view to track what should be moved to the main music directory, its just all files that no longer have my "zRetag" or the not verified tag. As I said above my ripper puts this in automatically, but for my DL purchases, I just put the tag in (I use a freeware called Tagscanner to do this and rename the file paths/name, but you could do this in JRiver too after import). As soon as I add files from my sons I also tag this -- it's an additional reminder if you will. Note: this view is not audio only as I want to move all files, including cover art and sometimes data (pdf files). This way JRiver will also ask you whether or not to erase the empty folders, which you would want to do.

I also have a separate tagging view showing only the "non-verified media". Using linkable columns you can then find all cds of artists you might already have in you collection and maintain more consistent tags, by jumping to a view that includes both the temp directory and the main one.

Actually one of my sons set up a calculation field to replace some of my genres with his more simple structure. Actually, I don't just browse to the "separate folder" and import that. It is part of my auto-import configuration. All of us are fans of Assets in JRemote so we keep pdf files, other images, and the main cover art as folder.jpg in the album folder. These files, if updated don't import well all the time so I just run an auto-import. But you can do that if you are on a slow NAS I suppose, I would still keep it as part of the auto-import config. especially if you are modifying images and things.

So lets say you have your base media files that everybody has as a start. You go to the view and change the date to "tomorrow". Then a month goes by and the blank view will start to fill (I just use Icons, but it doesn't matter really. CTRL+A then F6 and you get to the move, copy. Set up how you want to do it and save a preset in the RMC tool. You don't want to mess up and move the files, you only want to copy them.  You could even copy them to a part of your hard drive which I tend to do before my sons visit  as you can't really listen to music when you are copying from within JRiver, but this is not required.

Of course I used my media as the base because it incorporated all of their albums until they were 18 or 19 or so. But you could just group them all together and not use a "master" it doesn't matter because you re not trying to sync meta-data, just content. Its the date and ownership, with an option to use a “verified” tag.
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Dantos

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Re: Sharing Media Files but not tags
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2016, 07:19:15 pm »

Arindelle, thanks so very much for the extra detail and explanations. There's a lot to digest but working through it. I didn't even know there was a [Grouping] field so learning all the time!
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