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[sKiZo]

Pretty much what the title says. I've got a lot of digital media already in MC, but I've also got a lot of vinyl that I currently track in an Excel spreadsheet. It'd be nice to be able to just enter a title and artist into MC and have it do it's lookup thing, then add the music to the library for reference only - without actually having any digital file. That would give me a centralized database of EVERYTHING in one handy dandy location.

Doable?

PS ... I already do something similar with videos. I've got a LOT of DVDr movies and have figured out how to use a blank marker video and sidecar file to add those to the MC library. I just copy and rename those files for each new title. I use custom fields for disk number and location, then export the whole shebang to Excel to print a catalog. Works pretty slick. I suppose I could do the same with vinyl and tape, but wondering if maybe I'm just missing a better way.

[RoderickGI]

I haven't heard of or seen a better way to do what you want than what you are doing for DVDs. I plan to do the same for my DVD and Blu-ray collection. For audio I just rip the CD to digital, and I don't have any vinyl or tapes.

The only suggestion I would make to what you are doing, if you don't do it now, is to untick the [Playable] tag in MC for each vinyl/tape/DVD/Blu-ray record, so that MC won't attempt to play it, or select it for use in a Playlist. I think that would work fine for audio records.

[aviateur]

Interesting!

I have been going in the other direction for quite some time: MC views for the inventory of albums and tracks with pertinent columns that are copied into respective Microsoft Access tables. Within Access, I execute a form/query with embedded VBA code that is used to check integrity issues such as Disc/Track sequencing. I then can produce PDFs for viewing elsewhere on different platforms. But I like your thinking on this. I'll have to give this some thought to see if this would be applicable and do-able. I have been using the Access approach for many years for inventory purposes. But I'm always open to ideas. Thanks for bringing it the forum. I forgot to mention, I manage my vinyl and video in the same Access manner.

Cheers,
Lawrence

[sKiZo]

The only suggestion I would make to what you are doing, if you don't do it now, is to untick the [Playable] tag in MC for each vinyl/tape/DVD/Blu-ray record, so that MC won't attempt to play it, or select it for use in a Playlist. I think that would work fine for audio records.

"Playable" tag? That's a new one on me, and I just took a peek here and couldn't find it. Then again, I'm still on MC19, so maybe it's a newer feature?

And ya ... I've mentioned my workaround for videos before ... here's a screenshot of one of those listings ... notice the file length and file location:



Here's links to the generic video and sidecar files I use. Those just get copy/pasted to a watched directory and renamed to the new title so MC can do the lookup and automatically add them to the library.

http://www.brainfartz.com/images/Stereo%20Stuff/htpc/mc-stuff/Generic.mkv

http://www.brainfartz.com/images/Stereo%20Stuff/htpc/mc-stuff/Generic%20Movie_mkv_JRSidecar.xml

The sidecar also needs to be edited to replace the generic movie name with the correct title. A simple text editor does the job there.

I have been going in the other direction for quite some time: MC views for the inventory of albums and tracks with pertinent columns that are copied into respective Microsoft Access tables.

I've got Access loaded up here, but haven't used it in ages as it seemed a bit overkill for this sort of thing. I'll have to dust it off and see what happens. Then again, I use Excel VBA to do books and stamps and stuff, and just force of habit to use it to print catalogs on the music and video as well.

[aviateur]

Here's what playable looks like (MC 22.0.88). I placed 'Playable' in the view. I unchecked the first track and then proceeded to play the album. Sure enough, it stepped right over the first track (see image).

Cheers,
Lawrence

[sKiZo]

As I suspected ... just did a bit of digging, and the "playable" field first showed up in 21.0.71 (4/12/2016) ...

Have to maybe do some head scratching and see about making an expression that would do the duty in v19.

(Unless someone else beat me to it ... nudge nudge) <G>

** Do me a favor and right click the playable header and see if an expression pops up?

[RoderickGI]

[Playable] is an Integer Check type standard Library field, and doesn't have an expression attached to it.

I'm pretty sure there is quite a bit of code in MC to handle records that aren't marked as Playable, for example not selecting them using filters etc. for inclusion in Playlists. Maybe it's simpler than I think, but certainly it is code in MC that handles how those records are processed, and not an expression used in views.

Sounds like a good reason to upgrade. 

[aviateur]

Hi:

I think the process may be simpler than that, but it is embedded in MC code and not visible to users.

So here's my conjecture. The 'Play' operation, no matter how it is initiated, acts upon an array (container?) of 'track' objects. So, the first test performed asks:

Are there ANY playable items in the array of tracks presented for 'Play?
  If yes, process the array of 'playable' tracks.
  If no, exit and present a 'Playback Failed' dialog box (see image).

So I arrive at the 'process the array of 'playable' tracks' logic because my test above indicated that there is at least one track in the set which is playable. A test is performed (perhaps a boolean test of the 'Playable' attribute?) on the target track to determine if it is playable.

Is this track playable?
  If yes, play the track
  If no, return normally from the 'Play Track' request.

It then proceeds to process each of the remaining track(s) in the set. Again it only executes this 'Play Track' request logic if there are 1 or more 'playable' tracks in the set of potential tracks to play, potential, because they all could be marked unplayable ('Playable' unchecked) as was the 'No' result from the first test above (see image).

So, when you initiate the play request for the set and when only one track of the set is playable, it appears to proceed immediately to that track (see image) but, in essence, it looks at the 'Playable' attribute for all potential tracks in the set requested to play.

Again, this is conjecture based on the Play / Playable behavior I've observed and, yes, perhaps a bit over-simplified, but it is what I have observed.

Cheers,
Lawrence

[RoderickGI]

You could be right Aviateur, but you are thinking way too much like a programmer! 

Regardless, the Playable functionality is coded, and doesn't use MC Expressions. 

[aviateur]

RoderickGI, Hi:

You could be right Aviateur, but you are thinking way too much like a programmer! 

How does that expression go? You can take the boy out of programming but ...

And furthermore to support that position, I would like to modify my thinking above. Instead of two passes through the track set, it is probably just one and a 'Playable Detected' flag is set to TRUE if any of the tracks are playable. Upon exiting, if the flag is FALSE (meaning none were playable), the 'Playback Failed' dialog box is presented, otherwise its TRUE and a normal exit occurs.

I know, its a curse (and impossible to turn off) 

Cheers,
Lawrence