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[nila]

Hello  
Good morning all

MC as a music management program can do it all. It's great and the new changes are giving it even more power all the time. Well done on all the recently changes. It's looking and feeling easier to use than ever.


MC however is more of an all in one app than just management but some of these other areas have some big shortcomings that just mean that more often than not, stand alone apps are used to do the other tasks as they give more options and better control.

Chasing the perfect GUI, or the best way to manage files etc is a never ending task trying to reach perfection. The things needed to bring MC up to strength in these other areas however are one off tasks than once done can just leave MC alot more powerful all around.


Here's the things that I think are missing (these are from my personal experience and also from what I've read other users post and say):


Converting/Encoding

• A GUI to let us tweak the settings for the different formats - especially the most standard formats.
  
• Ability to save settings
  
  I find myself going to Razorlame every time I want to do converting as I have a few different things I convert my files for (my mp3 player, for streaming on websites, etc.) and none of the MC settings give me the best output for this. It lets me play with and tweak the settings till I find the perfect settings then save these so I have the profile ready for the next time I want to do this.
  Right now in MC this is impossible and I'd have to copy the parameters from Razorlame, paste them into MC and then do this again every time I wanted to change profiles - doesn't really make sense.
  
  
  Ripping
  
• No ability to save profile of all the settings like there is in EAC (good for being able to quickly change loads of settings like: New CD, Old Scratched CD)
  
• If the track names are listed it is impossible to change the names before ripping
  
• No option to write CRC Checksum into the comment field
  
• No option to create a .m3u playlist file for the album ripped
  
• No support of ripping with .cue sheet support
  
• No ability to rip multiple songs as one file
  
  
  Burning
  
• No way of renaming the files to be burnt, not even manually.
  
• An option to have the burn playlist automatically saved to a playlist group called: 'Burnt Items' with the CD then saved with the date and time of burn or AT LEAST an option, like EVERY other windows program has, to give us a prompt before wiping out the whole playlist after burning (this is totally oposite to EVERY other program and is HUGELY annoying - pressing a 'Clear Playlist' button is not a hard task to clear it if people want to or answering a : Do u wish to clear the playlist : yes/no' question.)
  
  
  
  
  Well done on a great product but I feel that most of these options are really needed to really complete it as an all around program with advanced features rather than just a jukebox with little extras.
  
  
  
  - For ripping I still find myself going to EAC each time,
  - for converting to Razorlame,
  - for Burning to Nero (thanks for drag and drop by the way).
  
  
  For a program with a price tag as high as it is, it should really be the master of all trades, not the lagger of all trades, master of one (management), with freeware programs giving more complete options.

[nila]

No one else agree or think any of these??

I find that abit wierd seeing as some of the requests are ones I specifically pulled from posts from other users that I didn't even want myself - ie CRC Checksum's etc.

[JC]

• No ability to rip multiple songs as one file

I agree here as I have several Classical music CDs I would like to rip.

I believe there is a bit of the "Jack of all trades, master of none" syndrome with some of the features you mentioned. As MC9 does indeed perform so many functions, it is understandable that a more focused program (eg. ripping only) would have a slightly more developed feature set. It would be nice to have them in there (and they will probably be added eventually), but haven't yet for one reason or another.

Nice list, BTW

[kiwi]

Converting/Encoding
# A GUI to let us tweak the settings for the different formats - especially the most standard formats.
# Ability to save settings

I think that the gui allows you to change the settings that you need to change, for instance, with LAME, it gives you various standard options and the ability to create custom options.  I think that having too many options would be a waste on 80% of people using the program.  Probably even more, since of the people who would use those options, many would be happy using them in their written form, as it is now.

I would like to have the ability to save settings for convertion.  Maybe for other things too.  To have "modes" of operation.

Ripping
# No ability to save profile of all the settings like there is in EAC (good for being able to quickly change loads of settings like: New CD, Old Scratched CD)

Again, see above... I think that having some sort of preferences/profiles/mode would be a good thing.

# If the track names are listed it is impossible to change the names before ripping

While this is a bit of a nusance, you can always just change the file names/tags after ripping, and it isn't a problem... it's the same number of "edits".  The only thing I could see is if you were trying to rip to multiple different formats in one go.

My thought on this, maybe there should be some screen where you almost "check" the information before ripping. This could potentially be used to help improve the information about the CD in the database.   The database will only get better as people use it and update it, and if that process is made easier, then it will improve more quickly.

{note, I don't know.  I haven't really played with the program at all.   It might be possible to "edit" the track info in the CD setting before even going to the Ripping mode..}

# No option to write CRC Checksum into the comment field

I think that this could be nice for formats that don't have it built in.

# No option to create a .m3u playlist file for the album ripped

Why? For portable devices?  I guess that I just use MC (which has no need of such playlists) and my iPod, that also has no need of such playlists.

# No support of ripping with .cue sheet support

I would like to have this feature.  For allowing me to recreate exact replacements of CDs, in case one gets destroyed.

# No ability to rip multiple songs as one file

This could be nice, but I generally rip the tracks all separately since I like to have them exactly as they appear on the CD.

Burning
# No way of renaming the files to be burnt, not even manually.

Again, same issue as with Ripping.

# An option to have the burn playlist automatically saved to a playlist group called: 'Burnt Items' with the CD then saved with the date and time of burn or AT LEAST an option, like EVERY other windows program has, to give us a prompt before wiping out the whole playlist after burning (this is totally oposite to EVERY other program and is HUGELY annoying - pressing a 'Clear Playlist' button is not a hard task to clear it if people want to or answering a : Do u wish to clear the playlist : yes/no' question.)

I thought that it did this.  If it doesn't, it would be nice to have the playlists saved.

- For ripping I still find myself going to EAC each time,
- for converting to Razorlame,
- for Burning to Nero (thanks for drag and drop by the way).

I tend to use EAC for ripping and converting (ape dll) and then Nero for burning.

I use EAC because nobody has convinced me that the actual ripping on MC is as good as that of EAC.  I'd like to know.  If it was, I'd just use MC for ripping.

Actually, I can think of one thing that might be nice.  If you supported .CUE lists.  Not only creating them, but burning from them and PLAYING from them.  There are times when I'd like to listen to a CD exactly as the CD sounds, so having playback mirror the .CUE file could probably do that.

kiwi

[Charlemagne 8]

I like the idea about burning options especially ... When I burn an MP3 (data) disc, my car player shows the directory structure, even if only the last two. If the files are long names, there is not enough display room for the title. To get the proper display, I have to copy the files into a simple, short directory and burn from there ... a PIA as I then need to erase this temporary structure so I don't lose the actual album name or artist name.

But I have another suggestion ... let us arrange windows as we wish. Like running simultaneous windows in Windows, they can be resized and arranged however the user desires. Most CAD programs already have both a variety of preset view schemes and the ability to customize. This has been around since they were DOS programs so it is not a new idea.
My main goal in this is to have "Properties" cover the entire bottom width but be only an inch high. The little window crammed in at the bottom left is almost unusable. Some properties are quite long ... like the long filenames mentioned above.
Now, with all this new stuff in the latest Betas, there may be a way to do this. If so, someone PLEASE enlighten me.
CVIII

PS. - if you like bluegrass AND Bela Fleck, try some John McEuen. Rhapsody has three of his albums. Really great, but really intricate bluegrass in "String Wizards I & II" and some really progressive stuff in "Acoustic Traveler." He's the banjo player and one of the main organizers of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" albums (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) so he's been around a long time.
GREAT stuff!

[Doof]

• An option to have the burn playlist automatically saved to a playlist group called: 'Burnt Items' with the CD then saved with the date and time of burn or AT LEAST an option, like EVERY other windows program has, to give us a prompt before wiping out the whole playlist after burning (this is totally oposite to EVERY other program and is HUGELY annoying - pressing a 'Clear Playlist' button is not a hard task to clear it if people want to or answering a : Do u wish to clear the playlist : yes/no' question.)
  

I either agree with or don't disagree with all of your other ideas in this thread, but a suggestion for the above... I've manually created a Playlist Group called "Burned CDs". And then I also have a Playlist called "Working Playlist" which I use for all sorts of different things. So when I'm going to burn a CD, I put the files in "Working Playlist" first, then I burn that. When I'm done, if I feel like saving it for a later date, I just use the Send To command to send all the files in "Working Playlist" to a playlist inside "Burned CDs" that has a name like "2003-06-28". Sure, it's a tiny bit of extra work, but I think that once you start operating like that, it gets to be part of your routine and you don't notice the absense of an automatic way in MC.

I also do the same thing for playlists I download to my Nomad II.

[DocLotus]

GET THE BUGs OUT!!!  

One that really "BUGs" me is...

Basic TV controls (Ctrl+Shift+Tab) loose focus in full-screen mode.  This is a very old bug that has never been addressed.

IT's TIME  

[nila]

I think that the gui allows you to change the settings that you need to change, for instance, with LAME, it gives you various standard options and the ability to create custom options.  

It lets u choose between pre-set's but gives u no way of tweaking them manually. When I tweak the settings in Razorlame I can usually get an mp3 down to just under 2megs which is perfect for streaming on a website - with MC's lowest setting it's still usally quite a bit higher so of no use to me.
It doesn't give u any option to create custom options either - it gives u an option to enter custom options but U have no know the command string u want to use off by heart. I dont and have no plans to learn all of LAME's parameters by heart to do this.

I think that having too many options would be a waste on 80% of people using the program.  Probably even more, since of the people who would use those options, many would be happy using them in their written form, as it is now.

I dont suggest changing how it is now with it's three pre-set's - I think this is perfect for beginners.

Clicking on the 'advanced' tab though should give u a genuine set of advanced options - not a little tweak about quality or speed.
80% happy as it is now still leaves 20% which if they have a lot of users is a LOT of users who would like some extra options.

Why? For portable devices?  I guess that I just use MC (which has no need of such playlists) and my iPod, that also has no need of such playlists.

Not for portables no, I just lilke to have my hard drive with my albums nicely organised so that I'm not 100% dependant on MC or any other software for that matter.
I like each album to be as complete as possible within it's folder:
.m3u
covers
all tracks
sometimes a little text file with additional info on the album.

That way each folder is an album that can be played in any player easily with the .m3u list.

I've worked with computers too long to have any faith in any one program. I like my stuff to be as program independant as possible

No ability to rip multiple songs as one file ::

This could be nice, but I generally rip the tracks all separately since I like to have them exactly as they appear on the CD.

Sometimes on an album there are tracks that mix together. In these instances it's nice to rip them as one track so they stay mixed together - that feature was one I got from another users requests in a different thread however and was not mine.

Burning
# No way of renaming the files to be burnt, not even manually.   ::  

Again, same issue as with Ripping.

When burning mp3's to cd they cant handle the long filenames produced by:  artist - album -track # - name

For players that read the file name this means the name gets messed up with no way of us controlling it or stopping it happening. We cant even stop this manually by renaming the files. Renaming a file is a VERY basic and required feature of all burning software.

I tend to use EAC for ripping and converting (ape dll) and then Nero for burning.

My main point exactly about this thread - a LOT of people have MC with it's built in features but still mainly just use it as a jukebox as the other features are just not up to scratch.  With a price tag as high as it is because of the number of features it has, if we're expected to pay it we should be using the other features as well.  That price just for a jukebox is HIGH and if we find ourselves useing freeware programs each time for all functions other than jukebox as MC isn't up to scratch then it's tooo high in my opinion and I wont be upgrading to the next version which in my opinion would be a real shame.
I LOVE using MC and testing all the beta's but I wouldn't be willing to pay that price just to get a few new features.  That's a HIGH price for a few extra features on a jukebox program which is all I'll get between an upgrade from one version to the next.

[nila]

Char
But I have another suggestion ... let us arrange windows as we wish. Like running simultaneous windows in Windows, they can be resized and arranged however the user desires. Most CAD programs already have both a variety of preset view schemes and the ability to customize. This has been around since they were DOS programs so it is not a new idea.
My main goal in this is to have "Properties" cover the entire bottom width but be only an inch high. The little window crammed in at the bottom left is almost unusable. Some properties are quite long ... like the long filenames mentioned above.

I agree about the space on the properties bar which is why for a long time i was asking for an option to have it back on the right as well. I seemed to be the only one however so I gave in - I'm not going to expect a program to be changed purely for me.

This request though is mainly to do with the GUI and I tried to stay away from GUI points due to the fact that the chase for the perfect GUI is like trying to find the end of a rainbow - it's a continual chase - Ideally I'd like to be able to just shout out:  Eminem - rabbit and have MC play it but that's not going to happen for a while

I do agree with your points though and it would indeed be VERY nice

Doof but a suggestion for the above... I've manually created a Playlist Group called "Burned CDs". And then I also have a Playlist called "Working Playlist" which I use for all sorts of different things. So when I'm going to burn a CD, I put the files in "Working Playlist" first, then I burn that. When I'm done, if I feel like saving it for a later date, I just use the Send To command to send all the files in "Working Playlist" to a playlist inside "Burned CDs" that has a name like "2003-06-28". Sure, it's a tiny bit of extra work, but I think that once you start operating like that, it gets to be part of your routine and you don't notice the absense of an automatic way in MC.

If you are burning CD's carefully this is indeed fine and something that wouldn't be a problem. If your a bit too passionate like me though or you make the majority of your CD's as your running out the door to listen to them in your car and as such are making yourself late with every second that you spend burning the CD then your so hurried that you ALWAYS space out and Click 'burn' then kick yourself as you realise the playlist is gone.
With mp3 cd's with like 160 songs on it this is a HUGE pain.

One day I was going to meet someone - it was a GORGEOUS day (rare in england) and i made myself 2 hours late to meet them because I was trying so hard to make a great summer cd to listen to in the car. The whole two hours I was panicking and feeling rushed (rightly so I was late and got a good earful for it). I forgot to save it before hand and BAM - all that playlist was gone. Only way to get it again would have been to manually create a playlist of 160 unrelated songs again from scratch by reading the contents of the CD.


There is ALWAYS times when I'm rushed and close thingswithout thinking - even in dreamweaver when I've spent hours working on a page coding it. ALL other windows programs however then ask you at this point if you wish to save which I just click yes to and run out the door forgetting my cash or something else important    MC is the only one where it actually wipes it completely even without you doing anything, let alone ask you if you wish to save it if u try leave.


Doc
I agree - the little things that effect even a few people are the things that drive people up the wall. I know the race is on but I dont see any of us switching to WMP too soon or recommending it. We all love MC - we just need to see our problems fixed rather than put to one side in the race to stay ahead - staying ahead means keeping us and getitng us to recommend it to friends which we do for a STABLE, reliable and easy to use program - it doesn't have to be the most high tech, just reliable and friendly service is what most people want.



My Main point is that for it's current price, MC really needs to be King of all the area's it's claiming ur getting for the price. Not a case of we're not using any of these area's because they're simply not as strong as free programs.

I Love MC which is why I spend so much time on this board - I think the whole team - especially Matt for his coding work - do a great job and I love the fact they listen and are interactive.
I just seem to have noticed more of a rush to be one step ahead recently rather than the effort being put into trying to address concerns, issues and small problems of its users.
We like MC for it's friendly, local shop where u know the boss type feel, not for it's corporate shinny office feel - this is it's strong point along with it's organisation skills. Dont destroy that feel in a rush to beat the corporate guys - we all hate them already.



sorry for the long assed post and negative comments

[kiwi]

Clicking on the 'advanced' tab though should give u a genuine set of advanced options - not a little tweak about quality or speed.
80% happy as it is now still leaves 20% which if they have a lot of users is a LOT of users who would like some extra options.

Or give you the ability to have a history of your LAME settings.

I've worked with computers too long to have any faith in any one program. I like my stuff to be as program independant as possible

I'll give you that.  I don't even have faith in one computer... I need to have multiple computers to feel  comfortable.

When burning mp3's to cd they cant handle the long filenames produced by:  artist - album -track # - name

For players that read the file name this means the name gets messed up with no way of us controlling it or stopping it happening. We cant even stop this manually by renaming the files. Renaming a file is a VERY basic and required feature of all burning software.

Is this for burning Data CDs or Music CDs?  I don't think that I'd ever bother burning data CDs with MC.  The way I look at it, that is really what Nero is for, and I don't really want to have J River spend time on data CD burning.  

At best, it would be cool if you could created the "naming scheme" that you wanted for your data CDs.  So that they would get named Artist/Album/# - Track Name

or something like that.  I guess that would be useful.  

Have you tried using directories rather than putting all that information into hte file name?  WinXP doesn't even like some of the file names it creates, especially over the network.  

One feature that I would like (it may already be there, but I don't know how to use it) would be to be able to control the length of the items used for file naming.  i.e. I'd like to say that the Track Name can only use 20 Characters at most.  Or somthing along those lines.

I LOVE using MC and testing all the beta's but I wouldn't be willing to pay that price just to get a few new features.  That's a HIGH price for a few extra features on a jukebox program which is all I'll get between an upgrade from one version to the next.

I do agree with you.  I don't want to have MC turn into a Jack of all trades.

Of the things above that I think really needs to be addressed is the ripping.  I'm not saying that MC has a problem ripping.  I would just like to know and have confidence in it being as good as EAC.  Right now, I know that EAC works, but only have a few comments from people who say things like "MC's ripping is good enough for most CDs."  Well, that isn't good enough for me because it's a waste of my time to have to try to figure out which CDs I should do in MC and which I should do in EAC.  

kiwi

[nila]

Or give you the ability to have a history of your LAME settings.

This would definitely be an improvement but would still leave the need to have the other software to begin with to come up with the settings - If I'm going to have to get it and use it to get the settings then it kinda defeats the purpose. Me having to download the other software to get the settings instantly means that MC has failed (at least for whoever needs to do it) in one of the areas it is meant to do. For it to successfully live up that area I shouldn't need other software to do the task.

Is this for burning Data CDs or Music CDs?  I don't think that I'd ever bother burning data CDs with MC.  The way I look at it, that is really what Nero is for, and I don't really want to have J River spend time on data CD burning.  

It's for burning mp3's full of CD's - technically data cd's but realistically just music cd's - more and more devices these days can play mp3 cd's and so they're just the new version of the CD - less resistant but more songs

And I would consider it an MC feature as it's all about getting the songs I want on the CD in the order i want I mainly use it for my car mp3 player



And as for the ripping - from what I've read here over the years - I'd say that MC Secure mode is meant to be pretty much rock solid and produce excellent rips - comparable to EAC.

[rocketsauce]

Me having to download the other software to get the settings...

The official LAME download includes a full html-format reference of all the switches.

http://home.pi.be/~mk442837/

Of course, using the presets eliminates the need for having to use or memorize any of the switches, even for CBR/ABR encoding.

Rob

[kiwi]

It's for burning mp3's full of CD's - technically data cd's but realistically just music cd's - more and more devices these days can play mp3 cd's and so they're just the new version of the CD - less resistant but more songs

And I would consider it an MC feature as it's all about getting the songs I want on the CD in the order i want I mainly use it for my car mp3 player

I realized about half way through my post that you were talking about MP3 CDs.

It would be nice if you could control the naming of the files based on the tags?  Maybe?

And as for the ripping - from what I've read here over the years - I'd say that MC Secure mode is meant to be pretty much rock solid and produce excellent rips - comparable to EAC.

Yeah.  I've searched back through the forum to try to find out whether I can find any official information.  Or any tests on the matter.  I guess that in not seemingly having as much control over the process as one has in EAC, that you are left hoping that everything was done properly.  Also, comments always feel like they are third hand w/ reguard to ripping performance.  i.e. "From what I remember, people said that it was just as good."  It doesn't give me confidence.

I guess that I should just sit down with some scratched up CDs and rip to WAV with both EAC and MC.  And then do a WAV compare.  Is there any easy software for making that comparison?  If someone knows of that software, I'd be happy to run some tests and post the results.  (also, if someone can think of a better way to do it, let me know.  Or if someone has already done these tests, that's even better.)

kiwi

[rocketsauce]

Is there any easy software for making that comparison?

You can use EAC to compare wave files.

Rob