Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SteveG]

Everyone (especially Nekura and Wobbley),

I am going to make the modification so that if a track has an AlbumArtist, this will be substituted for Artist on iPod. My plan is to make this the deault behavior. For simplicities sake, I would like to do this without any checkboxes or options to complicate the look of the Plugin.  Can anyone make a compelling argument not to do this?

Nekura, after reading Wobbley's previous post on this subject, will this be a workable solution for your multiple CD albums?

[Phil Lee]

Everyone (especially Nekura and Wobbley),

I am going to make the modification so that if a track has an AlbumArtist, this will be substituted for Artist on iPod. My plan is to make this the deault behavior. For simplicities sake, I would like to do this without any checkboxes or options to complicate the look of the Plugin.  Can anyone make a compelling argument not to do this?

Steve, will this also make use of Album Artist (Auto)? I think it's a good move even if it doesn't, mainly since it's what I asked for in an earlier post

[Empyrean]

There is no way to change the home app for the iPod Manager unless you can do it via a registry edit (haven't looked, haven't tried - may try later and if so, I will post what I find).

Wobbley and all,

I took a quick look at the registry because I also wanted Media Center to automatically launch when connecting my iPod. I found the registry keys that adds items to the home application drop-down. Now, when I connect my iPod, the iPod Manager automatically launches Media Center.

Just save the following lines of code to a text file ending in .REG. Double-click on the file and merge it with your registry. You can then select "Media Center 9" within the iPod Manager application.

Please be aware that I only have iPod Manager and iPod Updater installed so Media center is my next associated application. Making it #3. You may want to check your registry to make sure only two applications are associated. It is simple to change the '3' in the third line to some other number before merging if necessary.

Here is the code:

Code: [Select]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Apple Computer, Inc.\iPod\RegisteredApps\3]
"path"="C:\\Program Files\\J River\\Media Center\\Media Jukebox.exe"
"name"="Media Center 9"
@=""
"cmdline"=""

I've only been using MediaCenter with my new iPod since Saturday. Hope it helps some of you out.

// AJ

[TimB]

Tim,

In regards to transcoding, I have done a lot of work on this recently and I think it is close to being right. First, either get the next build of MC 9 (if there is one tonight) or at least get the newest iPod Plug-in (v 9.0.30). With this you should be able to have MC transcode your .ape files to mp3 for your iPod. If you are doing more than 10 files, it will send them every 10 so you don't fill up your PC drive with a bunch of temporary files. After you have sent them, if you resynch, the Plugin should be smart enough to skip them if you synch these files again.

Please let me know if you run into trouble as I have been working kinks out of this as recently as today.

Steve

My knowledge gap is more basic than this.

Lets say I've got a smartlist of MP3 and APE, how do I make the APE always transcode and not the MP3s regardless of what the bitrate of the incoming MP3s are?

-=Tim=-

[coxkevin]

Steve,

I downloaded MC v9.1.121 and after running Test 1 and getting the same results as last night, I checked the version of the iPod plug-in and found it was 9.0.25.  I downloaded the newer version, 9.0.30.  Thought you might like to know that it seems people who are testing the beta are testing against the wrong version of the plug-in unless they download it separately.  Here are my the results of my latest testing:

Media Center Library (28 Songs)
- Bangles, Greatest Hits (14 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bangles, Different Light (12 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bing Crosby, Golden Greats (Track 15 "Swinging On A Star", 128bps)
- Bing Crosby, The Radio Years Vol 2 (Track 25 "May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You", 160bps)

Setup
- Restored the ipod usings Apple 1.2.6 Updater.
- Formatted the ipod from inside Media Center.
- Created "Bangles Test" Smartlist With Album="Different Light"
- Created "Bing Test" Smartlist with Artist="Bing Crosby"
- Created "Additional Tracks Test" with [Track #]==1,15,25

Test 1
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test" smartlist selected
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Autosync unchecked
- Options: force file conversions during uploads checked, normalization set to 95%, conversion to 160, high speed.

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 2
Issues
Left clicked on the iPod drive under "CD, DVD, & Handhelds". Expanded the drive by left clicking on the "+".  Expanded the "Playlists" by left clicking on the "+".  Left clicked on "Bangles Test" playlist.  Tried to play any song listed by double clicking, or single clicking and hitting the play icon and kept getting "Media Center was unable to play any of the files in the playlist. Please make sure that the path in the Media Library points to the right location. Also double check to make sure that you are not unintentionally filtering these files."  

Test 3
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 4
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test" and "Bing Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked sort of ok.  Last week when I did testing, I wrote up an error that Media Center transcoded the 160bps song in the "Bing Test" smartlist, but not the 128bps song. You said that was because I had opted to normalize. I countered that if that was the case, then the 128bps song should have transcoded as well. I liked your logic and had expected the fix to end up transcoding both songs. It seems to do just the opposite and skip transcoding both songs. Would it be possible to set the logic to always transcode if normalization is selected (regardless of the original bitrate)?

Test 5
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 4

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 6
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test", "Bing Test", and "Additional Tracks Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 7
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 6

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 8
Resynched with
- Only "Bangles Test", and "Additional Tracks Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Did not delete the "Bing Test" playlist from the iPod.  I'm betting you haven't enabled the "Delete Files Not In List" capability yet.

So the request/wish list is:
- Transcode every file (regardless of original bitrate) if normalization is selected.
- Enable "Delete Files Not In List" capability.
- Add capability to normalize against replay gain (I'm taking a page from Kurt's book if you havn't figured it out yet).

I would say you're very, very, close. You might say you're done depending on how you view my requests!  

I'm ready to bang away again on Wednesday if you give me something new!

Cheers,
kc

[_K_C_]

More crashes.

Converting all my ape files with the plugin downloaded yesterday.  First batch of 10 converted and (I checked later) transferred to the iPod.  Then the media core crashed before starting on the next 10 files.

(Just to check I then synced my mp3 files without conversion with no problems.)

[Empyrean]

Steve,

I would like to see improved error handling. I was performaing what should be a fairly quick synchronization as most of the songs are already on my iPod. MediaCenter came up with two errors for files that did exists in the library (error code 3) but the actual file was no longer there. As a result, it blew up my playlists on my iPod and none of my files were available. There is no easy recover from this and I personally think Media Center could handle these errors much better and still complete a successful synchronization.

I was running out the door and decided to do a quick sync to get my new songs in my iPod and now I had to leave it at home because it would have taken too long to sync after having to reformat the iPod.

Hope there is something you can do about this. Thanks!

I am using yesterday's version of Media Center 9.1.201.

// AJ

[nekura]

Everyone (especially Nekura and Wobbley),

I am going to make the modification so that if a track has an AlbumArtist, this will be substituted for Artist on iPod. My plan is to make this the deault behavior. For simplicities sake, I would like to do this without any checkboxes or options to complicate the look of the Plugin.  Can anyone make a compelling argument not to do this?

Nekura, after reading Wobbley's previous post on this subject, will this be a workable solution for your multiple CD albums?

Steve, the problem for me is that, unlike Wobbley, my multi-disc albums are from one artist. =\

[bspachman]

A couple of further clarifications about OTG Playlists, Ejecting in Win2k and an observation about changing to "AlbumArtist"....

SteveG wrote

I do not think this is the case. There is no default order in MC. The display in the views is determined by whatever is selected or it is random. I think if you are seeing any kind of correlation between an order you see in MC and the order in which items go to the "On-The-Go" Playlist, it is coincidence. Feel free to prove me wrong on this. The other possibility is that the transfers are controlled by the index of the files in the iPod database.

There is definitely a correlation between the order in MC and the OTG Playlist order. I checked 20+ albums by looking at the order in the iPod node of the MC tree and the order their tracks were transfered into the OTG playlist and in every case, they matched up. I think you are right about it being controlled by the index of the files on the iPod DB. However...

If you want songs in a smartlist to be transferred in a particular order, you can add a rule to your smartlist under 'Sorting' which will control the order the files go to iPod. The iPod index number is not the same as the MC index. If it turns out that the iPod index number is relevant to the On-The-Go playlists, then I need to redo how this number is assigned.

I had forgotten about the ability to control sorting via Smartlist parameters. I added the parameter "Sorting=[Album],[Track #]" to my main synching smartlist. Then I reformatted my iPod with MC9 to erase the DB. I then synched with my modified smartlist.

An hour or so later, I had a newly full iPod that transfers albums into the OTG playlist in the correct track order! So... I think the index number is relevant, but I don't know that anything needs to be done, since sorting can give the user some measure of control. I'll keep looking at it, but this work-around is great for me! Thanks for the reminder!

On the subject of the eject with 2000, when I eject the iPod on a Win 2000 PC the iPod removes OK, but I get a disconnect warning from Windows when I unplug the iPod. I get this error even if I eject from Windows (in Explorer), so I do not think it is a problem caused by the Plugin.

I don't get an error of any kind when ejecting from the system tray icon. It just says "OK to remove (blah, blah, blah)". A few seconds later, the iPod display switches from "Do Not Disconnect" to the normal charging display (as expected). Using MC9 never results in a changed iPod screen, so there must be something funky with my install and the "Eject Device" command.

Finally, I think I'd like to try using the "AlbumArtist" info as the iPod's "Artist". I'm not too sure, since I have a lot of soundtracks, compilations, and cast recordings where that field has been filled with a generic place holder (eg. "Various", "Original Cast", "Soundtrack", etc.) I think the best option would be able to choose which field to use on an album level. I don't have any ideas on implementation, but my personal goal would be to have compilations broken down to the track artist level, but other kinds of albums listed at the AlbumArtist level.... Not very helpful input, I'm afraid

Thanks for the great support!
Brad

[Wobbley]

AJ,

Thanks for the registry info. I'll try it.

SteveG,

I think using the "Album Artist (auto)" by default would be the best option.  I don't think it's necessary to allow for user intervention because "Album Artist (auto)" will have the same value as "Artist" where songs are from the same Artist and Album.

Thanks for addressing this.

Wobbley

[Wobbley]

SteveG,

Having read Brad's post, I am now hesitant to use the "Album Artist (auto)" value as the "Artist" value for multiple artist albums.  Ideally, this is what I would like to see:

For those albums where there are multiple artists, but the Album Artist (auto or not) IS a single artist (i.e. "Global Underground 006: Satoshi Tomiie" - Satoshi Tomiie being the Album Artist and each track having its own artist), I would want the "Album Artist" value to be used in place of the "Artist" value on the iPod.  However, for those multiple artist albums where there IS NOT a actual single-artist "Album Artist" (i.e. the "Album Artist (auto)" field has a value of "Original Soundtrack" or "Various Artists"), I would either want the "Album" name (i.e. "Pulp Fiction [OST]", or "OM Lounge, Vol. 3") duplicated on the iPod as the "Artist" value, or, I guess it might be ok to IGNORE the "Album Artist (auto)" info in those cases and use the actual individual track artist information, meaning I'd just have to scroll through "Albums" instead of "Artists" if I wanted to hear that album.

Anyone else (i.e Brad) have suggestions about how to deal with these scenarios?

Thanks,

Wobbley

P.S. - Thanks for everything you've done so far.  Don't let our complaints/suggestions imply that we are not pleased...we are.

[Philippe]

Steve,


Artist vs AlbumArtist:  What will happen if both are different.  Will you then have iPod:Composer loaded with Artist?

Thanks for the clarification,

- Philippe

[JC]

There is definitely a correlation between the order in MC and the OTG Playlist order.
<-snip->

Brad,

When you refer to the OTG playlist, are you referring to the "On-the-Go" playlist in the new 3G iPods? My understanding was that this particular list was used internally by the iPod only (for creating an ad-hoc playlist while away from your PC).

Are you using a 3G iPod? If so, does creating an OTG playlist in MC9 interfere with the ability to create on on the road with your iPod?

Thanks, and sorry if I seem a little dense ... I'm new to the iPod

[cct1]

Steve,

I would like to see improved error handling. I was performaing what should be a fairly quick synchronization as most of the songs are already on my iPod. MediaCenter came up with two errors for files that did exists in the library (error code 3) but the actual file was no longer there. As a result, it blew up my playlists on my iPod and none of my files were available. There is no easy recover from this and I personally think Media Center could handle these errors much better and still complete a successful synchronization.

I was running out the door and decided to do a quick sync to get my new songs in my iPod and now I had to leave it at home because it would have taken too long to sync after having to reformat the iPod.

Hope there is something you can do about this. Thanks!

I am using yesterday's version of Media Center 9.1.201.

// AJ

This is a file management issue that you can get around by periodically updating your library, especially  if you know you've made any major changes, prior to synching.  It would be nice if these things could be done automatically during a synch, but that's a bit much to ask of MC9--to synch, delete and clean up files on the HD that no longer exist, etc....It's way out of my realm, but those seem like two seperate applications.


Steve, have you guys gotten the chance to look into the possibilty of a toolbar icon that will bring up the synch screen yet?  I'd still love for that ipod icon on the toolbar to do that function, but I understand your rationale for leaving it as it currently is, but a seperate one for the synch menu sure would be nice...

[Empyrean]

This is a file management issue that you can get around by periodically updating your library, especially  if you know you've made any major changes, prior to synching.

cct1,

That's the thing though. After I got the error, I did do an "Update Library" and it did not find a problem with the missing files. So, updating the library would not have fixed my problem before syncing.

FWIW, I would like to see the iPod toolbar button bring up the sync window as well.

// AJ

[bspachman]

When you refer to the OTG playlist, are you referring to the "On-the-Go" playlist in the new 3G iPods? My understanding was that this particular list was used internally by the iPod only (for creating an ad-hoc playlist while away from your PC).

Are you using a 3G iPod? If so, does creating an OTG playlist in MC9 interfere with the ability to create on on the road with your iPod?

Thanks, and sorry if I seem a little dense ... I'm new to the iPod

No worries! The OTG playlists are indeed a 3rd Gen iPod-only feature. It's similar to a play queue, but Apple hasn't refined it yet. There's no way (or reason) to make OTG playlists in MC9. MC9 is great for handling your regular collection of playlists you want transfered to the iPod, but the OTG feature is primarily for quick-n-dirty selections. You actually lose the OTG playlist whenever you connect the iPod to a computer--there's no way to save them.

In a nutshell, the issue I found was that when adding an album to the iPod's OTG playlist, the tracks were not (usually) in the right order. It seems the OTG playlist feature doesn't use all the ID3 tag data, but rather a combination of album and artist tags and an internal index number. Adding sorting parameters to the playlists/smartlists you synch with seems to help alleviate the problem.

Best,
Brad

[SteveG]

Everyone,

Please download MC 9.1.202. This version includes Plugin 9.0.31. These versions include fixes for the bugs mentioned by Kevin for transcoding, an introduction of an autorun for MC if you select it in the iPod Manager and the introduction of AlbumArtist(auto) substitution for Artist.

Phil,

Yes, I substitute AlbumArtist(auto) for Artist. I'm glad I thought of it.  

Empyrean,

Thanks for the tip on the registry, this is now implemented automatically. In regards to the database corruption when files are missing, I could not duplicate this. You may need to reformat. When I synched files that were not on the PC, MC completed the synch and then notified me of the missing files with error code 3. All files(minus the missing ones) and playlists were on the iPod.This seems about right.

Tim,

Lets say I've got a smartlist of MP3 and APE, how do I make the APE always transcode and not the MP3s regardless of what the bitrate of the incoming MP3s are?

You will need to decide what bitrate you want your mp3s to be on your iPod. If all of your mp3s are at 192kbps and that is what you want all your files to be on iPod, set the transcoding to mp3 192. All your mp3s at 192 or below will be skipped. Your ape files will transcode. The next time you synch, if you add files, MC checks against your iPod and then synchs only new files.

_K_C,

The new version should resolve your issues.

Nekura,

Would it work to name your Multi CD Albums all with the same Album name? If you do this and then manually renumber the track numbers on CD 2 and 3 of the multidisk set so they continue the count begun on CD 1, you will be able to select the album on iPod and have all the tunes play in the right order.  I am sure there are many reasons why this is not perfect, but is it workable?

Brad,

It sounds like the solution we have is workable. I will assume it is OK for now and move to some other issues. Let me know how the whole AlbumArtist deal is working for you.


Wobbley,

Could you check out the logic in the ALbumARtist stuff and see if it works more or less OK for you (hopefully more   )

Phillipe,

If they are different, Album Artist is used.

[Phil Lee]

Steve, major problems with the new plugin here. It doesn't work right at all. To confirm I have MC 9.1.202 and the 9.0.31 handheld plugin.

I had 1 (Multiple Artists) album in my synch along with all my other 100+ albums. When I synched no artist information was passed to the iPod at all. When I enable the Album Artist (Auto) column in the iPod view it shows up as blank for all albums. On the iPod I have no artist information at all.

I formatted the iPod and started again with 3 albums in the synch, one of which was a (Multiple Artists) album. I still got the same problem. The tracks were transferred but no artist information was passed to the iPod.

I then tried just transferring the (Multiple Artists) album. Again the artist info was blank on the iPod.

I then tried transferring a normal album. Again the artist info was blank on the iPod.

Help!!!!!

As an aside, the columns displayed in the iPod view do not get remembered. If I enable the Album Artist (Auto) column then synch, the column disappears after the synch.

[coxkevin]

Steve,

Here are my the results of my testing against v9.1.202:

Media Center Library (28 Songs)
- Bangles, Greatest Hits (14 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bangles, Different Light (12 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bing Crosby, Golden Greats (Track 15 "Swinging On A Star", 128bps)
- Bing Crosby, The Radio Years Vol 2 (Track 25 "May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You", 160bps)

Setup
- Restored the ipod usings Apple 1.2.6 Updater.
- Formatted the ipod from inside Media Center.
- Created "Bangles Test" Smartlist With Album="Different Light"
- Created "Bing Test" Smartlist with Artist="Bing Crosby"
- Created "Additional Tracks Test" with [Track #]==1,15,25

Test 1
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test" smartlist selected
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Options: force file conversions during uploads checked, normalization set to 95%, conversion to 160, high speed.

Issues
- MC did not create "Bangles" as a selection under Artists on the iPod.  Continuous problem through all the tests below.

Test 2
Issues
Left clicked on the iPod drive under "CD, DVD, & Handhelds". Expanded the drive by left clicking on the "+".  Expanded the "Playlists" by left clicking on the "+".  Left clicked on "Bangles Test" playlist.  Tried to play any song listed by double clicking, or single clicking and hitting the play icon and kept getting "Media Center was unable to play any of the files in the playlist. Please make sure that the path in the Media Library points to the right location. Also double check to make sure that you are not unintentionally filtering these files."  

Test 3
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 4
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test" and "Bing Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 5
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 4

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 6
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test", "Bing Test", and "Additional Tracks Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 7
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 6

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 8
Synchronized with
- Only "Bangles Test", and "Additional Tracks Test" smartlists selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 9
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 8

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 10
Synchronized with
- Only "Bangles Test" smartlist selected
- All other settings as in Test 1

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 11
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 10

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 12
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test" and "Bing Test" smartlists selected
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Options: all options as in Test 1, but normalization is UNCHECKED

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 13
Resynched with
- All settings as in Test 11

Issues
Everything worked fine!


So the request/wish list is now down to:
- Fix the problem with populating the artist field on the iPod (Test 1 Issues)
- Fix the problem associated with playing songs in MC via iPod playlists (Test 2 Issues)
- Add capability to normalize against replay gain (Wish List -- you've gotta admit I'm persistent).

You've made it through all my tests!  I've done everything I can think of to try and break your transcoding capability and am finally convinced the beta you field tomorrow will be perfect (save the replay gain).

I'll see if I can come up with anything new before testing v9.1.202 and giving you the FINAL grade tomorrow!  

Cheers,
kc

[nekura]

Nekura,

Would it work to name your Multi CD Albums all with the same Album name? If you do this and then manually renumber the track numbers on CD 2 and 3 of the multidisk set so they continue the count begun on CD 1, you will be able to select the album on iPod and have all the tunes play in the right order.  I am sure there are many reasons why this is not perfect, but is it workable?

Steve, this is of course workable.

On the other hand, I am a total neat freak about my ID3 tags.  I'm sure if I were to change the track tags to inappropriate numbers, I'd suffer some sort of psychological episode and have to be put in a padded cell for a week or two.

[Kurt Young]

Steve, this is of course workable.

On the other hand, I am a total neat freak about my ID3 tags.  I'm sure if I were to change the track tags to inappropriate numbers, I'd suffer some sort of psychological episode and have to be put in a padded cell for a week or two.

For what it's worth, I concur.  Heck, that's one of the reasons I love MC9... it makes being an ID3 neat freak easy.

[Phil Lee]

I've reverted back to 9.1.201 and 9.0.30 to get my music back onto the iPod. At the moment 9.1.202 and 9.0.31 are unusable.

BTW, this is the first time in over a month that I've uploaded a full synch to the iPod. The transfer speeds I'm getting are excellent, around 9.8 to 10 Mb/s meaning that a full synch takes around 20 minutes for my 10Gb iPod

[coxkevin]

Count me in with nukura and Kurt -- I don't want to have to adjust my MP3 tags, I'd prefer to adjust MC.  

kc

[sirshambling]

Got to agree with Phil Lee about Artist synch problems. Mine are now all over the place!

Also getting the "Media Center was unable to play this..." message on trying to play any track via the "playlist" route while the Ipod is "active" via MC9 beta 202 - plays the same tracks through the "album" or "artist" route.

In addition to duplicating these issues I can add the following:-

1. Existing artist details get "wiped" if synch adds other tracks by that artist on different albums.
2. By r/clicking and "sending" to Ipod rather than synching does send artist details - but not if either the album name is the same as one already on the Ipod or if it's a multi-artist album.
2. All my tracks imported/converted under betas from 198 have stopped playing at 6-8 seconds remaining - even though they play through in MC9 OK. I found that by changing the "player" options to "standard" not any "cross-fade", then deleting and re-importing the tracks then sending them to the Ipod in beta 201 worked around this - doesn't now work in beta 202.

Tried the usual format Ipod route but makes no difference sadly!

John

[_K_C_]

I'm still getting crashes (with 9.1.202) when I try to convert and transfer ape files.  First batch of 10 converts and transfers fine, then I get a crash at the start of decoding the next track (the progress dialog box has only just updated).

No problems when I sync mp3 files with no conversion.

Can anyone confirm whether this is a problem with the software or with the user?  

[CautionESPN]

I had this exact same problem (using build .180 of MC).  I restored the iPod, and reloaded it and it fixed the issue.  To do this go to iPod manager and choose Launch Updater and restore.
Chris M

Steve, major problems with the new plugin here. It doesn't work right at all. To confirm I have MC 9.1.202 and the 9.0.31 handheld plugin.

I had 1 (Multiple Artists) album in my synch along with all my other 100+ albums. When I synched no artist information was passed to the iPod at all. When I enable the Album Artist (Auto) column in the iPod view it shows up as blank for all albums. On the iPod I have no artist information at all.

I formatted the iPod and started again with 3 albums in the synch, one of which was a (Multiple Artists) album. I still got the same problem. The tracks were transferred but no artist information was passed to the iPod.

I then tried just transferring the (Multiple Artists) album. Again the artist info was blank on the iPod.

I then tried transferring a normal album. Again the artist info was blank on the iPod.

Help!!!!!

As an aside, the columns displayed in the iPod view do not get remembered. If I enable the Album Artist (Auto) column then synch, the column disappears after the synch.

[CautionESPN]

OK, I am having a very irritating problem.  I wish to load into my iPod The Wall Live and the original wall cds.  They have identical tack "name"(s).  When i try to add this stuff to the ipod it goes all haywire.  I assume this has to do with the way the ipod stores information about the songs.  It only allows me to keep one version of the song.  Is there a workaround besides renaming all the live tracks by tacking (live) onto the end of it?  

The Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions have identical track names on the same disc! Danzig has a song titled "Mother" which could really makes listening to the Wall a surreal experience if you end up with that track instead!  I'm not sure exactly how many tracks in my collection have the same name but im sure other people must have come across this.  

If forced to do the workaround is there a way to quickly find all tracks with duplicate "name" in media center?

Chris M

Media Center Registered 9.0.180 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1983 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1047 MB, Free - 701 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 (xpsp2.021108-1929) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)

Ripping /   Drive E:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive G:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive E: HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8481B    Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
 Use playback settings: Yes /  Normalization: None

[SteveG]

Phil and John,

Please try again with tonight's build of MC. I fixed a bug that was calculating the AlbumArtist information incorrectly which hopefully solve what you are seeing.

In regards to the AlbumArtist(auto) column display after synching, this column is not available when viewing files on the iPod, because iPod does not support this field. Instead, you should see the Artist column with the either the AlbumArtist or Artist information displayed.


Kevin,

I fixed the bug with the Artist display in what will be released today. As an aside, that problem was a bug in displaying any iPod tree information when there was a naming overlap (i.e. Bangles, BanglesAlbum1, BanglesAlbum2) and it could have appeared in any of the tree items. Thanks.

I could not duplicate the playback error.  I am using what will be the new version for my testing. Can you retest with tonight's build and then if you see the error can you give me any more specifics on how to always replicate it. For me, I transfer and convert the files and then can play them fine.

The Replay Gain is on the list and getting closer

Nekura, Kurt and Kevin,

I am having a hard time seeing a way around the suggestion I made. The MC solution is to allow multiple albums to be selected for playback. This solves the issue of having to renumber the tracks. iPod does not allow this capability (I don't think) and only can playback an Album based on the Track Number order. I don't see a way to automatically renumber tracks when transferring to iPod if there are duplicate Albums without opening up all kinds of problems.  Help me keep you from the padded cells, suggestions are welcome  

John,

The Artist Album concern is addressed in my post to Phil above, the playback is covered in post to Kevin.

Can anyone else verify John's concern about tracks being cut off after conversion when played on iPod with 202? If not, John, try tonight's build and we will go from there.

_K_C,

I cannot duplicate this problem. Can anyone else? Do you have plenty of avaible space on the drive where your temporary files are being copied when converting? Can you check that folder out during the synch and see what is going on (i.e files being created and deleted)?


Chris,

The tag information is not relevant to whether files are duplicatied on iPod. Each file in MC has a unique ID and that is what is used to send the files. You could have 50 files named the same and if they would all show up on iPod assuming they were imported correctly. If you have any files that are screwing up your iPod, try playing them from within MC to verify that the enrty is still associated with a valid file. If you have errors, try updating your library.

Steve

[Kurt Young]

Phil and John,

Please try again with tonight's build of MC. I fixed a bug that was calculating the AlbumArtist information incorrectly which hopefully solve what you are seeing.
<snip!>

Is this why there are no artists on my iPod anymore?  

I synched a few times with 9.1.202 yesterday and only one song made it to the iPod with the artist information intact, hehe.  I showed it to a friend of mine who I've turned onto MC and said "See?  This is why you don't get to use the beta yet!"  

To be honest, I haven't been keeping great track of this thread... what with my current computer situation and all.  But I did want to at least raise my voice for "Position in media set" option.  Aye, it's a total option and would be just extra gravy, but if it's not possible, I won't be heartbroken.

[SteveG]

Kurt,

In case you missed it, set your iPod Manager to MC and the need for mjextman should now be a thing of the past.

Steve

[Phil Lee]

How do I get the iPod Manager installed? I really don't want to install MMJB.

[JC]

My understanding is that it can be installed from the CD that came with your iPod.

- Hold down shift when inserting the CD (to supress auto-play)
- explore the CD to find the directory for the iPod Manager
- Install it from there. No MMJB!

Sorry I can't be more specific ... I don't have my CD here at work.

[Kurt Young]

Kurt,

In case you missed it, set your iPod Manager to MC and the need for mjextman should now be a thing of the past.

Steve

Whaaaa?  You mean the need for my most-requested command-line switch?  Holy cow, I'll have to go install iPodmanager now.

Here's where to find it, for those that don't want the full install:

D:\Program Files\Apple\iPodForWin\setup.exe  (D: being my iPod 2.0 CD)

However, now that I've just installed iPodmanager, MC isn't listed -- just MMJB, which isn't installed.  I'll scroll up a bit but I bet I'll have to either reboot, reinstall MC, or both, eh?

Edit:  Found the reghack.  Tried it.  MC launches up when I plug in.  Slick!

However, I'm still gonna parley for the /ipodsync switch!    Not because I wanna use it for launching MC9 when I connect, though.  A command-line switch would open up possibilities like desktop shortcuts, Phil's XP taskbar buttons, or programmable hotkeys via Girder or "brand x" multimedia keyboard.

[Phil Lee]

Ah OK, I have a gen 2 iPod so don't have the iPod Manager on the CD. I tried going through the install from the CD I have but it won't quit out of the MMJB install and I don't want to have that on my system just to get the iPod icon in my system tray and have the auto application start (although that would be nice).

[JC]

However, now that I've just installed iPodmanager, MC isn't listed -- just MMJB, which isn't installed.  I'll scroll up a bit but I bet I'll have to either reboot, reinstall MC, or both, eh?

My guess is that iPod Manager has to be on the computer when 9.1.202 is installed so the registry change can occur. Re-installing MC after installing iPod Manager should work.

[Kurt Young]

The iPod Manager is new for the 2.0 iPodOS and the 3rd Gen iPods.

Gen 1 and 2 iPods have only "iPodWatcher" which does more or less nothing.

So, I'm surmising that only 2.0/3rdGen users will be able to use this.

[ashawley]

Steve:

I'm going to try this again w/tonight's build, but I still think that there are problems with the "random" deal automatically refreshing playlists on sync.

While I do think that the random part is working, what doesn't appear to be working is that a new batch of songs is getting added.

Here's what I have:

A smartlist w/8 hours of tunes, random

That is a sub-set of my library w/has 9 days of tunes in it.

So each time I sync I should get new tunes.  Sure, some will overlap (because we don't have playcounts yet ), just by the nature of randomness.  But I've been listening to the same songs for 3 days now, I'm sure of it.  They do seem to be "re-randomized", but it's the same 8 hours of tunes.  I should be seeing more variation here.

It sure looks fine when I view the smartlist in MC9, it just doesn't seem that the iPod is getting updated w/a fresh list of tunes.

Am I making sense?  I'll try it with a smaller sub-set of songs (like 10 tracks) and see if it works.  It might be a size issue though....

Adam

[SteveG]

My guess is that iPod Manager has to be on the computer when 9.1.202 is installed so the registry change can occur. Re-installing MC after installing iPod Manager should work.

This is right on the money.

[Wobbley]

Phil Lee,

I will post the ipod manager install to my FTP site and you can download it from me and install it.  It might not work for your 2G iPod since it is supposed to use a different iPod Manager app, but you could give it try.

Email me (use email link on left) and I'll email the username and password back to you.

P.S. - All files on my server are scanned for viruses every 3 days using Norton Antivirus Corp Edition, version 7.06.926 and I have no viruses as of now, so if oyu're worried about stuff like that, there's nothing to worry about.

Wobbley

[Phil Lee]

Phil and John,

Please try again with tonight's build of MC. I fixed a bug that was calculating the AlbumArtist information incorrectly which hopefully solve what you are seeing.

Steve

Just installed 9.1.203 and 9.0.32 and the plugin synchs perfectly now. I now have a much tidier artists lists featuring (Multiple Artists) as an entry. I had expected this to be at the top of the Artist list but interestingly it is grouped under the letter m.

Thanks for sorting the problem out Steve. This new system works exactly how I'd hope it would.

[Kurt Young]

Woot!  9.1.203 has brought Artists back to my iPod!

And with the new 2.0.1 firmware, I'm now darn near iPod nirvana!

[Phil Lee]

Woot!  9.1.203 has brought Artists back to my iPod!

And with the new 2.0.1 firmware, I'm now darn near iPod nirvana!

All you need now is mjextman.exe /ipodsync eh Kurt?

[Kurt Young]

Also, with 9.1.203 and iPodOS 2.0.1:

I now have a (Multiple Artists) entry in my iPod's Artists list... it's in the M's, while browsing iPod via Artitsts.

It also exists while browsing via genra.

Inside are all the albums that have more than one artist listed on 'em.  Yesterday, each artist would be given their own listing.  I'm not really sure which I like better.

Here's an example:  I have 4 "Blues Masters" CDs.  Yesterday, I could surf Genre > Blues > Muddy Waters > All and see all of the Muddy Waters songs on my iPod.  Can't do it anymore.  Since I don't have a complete Muddy Waters album, the only thing I can do is hope that I find his songs.  There's absolutely no way to just go find Muddy Waters on my iPod.

Don't know if I like that or not.

[Kurt Young]

All you need now is mjextman.exe /ipodsync eh Kurt?

Aye!

[_K_C_]

Ape conversion crash problem

Starting to narrow down the problem.  It's definitely not a drive space issue, but seems to be related to individual files.

I seem to have three categories of ape files
1- those that convert and transfer
2- those that generate a "file type not supported" error message
3- those that make media center fall over in a heap.


Re 2
It would make life easier if the error message for the second category of files did not halt the conversion process.  I think the error message comes up after each batch of conversions (ie every 10 successfully converted ape files).

As converting ape files takes a while, I'd like to leave it running overnight - having to click OK on the dialog box makes that a bit difficult.  

Would it be possible
(a) to bring up the error dialog only at the end of the entire conversion process and
(b) to write the filenames to a text file - unless I note down every error message, I don't have a record of the offending files.

Re 3
It's not obviously a file naming / tag issue - Alanis Morrissette (sp?)'s Jagged Little Pill causes a crash and there's not a single odd file name on the album.

I'd offer to email you some of the offending ape files, but as they are 20 or 30 mbs, then my email would choke.

I'll try and investigate this some more over the weekend.

K.

[_K_C_]

Ape conversion crash problem

I seem to have three categories of ape files
1- those that convert and transfer
2- those that generate a "file type not supported" error message
3- those that make media center fall over in a heap.

I think I may have solved it
1 - this is music you approve of
2 - this is music you don't really like, but you're prepared for me to listen to it in my own home.  I can't transfer it to the ipod, to make sure I don't embarrass myself in public
3 - this is music that is so bad you don't want media center anywhere near it.

Is that it?  Impressive coding....  

[coxkevin]

I fixed the bug with the Artist display in what will be released today. As an aside, that problem was a bug in displaying any iPod tree information when there was a naming overlap (i.e. Bangles, BanglesAlbum1, BanglesAlbum2) and it could have appeared in any of the tree items. Thanks.

I could not duplicate the playback error.  I am using what will be the new version for my testing. Can you retest with tonight's build and then if you see the error can you give me any more specifics on how to always replicate it. For me, I transfer and convert the files and then can play them fine.

The Replay Gain is on the list and getting closer

Hi Steve!!!

Since you have all my testing methodology from yesterday's post, I'm going to shorten today's post.  Here the results against v9.1.203/9.0.32:

Media Center Library (28 Songs)
- Bangles, Greatest Hits (14 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bangles, Different Light (12 Tracks, all at 320bps)
- Bing Crosby, Golden Greats (Track 15 "Swinging On A Star", 128bps)
- Bing Crosby, The Radio Years Vol 2 (Track 25 "May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You", 160bps)

Setup
- Restored the ipod usings Apple 1.2.6 Updater.
- Formatted the ipod from inside Media Center.
- Created "Bangles Test" Smartlist With Album="Different Light"
- Created "Bing Test" Smartlist with Artist="Bing Crosby"
- Created "Additional Tracks Test" with [Track #]==1,15,25

Test 1
Synchronized with
- "Bangles Test" smartlist selected
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Options: force file conversions during uploads checked, normalization set to 95%, conversion to 160, high speed.

Issues
Everything worked fine!

Test 2
Within MC, left clicked on the iPod drive under "CD, DVD, & Handhelds". Expanded the drive by left clicking on the "+".  Expanded the "Playlists" by left clicking on the "+".  Left clicked on "Bangles Test" playlist.  Tried to play any song listed on the iPod by double clicking or single clicking and hitting the play icon within MC.

Issues
When following this procedure, I kept getting "Media Center was unable to play any of the files in the playlist. Please make sure that the path in the Media Library points to the right location. Also double check to make sure that you are not unintentionally filtering these files."  I don't know why you can't reproduce this problem -- are you following my steps exactly and are you trying to play the music off the iPod from within MC, not with the iPod disconnected?

All other tests -- everything worked fine!

So the request/wish list is now down to:
- Fix the problem associated with playing songs in MC via iPod playlists (Test 2 Issues)
- Add capability to normalize against replay gain (Wish List -- I'm glad to hear it's working its way to the top of the list!).

I'm on the road again tomorrow and won't be back until Monday night.  I promise that you'll hear from me then...

Cheers,
kc

[coxkevin]

I am having a hard time seeing a way around the suggestion I made. The MC solution is to allow multiple albums to be selected for playback. This solves the issue of having to renumber the tracks. iPod does not allow this capability (I don't think) and only can playback an Album based on the Track Number order. I don't see a way to automatically renumber tracks when transferring to iPod if there are duplicate Albums without opening up all kinds of problems.  Help me keep you from the padded cells, suggestions are welcome  

I've been giving this a lot of thought and this is what I've come up with so far:

Create a new general field called "Disc".  I believe this act alone will allow users to pretty much do whatever they want from within MC via views and sorting for multi-disc albums.

Which leaves Nekura's bigger problem (and mine as well) of playing a multi-disc album as if it were a single one on the iPod, but in the correct order, i.e. Disc 1 Tracks 1-N followed by Disc 2 Tracks 1-M, etc.  I'm not sure if the iPod's track field is a string or a numeric field so the solution could be easy or slightly more difficult.  If it's a string field, then when you upload the discs and tracks to the iPod, just concatenate them together, i.e. 1-1, 1-2, ..., 1-N, 2-1, 2-2, ..., 2-M, etc.  I suspect that the field is numeric, however, as the iPod will play track 2 before track 10.  If I'm right, then that would require MC to renumber the tracks as it downloads them, i.e. 1, 2, ..., N, N+1, N+2, ..., N+M, etc.

This solution allows users to better catalog their CD collections without messing up their MP3 tags, while allowing a multi-disc album to be played as a single album on the iPod.

So what does everyone say?

Cheers,
kc

[coxkevin]

Can anyone else verify John's concern about tracks being cut off after conversion when played on iPod with 202? If not, John, try tonight's build and we will go from there.

CONFIRMED!

Prior to tonight, I hadn't listed to any songs all the way to the end after running my tests.  I'd just confirm that they'd play, then resync without transcoding. (Steve, I swear that this is only because I'm reformatting my iPod every night for testing.  Once the bugs are gone and I have the ability to normalize against replay gain, I'll sync with transcoded files and be forever happy, I think...)

This is a very interesting phoemenon.  Using MC, I can play the song right off the iPod without a hitch.  But when I disconnect and play it on the iPod itself, the song abrubtly ends at 2:23 when it should play to the end at 3:06.

Steve, I'm sending you the worst offender, Bangles, "Different Light", Track 1, "Manic Monday", and my iPod database in hopes that'll help you track down what's going on.  This was generated during Test 1.

Cheers,
kc

[nekura]

So what does everyone say?

Cheers,
kc

I was toying with a similar solution, but the main conflict that I found with it is what would become of the Track # tag when the user downloads their MP3s from the iPod to the computer?  And we have to take into account the unknown (to us) limitations of MC9 as well.