Topic: Using exFAT format for library devices (Read 2684 times)

macdonjh · « **on:** November 11, 2018, 03:39:47 pm »

I searched and didn't find a thread with an answer for my particular question, so here it is:

I would like to use external hard drives, formatted in exFAT, for my library and back-up. Will MediaCenter for MAC operate properly like this? The other thread I found addressed a problem with DSF files, which I don't have, and tagging. Are there any other issues, like poor playback, poor synchronization between audio and video, things like that?

The reason for this is I use MediaCenter on a MAC, but I'd like to be able to transfer files to other devices in my house and everything else here is a Windows device.

bob · « **Reply #1 on:** November 12, 2018, 02:38:30 pm »

Quote from: macdonjh on November 11, 2018, 03:39:47 pm

I searched and didn't find a thread with an answer for my particular question, so here it is:

I would like to use external hard drives, formatted in exFAT, for my library and back-up. Will MediaCenter for MAC operate properly like this? The other thread I found addressed a problem with DSF files, which I don't have, and tagging. Are there any other issues, like poor playback, poor synchronization between audio and video, things like that?

The reason for this is I use MediaCenter on a MAC, but I'd like to be able to transfer files to other devices in my house and everything else here is a Windows device.

I think you should be OK as long as your filename/paths are compatible with both Windows and Mac.
For the tagging to work, the files have to be writable as the your Mac user.
You may not really need to tag on Mac, it might be better to restrict tagging to one machine.

chrisc · « **Reply #2 on:** November 16, 2018, 01:57:11 pm »

I'm using exFAT and it works 100% in Mac and Windows

macdonjh · « **Reply #3 on:** November 16, 2018, 03:55:05 pm »

Excellent. That is good news. Thank you.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #4 on:** November 16, 2018, 05:29:18 pm »

Yeah, exFAT works fine. Just make sure no directories/folders that store your media files contain a period or periods preceding the folder's name (something like ...Hits), or else macOS (and Linux) will consider it a hidden directory and MC won't import it by default.

macdonjh · « **Reply #5 on:** December 01, 2018, 09:03:11 am »

Awesome Donkey, where should all those periods go? My files are stored with paths like this:
Users/Jack/Music/Tom Petty/Greatest Hits/Refugee.wav

macdonjh · « **Reply #6 on:** December 01, 2018, 09:17:31 am »

New trouble: I bought a 5TB hard drive, formatted it for exFAT on my PC, but my Mac won't recognize it. Can somebody teach me the secret to getting a Mac to recognize external hardware?

I sometimes have trouble getting my Mac to recognize my micro-SD cards. The solution seems to be plugging the USB adapter/ reader into a USB port in the back of the computer, rather than into a USB "extender" (you know, one of those multi-port USB strips). I plugged my new hard drive, formatted for exFAT directly into the back of the Mac, and it won't register in the Finder.

JimH · « **Reply #7 on:** December 01, 2018, 10:07:30 am »

A USB drive is usually USB 3.0 and should be plugged into a USB 3.0 port.

Power could be an issue. The port may not have enough power. A powered hub might work.

blgentry · « **Reply #8 on:** December 01, 2018, 05:30:13 pm »

Kinda odd that it won't read it. Does Disk Utility see it?

It's probably worth a try to format it, with Disk Utiility, to ExFAT and see if the PC can read it after.

Personally, I think ExFAT is weird and don't really like it. I'd rather use FAT32 if I have to share drives between Mac and other stuff. YMMV.

Brian.

macdonjh · « **Reply #9 on:** December 15, 2018, 12:49:34 am »

Disc utility did find the USB drive. According to the Mac, it needed repair because it didn't have an EFI partition (or something like that). I had done a "quick format" on my PC, then read the disc on my Mac. I then reformatted it on the Mac. Now my Mac reads the disc fine. I haven't tried reading the drive with my PC yet, a project for tomorrow or Sunday.

OK, it was a project for right now. I can play music files fine on my PC, so it looks like everything is working the way it should, thank goodness.

If I had a master license of MC, would the cover art display properly? It isn't in Media Player, or whatever program I played the songs with. Goodness computer speakers suck.

macdonjh · « **Reply #10 on:** December 15, 2018, 12:51:43 am »

Next question, about Library tools. Why won't MC and my Mac copy more than a couple dozen files at a time from my current hard drive to the new hard drive? When I try to copy a hundred or so files at a time a couple dozen are copied, but the rest are not. If I try to copy a couple dozen they copy just fine.

macdonjh · « **Reply #11 on:** December 16, 2018, 06:24:50 pm »

I think part of my problem is inconsistency in file naming. Especially with classical music, I had some collections of songs named [artist]/[album] and some named [album]/[artist] so they were in different folders on my hard drive, even though they were tagged such that they appeared in searches in the same group of songs for that artist. Perhaps trying to sort though two or three different folders confused the database operation?

One more weirdness: I have several instances of almost all of a CD's files copied to my new hard drive, but one (or two) files not being copied). After a couple of subsequent attempts I ended up dragging and dropping the file within Mac OS-X, then importing into the MC Library, then using the Rename/Move/Copy utility to rename all the files for that CD to be consistent and keep them together.

One of the good things that will come out of this exercise is I'll have my file names cleaned up and will be able to locate things on my hard drive and everything should also be arranged within MC the way I'm used to organizing things with actual CDs.

blgentry · « **Reply #12 on:** December 17, 2018, 07:28:18 am »

Quote from: macdonjh on December 15, 2018, 12:49:34 am

If I had a master license of MC, would the cover art display properly?

The Trial version of MC, the "regular" version of MC, and the Master License version of MC do the same things. All capabilities are in all 3 versions and not limited in any way by licenses. There are a handful of Windows specific features that are not in the Mac and Linux versions, but those features do not involve cover art display.

It's likely your cover art isn't named in a way that MC can find it. Here's a rather detailed Wiki entry about cover art with MC:

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art

I have found that the most consistent way for me is to store the cover art INSIDE the music files. For FLACs this "just works" and it's what I've done with my entire collection. Hopefully you have most cover art working and just a few to clean up, rather than the other way around.

If you want detailed help on this, it's probably best to start a new thread about it, since you have other questions here in this one.

Brian.

blgentry · « **Reply #13 on:** December 17, 2018, 07:31:44 am »

Quote from: macdonjh on December 15, 2018, 12:51:43 am

Next question, about Library tools. Why won't MC and my Mac copy more than a couple dozen files at a time from my current hard drive to the new hard drive? When I try to copy a hundred or so files at a time a couple dozen are copied, but the rest are not. If I try to copy a couple dozen they copy just fine.

I have not personally experienced this. I've done a good bit of copying with RM&C and it always seems to copy or move everything that I tell it to, as long as that stuff is imported. Your post below indicates that you have files kind of "spread out" on your drive, so maybe MC is doing the right thing, but it doesn't seem correct because of your disk layout? I'll address that in my next post.

You might want to do some experiments by copying files into a fresh clean directory. Count the number of files to be copied (MC will display it in the bottom status bar). Then count the number of files in the destination. You can use Finder's "get info" on the top level directory and it will give you a file count, as well as a total size. The file count might be a little off because I think Finder counts files AND directories. But you should be in the right ballpark anyway.

Brian.

blgentry · « **Reply #14 on:** December 17, 2018, 07:40:29 am »

Quote from: macdonjh on December 16, 2018, 06:24:50 pm

Perhaps trying to sort though two or three different folders confused the database operation?

If you have overlapping names such that MC would want to copy 2 or more files to ONE file name in the destination, that might happen. If they do NOT overlap, then it shouldn't matter I wouldn't think.

Quote

One more weirdness: I have several instances of almost all of a CD's files copied to my new hard drive, but one (or two) files not being copied). After a couple of subsequent attempts I ended up dragging and dropping the file within Mac OS-X, then importing into the MC Library, then using the Rename/Move/Copy utility to rename all the files for that CD to be consistent and keep them together.

One of the good things that will come out of this exercise is I'll have my file names cleaned up and will be able to locate things on my hard drive and everything should also be arranged within MC the way I'm used to organizing things with actual CDs.

I've found this to be true. MC is as much of an organizational tool as it is a player. In fact, using MC is a really great way to get a handle on where your files are and what they are. Then it gives you the opportunity to organize them, on disk, in a very structured fashion. It's quite satisfying to someone like me to gain control of my media collections so I can really know where everything is.

At some point you might find that you need to do some external organization (with Finder or another tool). This might mean that you just want to start from scratch with a fresh library and reimport everything. If it's not that drastic, you don't have to. I'm just throwing out the idea that it might help you depending on how your media is laid out on disk.

When you are doing these kind of disk organization tasks, including figuring out WHAT you have and WHERE it is, it's VERY useful to use the Audio > Files view. I can't remember exactly which fields that view has by default, but the important one is DISK LOCATION. Drilling through your collection and then seeing where everything is on disk can really help. You can drive the process either direction: Start by looking at disk and see what files are there. Or start by looking at albums and artists and see where the files for each are located. This is another good tool in the toolbox for having a nicely organized collection. Both inside MC and on the disk. I think both are important.

If you have specific questions about RM&C, or about using a files view, or even building your own CUSTOM files type view, I recommend you start a new topic about it. That way we can give you focused help. Sometimes people won't answer posts there there are several different questions together. But they will answer several different posts with one question each.

Good luck! (and I sincerely mean that even though I type it a LOT in my replies).

Brian

macdonjh · « **Reply #15 on:** December 17, 2018, 09:05:46 pm »

I'll ask this here, since it's related to what I'm doing, but might be better in a new thread.

I am now copying my movies to an external USB drive using the Rename/ Move/ Copy utility. When I copy video files, the Movie/ TV data I have doesn't "come over" with the video/ audio files. So I reconfigured my Import to "get Movie/ TV data". But then I got different graphics and data than what I had in my earlier library.

How do I get my current Movie/ TV data to copy and follow my video files?

blgentry · « **Reply #16 on:** December 18, 2018, 06:17:37 am »

It sounds like you want to MOVE not copy. Copy is used for external stuff like "I want my movies collection on a second drive I can take with me." MOVE is used to change locations for existing media files. I'm guessing you really want to use move.

That said, it's surprising that your movie files do not have their metadata and cover art move with them. I would expect the sidecar file and cover art file to both move with the movie. However, I've done most of my own bulk moves using external tools (not RM&C). Why? Because my movie collection is large. Several TB. For something this size, I am very familiar with how the operating system tools work (rsync and Finder) so I use those instead of RM&C. RM&C is wonderful! But for really large data moves, it doesn't make sense to me. It locks up MC for long periods of time while I copies huge files (like my 40+GB blu-ray rips).

So how do I not lose my cover art and metadata when I don't use RM&C to move my files? Simple: After the files are moved, I use RM&C in "update database only" mode. I tell it where I've moved the files to, and MC simply updates the file location of my movies. This happens essentially instantly. So, I spent hours moving huge files, then a few seconds informing MC about it, by using RM&C in update only mode.

You might want to read up on that mode here:

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Rename,_Move,_and_Copy_Files#Modes

That whole article is worth reading to give you a nice understanding of what RM&C can be used for.

Good luck,

Brian.

macdonjh · « **Reply #17 on:** December 18, 2018, 01:29:18 pm »

Thanks, blgentry. I am copying the files onto an external USB drive to act as a backup. I'm using MC to do it to be sure my file structure stays consistent so it will be easy to restore my library if my main drive crashes.

That said, I found my movie cover art in the Pictures directory in MC. But, they didn't COPY with the movie files for whatever reason. I'll follow the link you provided and read up.

macdonjh · « **Reply #18 on:** December 18, 2018, 01:32:12 pm »

Oh, and where is the default location for MC to save album/ CD cover art?

There aren't enough files in my Pictures directory to include album/ CD cover art. Strangely, the metadata and cover art seems to have copied with my audio files. I won't know until I upgrade to a master license and use MC on a PC, though.

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** December 18, 2018, 01:38:16 pm »

Tools > Options > File Location

There is a search window on the options page.

blgentry · « **Reply #20 on:** December 18, 2018, 02:11:15 pm »

Quote from: macdonjh on December 18, 2018, 01:32:12 pm

Oh, and where is the default location for MC to save album/ CD cover art?

Cover art handling is kinda complicated with MC. The wiki article explains it pretty well:

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art

Brian.

macdonjh · « **Reply #21 on:** December 25, 2018, 06:02:32 am »

Thanks, blgentry and all. I'm still having a bit of difficulty with Move, Rename & Copy, but I'll start another thread for that. In general, exFAT is working fine now.

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Author Topic: Using exFAT format for library devices (Read 2684 times)