'Saving Tag Changes' seems a bit slower,
. . . could be my imagination
I'll second that.. I'm on 279 currently, but I've noticed that just about all media based disk i/o is terribly slow.. Most (~80%) of my files are stored on a seperate file server (win2k server).. Also.. watching the network activity and cpu/io on the server, Media center is definately taxing the server less now than in previous versions.. I'm not exactly sure what version this may have started in, but Media center 7.x was much much faster (probably limited by the server's speeds/network).. and recent versions (since ~270) seem to be getting slower and slower..
Also.. In trying iTunes out, I've noticed it's "convert ID3 Tag" feature is probably 10x faster when converting to 2.4 from a file that didn't have a 2.x tag already.. This seems to hit the physical disk maximum speeds of the server.. And it also doesn't seem to copy the entire file when sticking an ID2.x header on the beginning.. I have a few hundred mp3s which are in the 100+ mb range, and it's insanely painful to watch MC 9.1.x insert the id2 tag..
And finally.. a personal gripe from someone who's written multithreaded windows apps for a living.. Anytime MC goes to do I/O, specifically updating tags where a 2.x tag is being created which takes a while, the MC gui locks up.. Come on guys.. the disk I/O shouldn't be done in the main GUI thread.. Fork it off to a worker thread, so the gui can at least have the ability to paint itself..
my info:
Media Center 9.1.279 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\
Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2798 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1047 MB, Free - 691 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1226 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)
Ripping / Drive F: 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: Yes / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No
Burning / Drive F: SONY CD-RW CRX100E Addr: 3:0:0 Speed:4 MaxSpeed:4 BurnProof:No
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: No / Write CD-Text: No
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None