Hey Matt (JRiver),
I was thinking about why I
do not use MC to catalog my CD backups of all my MP3s...currently I use
Advanced Disk Catalog to catalog & manage the backups I make using MC. I like ADC alot (for over 2 years now), but it is a separate application and I was wondering if MC had enough support to do what ADC is doing for me today.
So, I begin an experiment to see if MC 10 could do it. After an hour of hacking and playing with MC, importing and modifying Media Library view schemes I see MC is just too cumbersome to replace ADC.
Limitations I ran into:
1. The Media Library node does not allow for any modifiers/qualifiers so everything imported shows up when the ML node is highlighted. This is problematic when tracks are imported twice (once from hard drive and once from CD-R backup disk). I was able to build view schemes under ML that excluded or included CD-Rs, but ML is what the MC Locate feature uses.
2. Imported CD-R's volume names cannot be renamed after imported. So, if you accidently burn a CD-R without naming it, you get lots of New (nnn) entries. Also, MC is bugged and would still name some volumes as Unnamed Disc (nnn) even though the CD-R disc did have a name (MC displayed it fine in the CD drive node). Of course, the discs are known external by the names written with a permanent marker on the CD itself.
3. You cannot right-click a CD node in MC and choose Import...no option.
4. I tried using a separate MC database library for only CD backups and that was better, but I still didn't like having to change libraries to view the database...and #2 (above) was still a big problem. Zone support doesn't help either...changing the MC database loaded in one zone changes it for all zones.
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MC has about 80% to 90% of the support to be an excellent tool for cataloging & managing CD data backup (esp. music backups), but needs some tweaking to be usuable for this. If only MC had a feature/node comparable to Media Library (say Disk Library) that contained only data (maybe audio too) CD discs scannned (not imported) into MC, I think MC could be a great tool for this (replace the need for ADC).
Features that a Disk Library node should have would be:
1. Scan new discs (examining all files and pulling in file/tag information for media files MC supports)
2. Volume naming/renaming for scanned/cataloged discs
3. Play functions (standard MC stuff)...MC could prompt for the proper disc if not currently loaded (like MC does already today)
4. Standard search support (of only Disk Library node files)...just like is supported by MC on the ML node
5. View schemes (just like the ML node supports)
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What does everybody else think? Would you like and use MC for cataloging CDs if it were better enabled to do so? Or, should I just continue using ADC and 'be happy'?