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[sthomp]

I'm about to get a portable MP3 player to use while exercising. I'm trying to decide whether to buy Media Center, and unfortunately I let my trial time elapse without checking it out as much as I would have liked. I'd like to find out if it will do this...

I want to be able to mark certain songs from my MP3 collection by adding them to a playlist or marking them some other way. (For example, I'd have a list of songs I like that are good for exercising; another list of songs my wife likes that are good for exercising; etc.) Once I've marked the songs, I'd like Media Center to:

1. Generate a random playlist from the songs I've marked, based on the capacity of my player (rather than length of playlist).
2. Copy the files it has selected to my MP3 player, or at least to a temporary directory I can then copy from. (Preferably deleting the previous batch of songs for me, but that isn't essential.)

Also, this is a little off-topic, but since I'm asking questions does anyone have any MP3 player recommendations? I'd like something really small and light, 256mb, preferably that will plug directly into a USB port. Any advice would be appreciated.

[gpvillamil]

MC will do everything you describe. In fact, it is one of the only programs I know of that will do exactly what you described. There have been several posts regarding the use of smartlists for working with an iPod and I'm sure they'll be relevant.

You can define playlists manually or by using rules for the categories you described. For example, I have a playlist called World Beat Master that includes all music where the genre=African, Arabic, Brazilian, etc.

Then you can define a smartlist based on any other playlist, specifying a modifier for random sorting and for limiting it to the memory size of your player. To continue with my example, I then make a smartlist called World Beat where the definition is playlist=World Beat Master, sorting=random, limit=1000 megabytes.

I usually add another parameter, to exclude songs I've heard within the past month. That way each sync gives me new tunes.

Once you've built these lists (which is even simpler than it sounds) it's just plug & play. Every sync will give you a fresh batch of tunes. Depending on how you've defined your smartlists, new music will be categorized appropriately without any further intervention from you.

I'm betting that MC will directly support any player that turns up as a storage device. However, you can always select any playlist and use the Move/Copy command to copy the files in the playlist to any other location.

[sthomp]

Thanks much for the info. Looks like I'll soon be a Media Center purchaser, once I can pick the MP3 player. There are so many out there it's making my head swim.

[ncbluenet]

i'll jump in with a similar question.

 Can you're smartlist exclude files that have been recently synced?  So in otherwords not only would it exclude stuff you listened to recently on your computer but also stuff that you've listened to on you're portable device.

  I burn mp3 data cds so i want it to remember what I've already burned and not reburn those songs.

[Quisp]

Thanks much for the info. Looks like I'll soon be a Media Center purchaser, once I can pick the MP3 player. There are so many out there it's making my head swim.

What's your budget?

[Quisp]

i'll jump in with a similar question.

 Can you're smartlist exclude files that have been recently synced?  So in otherwords not only would it exclude stuff you listened to recently on your computer but also stuff that you've listened to on you're portable device.

  I burn mp3 data cds so i want it to remember what I've already burned and not reburn those songs.

I'm not too sure of what you are asking, but if you save the files you sync to a playlist, you can use that playlist as a list of files to exclude from another playlist.

For instance, I have an avoid playlist set up with most of my annoying or outsider music listed, this way when I create a playlist or smartlist I can make sure that "songs" in that playlist don't appear in my new playlist. Works well in "party" situations or if I need a quick series of tracks for a long drive I don't have to worry about being driven nuts.

[sthomp]

What's your budget?

Probably around $200. The Creative Nomad MuVo NX has most of what I want. I guess I'll go with that if I can't find one with the two things it lacks, which are USB 2.0 and memory upgradability. I guess I can go higher on the budget if there's one out there that has everything I want.

[jleerigby]

If I were spending that sort of money on a portable it would have to be the new IPod.  I heard that they were going to release it at $199 in the US.  Not much chance of a similar price in the UK