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[jeffspl311]

Here's a problem that I can't believe is unique to me. Has anyone solved this?

I have two computers, a laptop and a desktop. I use the desktop as my main media repository... my whole collection is there. I use my laptop to DJ with, and it only contains the tracks I rate as good enough to play. My desktop has all tracks in my collection in a folder hierarchy something like "<Genre>/<Artist>/<Album>/track name.mp3". When I run my smartlist query to return all the tracks that I rated as worthy, and which eliminates dupes and picks the highest rated of the dupes, I simply select all from the list, and drag them onto my shared folder on the laptop. 40 minutes later, I have 2000 tracks ready to play, but in one folder, no hierarchy.

So far, so good.

The problem arises when I try to drag a playlist that I made on the desktop over to the laptop, or when I try to drag the playlist that I actually used in the club back from the laptop onto the desktop to edit or archive it... all the tracks are disassociated!

Isn't there a way for Media Center to re-associate the tracks based on matching a set of tags that I specify???  I would use track name, artist name, album name, and I would hope that this would be a default for the system.

This seems really basic functionality, and I'm surprised it's not already in this otherwise absolutely fantastic product.

Thanks,
Jeff

[glynor]

I think that you can prevent the problem before it occurs if you Copy/Move the files over to your laptop from inside MC instead of from drag-n-drop style (and essentially creating the duplicates in Windows Explorer).  I use the Drag-and-Drop all the time when editing pictures, because it is often convenient to work on a copy that MC doesn't know about (and then delete it when I am done), but it's not so good for music and video.  Use the Tools --> Library Tools --> Move/Copy Disk File function.  You can actually keep track of the files living on your laptop in the MC database this way ... (You may also want to check out the "Rename Files from Properties" function which can move the files for you and recreate that folder structure.

It would then be a simple matter to define a Custom Library Field (in Options --> Library) called Location (or something like that) that keeps track of whether the files are on the Desktop or Laptop.  Then make a view scheme that only shows the Laptop Files (just put Location Not Desktop in the search field).

In other words, I don't think your method of transferring the files (or organizing the files) is necessarily the best way.  However in the "Alpha" version 11 (which I have found quite stable) MC can automagically fix those broken links during the import process.  In fact, the entire import process is DRASTICALLY improved, and is probably the biggest reason to upgrade.

[jeffspl311]

Hi glynor,
Thanks for the suggestion! I will transfer files that way the next time I update my laptop. I'm looking forward to 11 as well. Since I'm using MC for "production" purposes, I'm probably going to wait just a little while longer, though I might try it on my desktop before I upgrade my laptop.
Cheers,
Jeff

[glynor]

I haven't tried it myself, but I hear that you can install both MC10 and MC11 side by side.  It does install in a separate directory.

One word of caution, the "database" that MC11 uses is NOT backwards compatible with MC10, so make sure that when you install and upgrade the library, you do so on a copy not the original (maybe someone else can reply but I think it gives you this option in the "upgrade wizard" process).

I think you'll like it.  I use MC to DJ as well, and I hesitated at first to use MC11 (I made sure to keep old copies of my library and whatnot so I could switch back at a moment's notice) ... I never needed it, and would now never go back.