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[SnakeZZ]

Hi everybody!

I posted this question already in the MC12 board, but nobody seems to have an answer there... So I'll try my luck here:

Does MC12 support "skip when shuffling" and maybe also "remember playback position", especially for syncing with iPods?
How do I set these properties?
The background is that I am having a few Christmas albums I'd like to keep on my iPod, but not having them played in shuffle mode.
It's kind of embarrassing to listen to some chill-out music in the middle of summer and suddenly you get "Last christmas..." or something.   

Bye

SnakeZZ

[SwellGuy]

Currently, there is no directly comparable option to skip on shuffle in Media Center. One way to accomplish this would be to sync a Smartlist to the iPod and for those months you don't want Christmas music playing on your iPod add a rule to the Smartlist to exclude those tracks (exclude genre Christmas). Then if you set the sync option to 'Delete from handheld any files not in sync list" the Christmas tracks will be removed from the iPod. This doesn't meet one of your goals to keep the tracks on the iPod at all times but it won't take much time to re-sync them when you want them.

Remember playback position should work for podcasts, audiobooks and videos.

[Girovski]

Hi Snake ZZ and Swell Guy,

I was particulary interested in this post as I have had the same issues with MC (currently latest V.12) and the Ipod. My Ipod is 80GB so it holds my entire music collection at around 50GB. That's  the best part of 8000 songs.

Once you have that quantity of digital media stored on the machine you can use it for a whole variety of uses depending on the requirement. For example I use mine to play backing tracks for my guitar, also lessons on guitar and bass etc. I also use it to store a number of relaxation type CD's etc. and quite a bit of classical music - incidentally my tastes are generally more mainstream like rock, pop, indie, alternative, punk etc. I also have some christmas songs which I could quite happily remove for another year.

Now one of the large capacity Ipod's strengths is it's ability to shuffle the songs and play nothing but your favourite music all evening. It's like having the best radio station in the world in your front room (I rarely use headphones as it has replaced all my other hi fi separates it is now part of my main system - of course it is also used around the house).

I couldn't agree more with Snake ZZ, there are a whole variety of types of digital media stored on the Ipod, not just different genres etc. which are on there because you want them there but you absolutely do not want them included on general playback. You might also be into language classes .

Media Centre is simply not complete without the ability to fully control this element of playback. So, please, please, please include a "skip when shuffling" field then I promise I will never use Itunes again.

Many thanks,

Girovski.

[razumik]

Girovski,

I am not entirely familiar with how the "skip when shuffling" features works with iTunes.  Does it skip these songs when playing all playlists, albums, etc., or does it only skip these songs when selecting the "shuffle songs" from the ipod's mail menu.  If the latter is the case, you could create a smarlist and call it "shuffle" that excludes songs that you wish...such as Christmas songs, relaxation cd, etc.  Instead of selecting "shuffle songs" from the ipod menu, you could play this smartlist...and this would allow you to keep all of your music on your ipod.

Sorry if I misunderstand the feature and this does not help.

[Girovski]

Hi Razumik,

Thanks for the suggestion. The way the "skip when shuffling" works is every mp3 has  a "skip when shuffling" field, in my case I would select this for songs I do not want to hear of an evening. These would be guitar backing tracks, relaxation sounds, mp3 based lessons for example.

Every thing else (the vast majority) remains unticked. When using the Ipod you would select "shuffle songs" from the main menu and it will randomise the order of songs (the entire library). It's really quite powerful as you can go forwards or backwards on the list to check a song title if you didn't recognise it from earlier on in the evening and then resume playback from the later song.

Your suggestion is a very good work around as I could place the majority of my music into this playlist and as long as I changed the "shuffle" option under "settings" to songs and then played back the playlist it would, in fact, randomise it. The downside is that every time I add a new album I would have to remember to add it into this playlist - ok I'm being a bit pedantic here.

It's a great idea, just a shame it has to be done as a work around. Although Itunes is very basic ie. I use a number of utilities to tag the mp3s and add pictures etc., what it does do is very simple and reliable. The player isn't very good, it takes ages to open, it's rubbish for large multiple tag edits.

Still, guys at Media Centre, I really promise I'll never use it again if you'll just include this tiny but great feature,

Thanks again,

Girovski.

[harvey]

"Remember playback position" is the one option i really miss in itunes.  I have many lectures in my library and many of them are over an hour long and I can't think of any workaround.  The only option I figured is to sync these files separately using itunes.....not the ideal situation.
Please let me know if there is something else I'm missing.