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[trott]

Hi all,

I know this has been brought up before, but are there any plans for implementing some kind of fuctionality like iTunes' party shuffle?

[jmone]

Is that something like the "100 Random Songs" that under Playlists > Smartlists?
Thanks
Nathan

PS if that is what you're after then you could always build your own "random" playlist(s) but filtered by rating, genre etc etc

[trott]

Nope. It works like this:
1) create some playlists
2) enable party shuffle, tell it to use a specific playlist
3) automatically, 10 tracks will always be queued. As soon as a track is played, a new track is added to the queue.

[richard.e.morton]

why would you only want 10 songs in your playlist?

In MC you can get a similar result by
setting up blended changes of music (tools->Options->playback->audio->switch-tracks->crossfade, "ok")
adding tracks to the playing now queue (lots of tracks; playlists, albums, genre, smartlists or otherwise),  press the shuffle button, then play. a whole evenings music sorted.

Rich

[datdude]

The thing is often times I will play a song or songs, walk away, and then the music ends.  Why should it have to? 

These are computers after all, maybe we could use their functionality to automate certain things.  This thread has some good ideas (I think at least  ): http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=41438.0

[trott]

you are missing the point...
I do not want 10 tracks queued nor do I want to schedule an evening of music. In iTunes I can say: start playing random songs from this playlist until I tell you to stop but show me the next 10 tracks so I can remove songs I do not want to hear.

The problem with MC's approach when compared to this is that I have to make sure to queue up enough tracks to fill the evening. The iTunes party shuffle is the equivalent of turning on the radio and that's it...

Perhaps it could be implemented like this: a preference saying that when the playing now queue reaches its last song, add 10 random songs from a certain playlist. The user could then disable or enable this preference at wish.

[richard.e.morton]

Hi,

Maybe I am missing the point of this, but if iTunes is selecting 10 random songs from a playlist and showing them, then the playlist you have picked from needs to be much bigger than 10 songs in order for you to have any sort of variety, or to stop the same songs repeating too much.

So if you have a playlist which is longer than 10 songs (like enough for a whole evening - or close to it) add the playlist to playing now, click random - or not if you've made the playlist with a certain sequence in mind, then click repeat and play.

Rich

[robydago]

- send the playlist to playing now
- switch shuffle off
- hit ctrl+r (to reshuffle the order)
- hit play

that way you can see what's next and delete it if you don't want it.
the only difference I can see with iTunes is that the playing now list will be much longer.

[datdude]

Ahh, thats too many steps for me.

[ThoBar]

I do like the sound of trott's suggestion. Yes there are ways to provide shuffled, playlist based playback, but this is a nice-to-use feature.

Admittedly I can't see this being high on JR's priority list, as it can already be done, but it would be a nice addition.

[datdude]

Agreed. 

But I think if they want to sell copies of the software, not just make the best media player in the world which it already is to those in the know, then this is a nice feature to advertise.  To me, any of those types of sexy last mile user experience features would be not only be cool to have, but would help to gain more oohs and ahhs and thus more copies.  Maybe they are not extremely useful to everyone, but they round out the player overall.

Unless you dig deeper, MC isn't that much different from the other major players, at least from the outside.  Clearly it is light years ahead if you are a media freak though. 

Just my 2 cents.

[richard.e.morton]

ok, so MC doesn't automatically turn on shuffle and continuous playback - easy to select, and MC shows all the playlist tracks in the playing now window...

otherwise I don't see the difference in functionality. Adding all these functions that just do what is already there in a different way will clutter the interface and confuse the new user.

I vote for more codecs, better streaming, seperation of gui from playback engine (so the playback can be remotely controlled from any computer on the network), and other such great features over adding another way to do a party mix everytime.

Rich

[Matt]

so the playback can be remotely controlled from any computer on the network

Check out the integrated "Remote Server" (web server inside MC that allows remote controlling) or the third-party NetRemote or MuiscLobby.  All good ways to do this.

Links here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=10029.0

[hit_ny]

I must be missing something here with trott's party idea.

It's a party, you want to be mingling not checking whether the next 10 are ok or not. So i don't see why picking a list or lists and letting MC take care of it, isn't enough.

Unless you're djing, in which case the party shuffle is you

[richard.e.morton]

Check out the integrated "Remote Server" (web server inside MC that allows remote controlling) or the third-party NetRemote or MuiscLobby.  All good ways to do this.

Links here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=10029.0

yep, I have seen these, remote controls and yes they are great. I use the media server, but there are limitations.
I tend to use media centre from another pc over VNC, I also use an AJAX web interface plugin which is pretty good, but I would prefer a slimmed down web interface for a pda and the media centre gui running locally communicating over sockets to the remote playback engine.... anyway we digress...

R

[datdude]

I must be missing something here with trott's party idea.

It's a party, you want to be mingling not checking whether the next 10 are ok or not. So i don't see why picking a list or lists and letting MC take care of it, isn't enough.

Unless you're djing, in which case the party shuffle is you

Exactly.  You initially pick a list of songs to start out the 'party', and maybe you're not sure what to play after that initially or one of your friends starts playing songs randomly later ont and then the music stops.  Auto shuffle prevents this no matter what and makes it so you don't have to keep coming back to it, and can keep partying.

[trott]

indeed, you're missing something.

What you're saying works (sort of) but if i want to play songs from my entire library, i have to queue up thousands of tracks.

The idea is:
1) go to party shuffle
2) click play
3) forget about it and mingle.


also, see the comment above.

Anyway, I like the functionality. Please don't dismiss it as not useful if you haven't at least tried it...

[hit_ny]

3) forget about it and mingle.

That's the point tho isn't it.

You *don't* know what the next 10 will be ?..and the 10 after and so on.

What i'm saying is, if you have an hour or more of music queue'd, you're free till that gets done, or even able to queue up or change the order/selection as desired. Set up a smartlist that matches your party and have it randomise so it never chooses anything heard in the last 24 hrs..say. Refresh this list to get a mix of any duration you want as many times as you like.

Maybe i'm stil not getting it

not trying to shoot your idea down here, just not seeing the point  of it (yet)..

[Alex B]

iTunes doesn't have a separate "playing now" queue. Apple had to create a new temporary playlist to make this "party suffle" feature possible.

MC doesn't have this limitation. You can send whatever you want to Playing Now and suffle it (if the selection is not already randomized in a smartlist).

[datdude]

I guess another way to look at it, is that I like my Playing now list clean and only the songs I want in it at that time.  But if you add in another automated layer underneath it, you get to keep the clean Playing Now list, and the automated part of NEVER having the music end!

[richard.e.morton]

ok,

I think this thread has run its course.

Essentially you are looking for functionality that:
 - allows you to play music
 - from a random playlist
 - for an indefinate amount of time
 - with the ability to remove tracks you notice and don't want to play

MC has this.

you would also like the extra functionality to only show 10 tracks and be able to remove tracks you don't wsih to play in just thee 10 tracks (approx 30 minutes of music), which means to keep a track of it you need to keep returning to the machine (every 30 minutes)... IMAO I think this is a feature reduction and not a feature enhancement as you can remove tracks as far in the future as you wish in MC currently.

MC can easily cope with thousands of tracks, even in the playing now list...

anyway, enough from me...    :-)

Rich

[datdude]

Ok, think of it as a Musical Guardian. 

You set the rules you want, and when the music stops the Guardian says 'Wait a second, more music needs to be played here, that's not right!  Hmm what should I play?  Oh thats right, I have a never ending smartlist of music my Master told me to play!' 

BAM you never have to worry again because YOU have a Musical Guardian.  Don't leave your PC without one!