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[JimH]

JohnT has been working on a moderately complex project to suggest music you might like.

It can use your plays and ratings to try to match you with others who have similar tastes and then recommend songs you might like.

IF YOU SET IT UP (and take a number)
In MC's options, open General, then Online Metadata, and check the box for "Submit Song Ratings ...".  This submits information to our database, giving you a number there.  No personal details are recorded, other than your number and your likes.

YOU WILL GET SUGGESTIONS (with previews at Amazon)
To see what you might we suggest, open "Services and Plug-ins" in the tree on the left.  Click on "Suggestions".

You will see a list of tracks.  The list gets refreshed from time to time.  You can get a new list by clicking on "Submit Ratings" at the top of the Suggestion window.

What I like a lot is that you can now click on a track to play a sample of the music or purchase an MP3 download or a CD from Amazon.  You may have to refresh the list by clicking "Submit Ratings" to see the links.

Here's the previous thread on John's work.

[Doof]

This is turning into a really nice addition. Some of the suggestions make me wonder just what the hell I've been listening to!

One little thing I noticed though was that it says to double click the tracks to hear a 30 second preview. Unfortunately that only works if it's available as an MP3 download and not just as a CD. And if you have thumbnails turned on instead of details, there's no way to tell which is which. Maybe there should be some sort of overlay on the thumbnails that indicates which is which and if a CD only item is double clicked it takes you to the Amazon page instead of just giving an error message about not being able to play the file? Just a thought. I'm really looking forward to seeing what it recommends down the road.

One question, though... most of my music listening will happen on my HTPC, but I'll be checking recommendations on my primary PC. Does MC get the usage data from the file tags, or does it only store it in the database? If it's only the database, then this probably won't work out too well for me since my real usage data won't be used.

[JimH]

This is turning into a really nice addition. Some of the suggestions make me wonder just what the hell I've been listening to!

I had the same experience.  Our data is still slim, so this will improve.  I did find a couple of tracks I liked a lot.

[EpF]

I'm getting an error: "The filenames of the selected files are not valid". Any settings I need to change?

[JimH]

I'm getting an error: "The filenames of the selected files are not valid". Any settings I need to change?

It may not work outside the U.S.  This will probably change in the future, as Amazon gets global rights.

[Doof]

I'm getting an error: "The filenames of the selected files are not valid". Any settings I need to change?

That's also the message you get when it's only a link to a CD you can buy rather than an MP3 you can listen to a preview of.

Or I guess I should say "rather than an MP3 of which you can listen to a preview."

[pank2002]

First of all, interesting feature. It is nice that the suggestion page is truly integrated to MC, rather than the purely integrated music stores. Thumb up for that.

It may not work outside the U.S.  This will probably change in the future, as Amazon gets global rights.

I am not able to stream either from the suggestion page. However, if I try to stream via Amazon page (within MC) there is no problem.
If I use an American VPN/Proxy (that I also use for hulu access) it is the same thing: no playback due to a filename error.

Also: Please, once again, consider to get rid of IE. It just crashed my MC!

-Rasmus

[datdude]

It would be nice if 'date' data was added to each track.

Also how exactly does the 'submit ratings' button work?  I just did it without making any ratings changes and nothing changed.  I hope there will be a way to control how many suggestions are made at a time, and how many I can submit for being reviewed.

[Qythyx]

One thing I just noticed on this feature is that a few of the suggestions are tracks that I already own. I don't think those should be shown. It's possible the album is different, but the artist and track name are the same.

[raldo]

How does MC deal with tracks played on a handheld wrt. the "Number Plays" field? Is this field synched back to the MC Library?

[park]

It'd be nice if there were a way to upload all of your highly rated songs, so that the suggestions could be more accurate from the beginning.