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[rjm]

I spent 7 hours last night configuring and testing MC13. Here are a few of my observations.

1) Installation
No surprises, installed as per previous versions.

2) Library Setup
I initially started with an empty library, set a few key options, exited, restarted, loaded a copy of my MC12 library, confirmed correct number of files and preservation of key field data, exited, edited registry to point to copy of MC12 thumbnail cache, restarted, and confirmed thumbnails ok. More on this later because I subsequently learned that something very bad appears to have happened in this sequence.

3) Configure Settings
I spent 3 hours of focused hard work adjusting MC13 settings to match those I use in MC12. There are so many settings that it is not possible (at least for me) to document my configuration. The only way that works for me is to run an instance of MC12 and to methodically and manually copy all of the settings from 12 to 13. In addition to going through every page in the options dialogue I also had to:

- copy skins from MC12 program files to MC13 program files, select skins
- copy visualizations from MC12 program files to MC13 program files
- edit language translation file to change "Audio" to "Main"
- configure top toolbar
- configure bottom toolbar
- configure favorites - I have a lot, this is time consuming
- customize track display
- set Access Control settings and password

We really need a better way to setup MC. I have 3 systems in my home running MC which means I am facing about 9 hours of work to put MC13 into production. The best solution, as has been requested by many people, would be to embed all settings in the library, however I would be satisfied with a simple little utility that saved and restored settings.

4) View Integrity Tests
I have many hours invested in the design of my MC12 views. It is important to me that they are preserved on upgrading to MC13, or in a worst case, that it will be easy for me to recreate them. So I spent a couple hours testing and configuring my views. Here is what I observed:

First the good news:

- I really like the new look. Changes are subtle but very pleasing to the eye.
- Time to render a view seems faster - well done!
- Not refreshing those tabs that are not displayed is a huge improvement - thanks!
- I think the new view configuration method will be much better after I have learned how to use it.  
- It is wonderful that we can now save views.

Now the bad news:

Some key aspects of my MC12 views were not preserved:
- column settings (selection and order)
- groupings
- sorting behavior
- details/thumbnail view settings

I am not certain what is going on, but it looks like my views are now inheriting some properties from their parents which may explain some of the above observations.

Some aspects of views are buggy:
- when changing grouping settings I observed column selections to randomly change
- when navigating between views, I observed a view to spontaneously change from details to thumbnail view
- when selecting a view, the details page often (always?) does not reset to the top of the list; in other words I see the 2nd or 3rd album instead of the 1st album, and must scroll up to the first

Some aspects of view configuration are confusing:
- there are 2 different places to specify sorting: inside groups and advanced view settings - I do not understand the difference and how they interact

The save view feature is an excellent addition, however it should remember the name and filename used in a previous save. I think it should use the standard Windows "save"/"save as" paradigm.

5) Library/Media Integrity Tests
These are the most important tests I do on all new versions of MC. They confirm that the upgrade did not change my library and/or media files.

5.1 Every file in my library is tagged "to perfection". This means that any changes to my library field values are very easy to spot in the pain view. This test passed, I did not see any changes.

5.2 Every file under the root folders specified in auto-import is imported, tagged, analyzed, and thumbnails have been built. This means that when I run auto-import it should report zero changes after scanning all of my media drives. This test failed. It reported that 3 files had changed.

5.3 Before upgrading MC I ensure I have an exact backup of all my media files. After running MC for a while, without doing any tag edits, I exit MC, and do a comparison of media files against the backup to to see if MC changed any media files. This test failed. MC13 changed 116 of my mp3s.

I can offer a few clues that may help to diagnose the 5.3 problem. Refer to "2) Library Setup" above. There was a brief period (about 1 minute) when MC was running with an empty thumbnail cache. I heard MC starting to rebuild the thumbnail cache which is normal and expected. I then exited, loaded my MC12 thumbnail cache, restarted, and confirm my thumbnails were ok. My theory is that MC modified the mp3s that it accessed while starting to rebuild the thumbnail cache. Two observations support this theory. Some (but not all) of the changes to the modified mp3s were the removal of the embedded cover art. And a copy of the embedded cover art was added to my default Cover Art folder. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I am not aware of any combination of auto-import settings that would result in the removal of embedded cover art. So this seems to be a serious problem that needs to be fixed.

With regard to the 5.2 problem, I observed that the 3 files detected as having changed were included in the list of the 116 files that were modified in 5.3. As a wild ass guess, I wonder if the thread that was modifying my mp3s was running a little ahead of the thread that was updating the library, and that when I exited there were 3 files that had not yet been updated in the library.

6) New Features & Fixes
I did not get a chance to test the great new features like links and TV but am looking forward to trying them.

I did not confirm whether the iPod detection problem has been fixed. I do hope that the iPod fix is rolled back into MC12 because it looks like I will be running MC12 for a little while longer until the dust settles on MC13.

7) Concluding Remarks
We were warned in advance that this preview might be a little rough around the edges so I am not complaining, nor am I concerned about the problems I observed.

Overall I think MC13 is a major positive step forward and will be worth every penny of the upgrade cost.

[rjm]

In the tests I discussed above there was only one problem that really worried me. That was the removal of embedded artwork from mp3s when MC rebuilt my thumbnail cache.

I thought it strange that no one else reported this problem so I went back and did some more tests to try and reproduce it.

I was unable to reproduce the problem, despite trying everything I could think of.

I have much higher confidence in MC13 now and expect to switch over after the next build or three.

[bwaldron]

In the tests I discussed above there was only one problem that really worried me. That was the removal of embedded artwork from mp3s when MC rebuilt my thumbnail cache.

I thought it strange that no one else reported this problem so I went back and did some more tests to try and reproduce it.

I was unable to reproduce the problem, despite trying everything I could think of.

I have much higher confidence in MC13 now and expect to switch over after the next build or three.

After reading your comments, I was very careful to make sure I had a backup of my mp3 files on hand and checked for this -- but my 24,000+ files with embedded artwork were left alone during the upgrade process. No problems.

[ThoBar]

I was unable to reproduce this also