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Author Topic: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?  (Read 10797 times)

HTPC4ME

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Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« on: November 22, 2008, 03:16:22 pm »

ok i have read over this topic time and time again.. and i dont understand how to get this working


Many of you dont use playlists i gather from my searches in the forum

My problem is im trying to get rid of all playlist and use smartlists..

Are all your guys files... images, audio, video view from the media mode buttons? and then you make smartlists for your 5 stars etc?

Reason i ask is. on my machine due to how many fields i have if i chose audio, images or video, it takes a LONG time to load the lists! an both processors max out to 100%

i cannot expect someone to come over and choose audio and then have to wait for it to load all my muic, artists etc.. Before i was using playlist and i had one called rock, then in rock was all rock artists. but by doing that it WAS ALOT OF WORK!!! and after checking out total rock files in playlists compared to total rock files under audio mode i had like 15,000 filess missing in my playlists?!

So i decided i would start small.. i choose pictures playlist, dvd coverarts, then i started making smartlists for those genres , kids, musicials, music visuals, documentaries etc.. then  finally got to Oldies, well in oldies when i made the oldies smartlists it didnt show any files? well after loking the reason it didnt show any files was because in my oldies folder there were 3 other folders, laurel and hardy, 3 stooges, rascals... How the heck do i make these smartlists to watc my folders... and so its ast so people dont have to click on the media mode buttons which take so long to load!?

I've been trying to get this whole sorted the "right way " now for a few weeks but every way i try to do it i hit a road block!

How are you guys doing your libraries?  Where ARE ALL YOUR FILES? Can people see ALL AUDIO FILES FAST if they use audio media mode button? cause from version 10 my library takes forever to load when using any media mode buttons.. But being i also had playlsits of every folder on my drives in JRiver sorted liek a tree structure. the files were there INSTANTLY!!!

Is there a way for me tomake a FOLDER structure Within playlsitshat are smartlst that willautomatically import the file sinto the righ tree structure, and Be INSTANT for those going through the libray? or is the media mode the only way? or they way i had been doing it, which was making individual playlists and adding files manually? but then missing many files by going that route.

Can someone help me here to get this started the right way and the way that people will be able to view files the fastest?!
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gappie

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2008, 03:35:31 pm »

i use nearly only smartlists and they are fast actually nearly always. and when they are not fast i wonder why most of the time because i really use like a bunch of playlists combined in one playlist.. or that it is far from smart what i filled in for the rules...things like that.
an other reason is when i a 'is missing', things that have to look on the disk instead of in the library.

so when reading your post i wondered about this:
Quote
So i decided i would start small.. i choose pictures playlist, dvd coverarts, then i started making smartlists for those genres , kids, musicials, music visuals, documentaries etc.. then  finally got to Oldies, well in oldies when i made the oldies smartlists it didnt show any files? well after loking the reason it didnt show any files was because in my oldies folder there were 3 other folders, laurel and hardy, 3 stooges, rascals... How the heck do i make these smartlists to watc my folders... and so its ast so people dont have to click on the media mode buttons which take so long to load!?
what is the rule for this oldie smartlist. how much files are you talking about for your library.


 :)
gab
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2008, 03:41:03 pm »



thanx Gppie. but...you or anyone here up to make some money via paypal? i will pay someone to voice chat with me, and send screen shoots.. this is impossible to explain. i have files for amost 7 yrs... and my library is a mess and want this FIXED!
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gappie

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2008, 04:10:56 pm »

i have a bunch of mics in this house. and a 48 channel (i think ::) ) soundcard. dont know anything about voice chat though.  ;D

but i really think this forum could be a good place.. there is one thing though, you have to ask yourself, how do you want to organize your library. and start simple. when you use filestructure now, how complex that structure might be, for a database it would be simple. start to think from the database. it is not to complex to get that stuff in the database.

an other thing.. i sincerely do believe that it is impossible to find a perfect structure for your database, just something that works and you could be happy about.

for me the structure of the folders and stuff are irrelevant. just some basic hygiene. the library can handle all the rest (and the hygiene).  ;)

 :)
gab
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2008, 07:24:12 pm »

when u say library ca handle all the rest.. you mean meda mode buttons? i just been playin songsfor about an hour, and chose media mode iages.. i get the spinning wheel in vista and media center doesnt load my images mode for OVER 1 minute!?!?

wheeas before when i had a playlist called pictures, and all the folders under it. i culd get to graphics pictures, cars instantly.


is that wht you use? media mode for all files? is yours slow like mine?
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2008, 07:42:39 pm »

and now i just clicked on video mode to see what that structure looks like. both processors100% and took 1:12 to load? in another topic someoe said they use all media mode buttons for there WHOLE LIBRARY of images, videos, audo. Do They\you wait minutes for those audio, images, video views to load? and then they sid hey sort via smartlists... well when ya have a hugelibrar, how can ya afford to wait  minute to sort all this stuff or even just view it?
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2008, 10:19:32 pm »

thats another thing...i dont understand how you guys dont use folder structure?

example
i have a folder i made in msic called collections, well everything that is collections is in there. billboard collectins, country hits collections, time life collections etc...

while playing with audio meia mode i can't at all see my collections when i click on collections it brings up artists? what good is that when i want to liek i use to  do.. goto playlist choose colelctions and then choose time life guitar rock 1967  it would show the whole tme life collections by year in that playlist..

how can i get rid of playlists but be able to have everything the way it is suppose to be.. hencewhy i'm so confussed on how u guys accomplish this\ "perfect library" where everything is orted.. cause everything i try from the audio media mode button, i cannot get my music in the right genres\categories to view..

i'm trying here... but just not gettng it.
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gappie

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2008, 03:02:40 am »

i have one view that is slow.. takes a long time to load. i use it for maintainance. its a view based on file paths and uses the 'ismissing()' expression for one of its panes, now that expression makes things slow, because it really has to check a lot on your disk. are you using that expression?.

now for the example you use.
use for instance keywords, make a view where you have a pane with keywords. start to tag the keywords like:
collection;guitar rock
or
collection;country

with the panes you can do this fairly quickly. now start to make views (i think that that is what you mean by media mode) based on the way you organise you library.

one other alternative is using
collection\guitar rock
collection\country

that are so called nested keywords. they show up differently, just try both before you start the real work.


or make some library fields of your own.


it really could be a good idea to post some of the rules you use for the views you use. so that someone could explain why they are so slow, or maybe there is nothing wrong with it and there is something else wrong.
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MrHaugen

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2008, 07:00:55 am »

How much music, images and video do you really have? I got up to 20 000 music tracks and about 2500 movies/episodes etc. Everything loads instant. I know, it's a fairly small collection compared to others here. But when you're talking about 1 minute load time for the media, I don't even want to guess how much media you have or how messy it all is.

Either you have an inzane amount of media, or you're libraray needs some serious work :) I've used genre and sub genre for music for several years, and I've made my own Video Type tag wich contains Series, Music Videos, Conserts, Movies etc. Looks good and makes thing fast to find. I'm a big fan of smartlists as well. I only use playlists for manual library maintanance. I'm using keywords only for images.
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2008, 09:59:11 am »

around 450,000 images

200,000 songs,

and 2000 Vids

And yes i think my library is prolly a disaster :(

i have been SOMEWHAT sorting everything in windows... not j river and i have been using only playlists, and have made playlists in same tree view as the windows folders structure:(

from gappie's reply

another thing keywords... i have about a million keywords (exagerating) from pics i ve downloaded etc that it literally takes 5- 20 minutes to try and scroll down through all the darn keywords,, cause j river has always locked up when ive tried to do it. and i just figured it was because i had to many pics due to being an amateur photographer thaty why it locked up... and ive not found away to delete all keywords and start over?!

also with these views you talk about.. same thing.. i click customize while in a media mode, audio, video, image.. and takes about a minute if not more for each change to take place??

as far as views.. all i have ever had used were playlists, i never used the audio\image\video mode buttons,(only to see in filename\location view and to double check my playlist sizes with the file size that were in there.

I made playlists identical to windows structure, and chose customize view for each parent, and all i had done in jriver was sort by filename. thats it, i never used album artist auto.. cause nothing worked...  i had everything sorted in windows by genres, artist, album, and thats how it should be viewed. so again you have a folder, music, collections, timelife ( or billboard, solid gold, blues collection etc..)  if i had sorted by artist album, or anything else the cd's would not have been together.. so  figured easiest way was by filename path..  but this has been a nightmare to keep up with, and i noticed over 15,000 some files missing, due to not having smartlist, and i noticed they were missing by going to media mode buttons and a certain folder, say pictures, graphic photos, places, cities and landmarks, night scapes.. well in media mode images, i would have 2,500 but in the playlist i made to image that  location there was only 2,100. meaning in last 5 years i have missed 400 some pictures to drag into the pictures, graphic photos, places, cities and landmarks, night scapes playlist.

thats why im so confussed after digging into my library for once.. it looks like a battle i dont know how to win
my goal.. see all files i have, without some missing, sort them properly, and then make seperate smartlists\playlists cause every genre i have i sometimes want to hear a certain genre, well that certain genre sometimes an artist spans multiple genres, ozzy could be in metal, rock, 80's, compilations, in a collection. so if i make a smartlist for Rock, then i will be missing all other genres\smartlists ozzy covers, meaning the ozzy's in collections, or compilations wouldnt sow up cause in a smartlist ya can't manually add ozzy from other folder structures...

once i think i figure out away to organize something wouldnt work so im back to the drawing board on how to get this sorted.

another thing Ive HAD TO DO... is always use thumbnail view.. i cant use panes and thumbnails... cause if i use panes and chose media mode audio, rock, well there are 40,000 some files, and there is no way to add an alphabet, so scrolling all the way down to the one ya want takes forever.

sorry for rambling but i'm trying to explain this best i can... it's a little hard to do, cause everytime i think a certain way might work, then i run into lockups\speed issues, or a smartlist\library to be perfectly sorted wouldnt work by the way i'm trying to do it.

Thanks for replies and trying to help...will def be a load off me once i figure this out.
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gappie

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2008, 03:11:38 pm »

but what use do so many keywords have. its your library. make it your library. end what you describe
Quote
once i think i figure out away to organize something wouldnt work so im back to the drawing board on how to get this sorted.
is i think true for everyone. and that is what i meant with

Quote
an other thing.. i sincerely do believe that it is impossible to find a perfect structure for your database, just something that works and you could be happy about.
living with that thought gives some piece of mind.


how about this:
start a new clean libray.
disable autoimport, writing to tags and importing tags when file info changes.
leave the old libary, that will be your main library for the next weeks.
now import a small fraction of the files into your new library, and start organizing them. but only for things you are right.
you could even make a folder and call it ready. now when you organized the files you imported, use the move files tools from mc to move them to the ready folder.
when ready import the next batch.

get the spinning out of your head. the moment you are not sure use the keyword or what ever 'not sure' or i used ?? and see what is left in the end.


well just an idea about how i would maybe do it.

but still, i asked if you used a pane with the ismissing expression or maybe even used it in a calculated library field, you know, handy for when a portable disk is not there. but it can really kill the speed.

 :)
gab
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rick.ca

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2008, 10:04:19 pm »

It seems you've missed some basics about how the program works. Gappie is right, you can organize things any way you like, but without any underlying order, nothing is going to work very well. So please put smartlists and playlists out of your mind, and consider only music for now. If you can understand the basics, you'll be able to handle other media types as well, and you'll have much better luck using smartlists and playlists.

I may not be understanding you fully, but it sounds like there is some order to how your music files are stored on disk. You said, for example, "i had everything sorted in windows by genres, artist, album, and thats how it should be viewed." So my suggestion is to start with that—to get the same information that is contained in your file structure into your library, or at least compare it to whatever equivalent information has been recorded in your library (i.e., do this with your existing library). This is what I suggest you do:

1. Right click on Audio, and select Customize View...

2. Complete the Customize View dialog to look exactly exactly like the following illustration. The key here is in adding a disk location to the Categories list. To do this, click Add... and in the View Scheme Item dialog, select Type File path. Then browse to the directory you would like to add. If your music is in more than one location, I suggest you just add one for now. You can experiment with that, then add the others later.



3. What you see now should be something similar to this:


First, play with the the Location pane at the top left. Note how it behaves exactly like the tree structure of your directories in Windows. In the bottom half of the screen, the albums and files contained in the selected directory are displayed. While I wouldn't normally care to see it, I've included Filename in the file details listed. I've done this for two reasons. First, so you can see that the Location pane is just providing you the means to navigate to any directory location. Second...

4. I want you to see how a number of the key fields in my music library are the same as that contained by the filename (path). In fact, the pathname I use for all my music files can be expressed as [fields] thus: \[Genre]\[Artist]\[Year] [Album]\[track#] [Name].mp3. I don't expect you're this organized, but I'm guessing you will see there is valuable information in your file structure when you look at it this way.

5. Now you should be in a position to create, update or correct your library information (i.e., genre, artist, year, album, track number and name) to make it the same as what is reflected in the file structure. MC provides a very powerful tool for doing this automatically: Select the files you want to update, right-click and select Library Tools\Fill Properties from Filename...

6. As you might imagine, Fill Properties from Filename won't work very well if your file naming practise is inconsistent. But it may give you a good starting point for populating those fields. Then you can use the location pane to select files for "manual" tagging. For example, let's say your Led Zeppelin albums are saved in "LedZep" or "Lead Zepellin" directories, or "Led Zeppelin" appears both before and after the album name in the directory structure (or whatever you mean by "messy"). As long as you can find them, you can select them and change the Artist tag to "Led Zeppelin."

7. Once you have competed the tagging, you will be able to rely completely on the Library to locate your music. In other words, you will locate any item by Genre - Artist - Album, rather than an actual file location. The day will come when you are happier with the library information than your file structure. MC doesn't care where the files are stored, but if you want to "clean up" your file structure, you can do so with the Rename, Move & Copy Files tool.

8. You mentioned the Keywords field. Note there are many other standard fields of various types that you may want to use instead—so you can keep track of similar attributes separately, rather than calling everything a keyword. If there isn't an appropriate standard field for something you want to record, you can create a user field. You mentioned collections. For the few collections I have, the Album is the collection name. But if you have a lot of collections, you may prefer to have a separate Collection field.

9. To avoid potential confusion, I should point out that most, if not all, library information can be saved in the individual music files as well as the library. This is done with Library Tools\Update Tags (from library). Note there is also the tool Update Library (from tags). If you have some files for which no library information has been recorded, you may want to try this first to see if the information you need is already recorded in the file tags.
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gappie

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #12 on: November 24, 2008, 11:26:32 am »

very good post rick...  8)

 :)
gab
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HTPC4ME

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Re: Smartlists, Playlist, Library... HOW?
« Reply #13 on: November 25, 2008, 09:25:36 pm »

Very In Depth Info Guys.. Ty Very Much.. Have Started Tagging And thinks Are Slowly rolling...
Appreciate The Time you've given in this issue.. It's much Appreciated!!

I will get back to you soon. and let you know how the progress is going.

 ;D
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