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[stricko]

Hi guys, I'm a frustrated VistaMC user looking for an alternative front end for my Media Center PC.  I've got a question about the way J.river handles music files in Theater view. Can you view files based on the artist tag AND the Album Artist tag.

This all goes back to XP MCE where the Artist view includes all entries from both Artist and Album Artist fields, which was great as it exploded the contents of Various Artist compilations, soundtracks, and tags with multiple values. Only problem was that there was no way to switch it off so that you only had a view at Album artist level.

There was hope that with Vista MC, additionl functionality would be added to show both views, and at first glance, this has been done. BUT, both the Artist and Album Artist views only show the Album Artist tag.... And it hasn't been fixed / improved under Windows 7.

So, I'm looking for an alternative.............

[imugli]

Welcome to the forum 

One of the best features of MC is that it lets you customise / add / remove view schemes in Theater View to suit your needs / wants.

The default Theater View scheme for Audio is Artist, using Album Artist (Auto) to sort initially, then Album, drillng down to tracks.

Compilations, if ripped correctly, will show in the (Multiple Artists) section.

Download the demo and have a play around - you won't go back. 

[stricko]

Thanks for getting back to me. Based on what you say, I'll have a play with the demo.  I like the idea of the flexibility. If relatively small products like MC can handle stuff like this, why can't MS......

[imugli]

Let us know how you go.

[zirum]

Thanks for getting back to me. Based on what you say, I'll have a play with the demo.  I like the idea of the flexibility. If relatively small products like MC can handle stuff like this, why can't MS......

Well, MS released XP in 2001, and then we got Vista more than five years after. I leave it there...

[stricko]

HI guys, I've had a look at both v12 and v13, and i'm very impressed. I've messed around with some of the views in Theater View, and it looks very good, very flexible. I havn't even thought of what could be done with skins....

The one area that is letting MC down at the moment is my DVD library. I use My Movies on MCE at the moment, and the family loves seeing the front and back covers, synopsis etc. The Theater View display for DVDs is much more limited, although I've imported much of the data from My Movies into various tags. I've read a whole bunch of threads with people wanting a similar thing. Like others, I've a mixture of AVI files, VIDEO_TS folders, and pointer database entirs that ask for a disk to be loaded.

I've got one specific issues that I've started a new thread on, but I'll keep playing.

[JimH]

The one area that is letting MC down at the moment is my DVD library. I use My Movies on MCE at the moment, and the family loves seeing the front and back covers, synopsis etc. The Theater View display for DVDs is much more limited, although I've imported much of the data from My Movies into various tags. I've read a whole bunch of threads with people wanting a similar thing. Like others, I've a mixture of AVI files, VIDEO_TS folders, and pointer database entirs that ask for a disk to be loaded.

We expect to work on this in the next few months.

[imugli]

We expect to work on this in the next few months.

WOOHOO!!!

[stricko]

Sounds like I'm not the only one pleased with this news