More > Media Center 12 (Development Ended)
Playlists (Backup discussion)
jack wallstreet:
Tunetyme,
I maintain 365 playlists (more all the time) and make changes to the playlists and the files themselves routinely. I have a 40,000 song database. As a result, I have similar concerns about my playlists. However, I do agree with most of the respondants that you are likely making this more difficult than it is and should look at changing your way of operating to better suit the strengths of MC (including backup). For what its worth (maybe not much), I'll comment on things I do.
1. I used to use musicmatch for year which had the separate playlists. There were advantages to that, but the advantages of the MC approach far outweigh the small disadvantages such as the one you mention.
2. I make sure my tags contain all relevant information (as you do).
3. I export playlists and copy my playlists relgiously to several locations. Playlists can be restored in groups by importing them (I have tested that). You do not have to recreate them if they are not in the database for some reason.
3. I copy my playlists in playlist order to an Excel spreadsheet in case a playlist gets damaged and I lose a file from it. I just look it up on the Xcel spreadsheet. Copying 365 playlists to a spreadsheet is not totally trivial but it doesn't take long and works perfectly. I also make a separate Excel file of the entire library (Haven't had to refer to that yet.)
4. I do a straight simple backup of my 40,000 files and the playlists and several copies of the library to an external drive which I store offsite. I do that about every 45 days.
5. I store everything on a RAID 1 array to have automatic backup. (doesn't backup errors).
6. I have turned off "fix broken links" as Alex suggested so if I mess up something outside of MC, it shows up.
7. The previous step doesn't stop mistakes (incorrectly deleting files) from messing up playlists when in MC so I create custom tags where I enter the names of playlists (I generally only have one and never more than two playlists per song, so that's why that works).
8 I have trouble imagining MC problems with a library restore, but even if that happens, you should have been able to do the import (as I have done) and then import the playlists from the list you created doing an export.
Hope this provides some ideas for you, as I know how important playlists can be.
tunetyme:
Thanks for your advice John. I will start working on that now. Once I get this all straightened out I can again start focusing on expanding my CD collection. I’ve invested a lot of time to try to get all the organization issues resolved before expanding my music collection. When you get to a collection your size the problems only become worse.
I did try the export process of my entire database a couple of years ago and because of some special characters in the file I couldn’t import it with Excel or Word. I posted questions about being able to export to a comma delimited flat file. No luck. So at JRiver’s request I sent my exported file to them to see if the could identify the problem. No response.
MC has done enough things “automatically” that I don’t completely trust MC. I now keep dbpower amp player and database as a means to help protect against missing files.
It seems the real solution for me is to develop a relational database to mange my files. I had hoped that I wouldn’t need to do that. I am going to check out dbpower amp’s export features. It doesn’t have all the information that I have inputted into MC but the information is in the tags. I am sure I can find a way to read them.
Well, I’ve been wanting to migrate to linux I guess now’s the time. My music has been the only hold up.
As you review all the recent development it is clearly focused on video and it appears that those of us who have some real needs for audio have become second class citizens. I am really disappointed. What is sad is that this topic doesn’t reflect all the really good qualities of MC.
keither:
All of these suggestions, of course, prohibit live backup and restore, or a fully-functional multiple PC setup.
I use Windows Live Sync to keep music updated between my laptop, my home PC, and my work PC. Since MC writes out changes to the files, this is great for me. As I make a comment on my laptop, it will automatically be distributed to my home PC and work PC where MC will import the changes. Instant sync. Sure, there are fields in the database that can't be written to mp3, so not everything gets transferred, but I do my DJing only from my laptop, so that's the only place I need the extended tagging.
I have an ultraportable laptop (Lenovo X200) - no CD drive, so I have to rip on my home PC. Those ripped files are immediately transferred over to my laptop and added to my music library. If I'm at a gig and I download something from emusic, it's immediately brought into the library without my intervention. Turning off auto-import breaks me.
Perhaps what's needed is an option to auto-import to NOT remove broken links from the library. Removing the broken links is something that is already being done as an independent part of auto-import. Wouldn't NOT doing that be pretty easy? Then, the broken links would still show up in the playlists and we'd have the opportunity to fix them. That's a pretty small feature as opposed to moving the playlists into external files.
jack wallstreet:
there is an option to not remove broken links under the auto import options. It helps a lot.
keither:
Really? Does it keep the broken links in playlists also? Sounds like it's time for an experiment! Someone who's not about to go out, try it out and report. ;) [j/k - I'll check it out soon, although if someone knows for sure, I'd love to hear it.]
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