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[benn600]

How feasible is it for me to allow MC to store a complete cache of my music library in MP3 and what are the issues I may run into?  My library consists of 17,567 songs, 100% of which are FLAC.  I sync to several devices including my iPhone and a large flash drive.  The time requirement is troubling because each device has to take the entire time to sync any changes--aka, time to convert each full song times the number of devices I sync.

For a while I've been thinking about having an MP3 folder in each /Music/[Artist]/[Album]/ folder so there would be all the FLAC files but mp3s stored as well for easy access.  All this music takes 445.9GB and I will clearly not exceed that even for several copies.

Of course another issue is that I use different quality levels for different devices.  Would I want to store a low, medium, and high copy?  How would these get chosen and could MC seamlessly handle such an elaborate cache, not to mention keeping all the cached files updated with the latest tags?

Just something I've been wondering about.  Thanks.

[hit_ny]

The time requirement is troubling because each device has to take the entire time to sync any changes--aka, time to convert each full song times the number of devices I sync.

Thats the problem, the curent system is the simplest you could have with just a device or two. Need to sync a portable -- do a conversion on the fly and you're done.

I'm not sure if keeping several versions makes things any easier. Assuming diskspace is not an issue, what will you sync procedure be like ?

Ahh, device a, so select library of low and sync.
next device is high, so again select another library etc

How do you keep tags in sync between all these copies, assuming you use rating as a criteria to select music ?

The only option i found was to go mp3 and be done with it. If you use good encoding options the differences between lossy & lossless are minimal.

[MrC]

Here are some threads I've commented on re: HH and conversion cache.  I think it could use some work. So far, no progress from the date of these threads that I'm aware of:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=53219.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=53171.0

I've posted questions on other threads, perhaps in the MC13 boards.

[MrC]

...Need to sync a portable -- do a conversion on the fly and you're done.

I find it takes too long to do this.  For us with very large libraries, we really want the cache to be maintained *outside* of the handheld control, so that we can create the cache when we rip, or later, and then simply copy some/all mp3s as desired.

I need to give my wife a disk full of our mp3s.  She then syncs using her own method (itunes).

[hit_ny]

How do you keep tags in sync between the cache & the main library ?

[Alex B]

MC offers the stacks option for creating a hidden cache of the converted files. However, I have not personally found it to be an all-round solution. For instance, I don't think MP3 CD-burning uses the stacked MP3 files when the lossless "top files" are added to the burn queue. (-- this may have changed. I have not tested the feature recently.) It is also difficult to create a playlist of the lossless files in the main library and get some other program (like iTunes) to sync the stacked MP3 versions of the playlist files.

My straightforward solution is to sync a hard drive folder (as a virtual handheld) without using the stacks feature. I use that location as a repository for the converted MP3 files.

For syncing portables, flash memory devices, etc and burning MP3 CDs I use a different version of MC or MJ12. Currently I have my main library in MC14 and I import only the converted MP3 files to MC13 (which doesn't have the same location configured as a handheld).

Regarding the quality settings, I think it would be fine to use just one setting. For instance The "High Quality Portable" VBR setting (aka -V5) is already quite good for casual listening. The rare artifacts the setting produces are quite difficult to detect. The "Normal" VBR option (aka -V4) would give a bit more quality headroom and be suitable also for listening on big home hi-fi and best car systems. To get similar quality with a CBR setting you would probably need to use at least the 192 kbps setting (which would produce bigger files). I think a higher quality setting than VBR Medium would be overkill for a multipurpose MP3 cache.

[hit_ny]

My straightforward solution is to sync a hard drive folder (as a virtual handheld) without using the stacks feature. I use that location as a repository for the converted MP3 files.

Not sure how this keeps the diff files tags in sync  ?

And yes stacks works best for images, don't think its quite ready for audio files yet.

[Alex B]

Not sure how this keeps the diff files tags in sync  ?

It doesn't  My reply was intended to answer the questions in the first post.

You can set it to resync always when the file date has changed. but then the complete file will be re-encoded.

In order to avoid resyncing I take care that my lossless files are properly tagged. I rarely change the tags after the lossless files are in my main library.

Naturally your mileage may differ if you constantly change ratings or other tags that contain changing information.

Personally I don't use ratings with my converted MP3 files. So far I have converted only a selection of my lossless files and they are all my favorites.

EDIT

I just tested the stacks feature again and to my surprise when I tagged the lossless top files the tag changes were not applied to the stacked MP3 files. Wasn't tag syncing supposed to be one of the advantages of the stacks? I was only able to change the physical file tags in the stacked MP3 files by expanding the stacks, selecting the MP3 files, and doing "Update Tags (from library)".

[hit_ny]

It doesn't   My reply was intended to answer the questions in the first post.

Naturally your mileage may differ if you constantly change ratings or other tags that contain changing information.

Going from his other posts my guess is tags being in sync between copies is a key requirement for the system to work.

He wants to keep 2 copies, one lossless and the other for portables. Any tag changes made on the lossless automatically get applied to the lossy. Then at sync time, pick a smartlist and then only the lossy tracks get sync'd.

Then on the next resync, sync back any play stats from the portable (if possible) to MC, clear out the portable's earlier tracks and finally sync over the new tracks.

I thought MC could do this easily but seems it might not be that simple.

Wasn't tag syncing supposed to be one of the advantages of the stacks?

good question.

[Alex B]

For starters it would be great if MC would just sync the tags in the stacked MP3 (or wma, ogg, etc) files so that the changes in the MC library would be tagged to the files.

MC already applies the changes to the library data (the fields show the changed values when the stacks are expanded). I guess someone just forgot to add a switch that would also run the tag writer when the changes are applied.

A two-way system that would return all external changes in a way or another and also tag the lossless source files would probably be quite complex and error-prone.

[hit_ny]

Yeah, two way is not practical. There has to be some master-subordinate relationship between the lossless (master) copy & the lossy copies.

Thing is i dont think there is any such concept in MC to date.