4. This might be the toughest question as it has to do with XBMC and J. Rivers. Media Center. For some reason when I call an Album "25 Best Oldies" XBMC does not see it as one album but rather splits the album in 25 different albums all with different artists. Does anyone know why it would do that?
It's quite easy. Album Artist is where you should put the Artist collection name in in. Example: You would not do anything with a Nirvana album. Only leave it to Album Artist Auto (album artists = artist). When it comes to collection albums you should decide what this collections should be called. Take for instance "Absolute Music" collections. I would put "Absolute Music" in the Album Artist field. Thus making it ONE Album Artist and several artists. When it comes to viewing this in Theater View I would use the Context "[Artist] - [Name] ([Album])". But there lots of other ways.
If you do not use Album Artist, and only use the Artist field on 25 songs with different artists, you'll end up with 25 artists in MC and other programs. The Artist is different in each track, so it's quite logical that it's split up. If the same album from different artists would be grouped up, you would have much more problems. It would NOT be logical
Most other programs does not use Album Artist field, and they will split the collection albums in 25 different artists. It's a nightmare, that is why I stick to MC only. MC is much more powerful than any competition, when you know how to use it.