Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GreggP]

I've got a question about managing multiple libraries and synchronizing the tags in the audio files.

Here's my setup: I have a bunch of computers networked together via a gigabit LAN. The networking hardware includes a router and a couple gigabyte switches. All my media is stored in an unRaid server. I have an older PC (named musicplayer) that is dedicated to just playing music. It is connected to a multichannel DAC/amp (8 channel) with 4 stereo pairs. Each stereo pair is connected to speakers in the common areas of our home - living room, dining room, kitchen, and deck. Another PC is used as an HTPC (also named HTPC) and it is connected to another multichannel DAC/amp for surround sound. I also have a PC in my home office (named officepc). I use JRiver Media Center to play audio with all of these systems.

We use musicplayer for listening to music most of the time. So the musicplayer library is sort of the default library that I load up when listening to music from the other systems. I use smart playlists that take advantage of several tags used for recording my play history, such as 'number of plays' and 'lastplayed'. They're especially useful when playing a personalized "radio" from musicplayer, like for example mellow jazz that I haven't heard for a month.  So usually when I play music from the HTPC or the officepc, I load up the musicplayer's library so the play counts are incremented.

However, it doesn't work quite as well as I'd like. I do most of my critical listening with the HTPC because it is connected to my best sound system. I also enjoy surround tracks that I've ripped from DVD-Audio, SACD (yes, there's a way) and Blu-rays. When i use the HTPC, I typically use Theater View, because the PC is attached to a 47" HDTV. When playing from the HTPC with the musicplayer's library loaded up, the album art only appears about 25% of the time. The images are stored with the tracks in each album folder on the server (my folder structure is \ALBUMARTIST\ALBUM\). I also have problems with stuttering when I try playing 5.1 24-bit/96kHz tracks from the musicplayer's library. Now this might be a performance issue with the musicplayer since it is an older PC. When I play from the HTPC with its default local library, I don't have any problems with missing album art or stuttering. I didn't think this would be a problem since all the media is centrally stored on the unRaid server, but it does seem to make a difference where the library is located.

This problem with album art appearing only 25% of the time also exists when playing music from the officepc when the musicplayer's library is loaded. Since the officepc is only connected to a stereo system, I never play the surround tracks, so I don't know if they would stutter there, but assume they would.

I usually do most of my ripping and organizing from the officepc. When I rip, I usually edit/add a bunch of metadata that isn't automatically added from the on-line database servers. A couple that I add/edit are 'Style', 'Type', 'Country' and a couple custom tags called 'AMG Rating' and 'Year Recorded'. I recently started including 'Country' info because I thought it would be fun to created some new smart playlists like Pop/Rock music from Scotland, etc. When i rip something with the officepc, the files are stored on the unRaid server and the other databases running on the other computers will automatically import these files from the server. Ripping from the officepc only works when the local library is loaded. After checking if these files are automatically imported in the musicplayer's library, I can verify that the auto-import feature works and the unique custom tags like 'AMG Rating' and 'Year Recorded' are also correct. I assume this is because these tags are also set to record to the file. I also assumed all of the standard tags would work the same way and for 'Style' and 'Type' that is the case even though "store tags in file when possible" isn't even checked. However, after spending a considerable amount of time updating tracks (using the officepc with the default local library loaded) to include the 'Country' info, I noticed that the 'Country' tag is not automatically updated in the musicplayer's library. I've since edited the 'Country' tag so "store tag in file when possible" is checked.

Now, what's the best way to update the musicplayer's library to include the 'Country' tags I added from the officepc?

I can run "update tags from library" on the officepc to make sure the 'Country' tags are stored with the files and then the musicplayer's library will include the 'Country' info. I've also thought about checking "store tag in file when possible" for the tags 'number of plays' and 'lastplayed' so when I play music from any library, the play history will be updated (and the number of plays will accumulate). If I do this, will the musicplayer's library play history get screwed up? I assume it will change the musicplayer's play history, so I probably should not enable "store tag in file" for the play history tags on the officepc, but maybe this will work if I enable them on the musicplayer and "update tags from library" from there.

Is there a better way to synchronize play history from multiple libraries on different PCs?

How can I get the album art to appear when playing from either the HTPC or officepc with the musicplayer's library loaded?

Thanks for any advice,
Gregg

[Matt]

You might try Library Server.  It allows playing and optionally editing on a client.  It works over the Internet which might be another nice feature.

As an aside, DSF and DFF (related to DSD / SACD) support was recently added to MC 16.

[GreggP]

Actually, I think I am running Library Server on the musicplayer PC. Under 'Options->Media Network' "Share your library, playlists and views" is checked. Is this what you are referring to?

I don't have this feature checked on the other PCs. Since the storage of all my media files are on my unRaid media server and all PCs running MC use the server for the file location. I don't need to run Library Server on the other PCs to play their tracks because these tracks are already on the server and included in musicplayers library (hopefully that makes sense). However, I would like a way to synchronize of consolidate the play history - 'number of plays', 'last played', etc.

[GreggP]

BTW, I've been playing with SACD rips that originated from an Oppo SACD player and then capture the digital stream after conversion to PCM. Then I have to use a multichannel wave editor (Sound Forge) to reassemble the 6 mono WAV files from each channel into a single multichannel WAV, which I convert to FLAC. This typically gives me a multichannel 24-bit/88.2KHz file. If you run across 24-bit/96KHz conversions, they were typically done by an analog method. There's been some progress on ripping SACD to DSF/DFF, which can be played in Foobar (with a plugin), but the plugin is still a work in progress and the plugin converts the file to PCM, so there's really no advantage over my method (except the hassle).

I'm looking forward to trying MC16 and am glad to see support for playing DSF/DFF files. Doesn't MC16 also convert to PCM? It would be nice to play it as DSD, but then I have to figure out how to pass it to my DAC, which can decode DSD natively. Actually, many/most SACD players do internal DSD->PCM conversion as well.

Thanks for the info.

[MrC]

However, I would like a way to synchronize of consolidate the play history - 'number of plays', 'last played', etc.

This is why you want LS.  Run one server, have the others as clients.  Set up to synchronize changes.  On the clients, set the library to be the server's.

[GreggP]

Isn't this what I'm doing with the MC running on musicplayer with 'Media Network- Share your library...' enabled? Is there a different app specifically for a server version of MC?

The library server icon is active down in my taskbar.

In my original post, I mentioned that I was having problems playing from the library server. The album artwork doesn't appear most of the time and high resolution multichannel audio doesn't play without having to buffer a lot. So, under these circumstances (when I'd like to see the album art in Theater View or playing surround tracks) I have to play from the local default library. I'd still like the play history from these local libraries to update or increment the play history on the library server.

[MrC]

The "Use Media Network to share this library..." both enables Library Server and enables DLNA ("...and enable DLNA").

Library server is built-in; no additional app necessary.

But you mentioned you were running MC on other systems as standalone MC players, connected to their own main library.  Instead, have each client connect to the server's library.  Expand Playing Now, and then expand Playing from Main library (or use File > Library...).  On each client, connect to the server's main library.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Server

When you have your files mapped to the same drive, you can tell MC clients to play from local files (MC server will just say "play file on drive\path" instead of streaming the file over the network).

[MrC]

See also: http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Sharing_a_media_library_with_multiple_users_on_a_home_network_%28LAN%29

[GreggP]

The "Use Media Network to share this library..." both enables Library Server and enables DLNA ("...and enable DLNA").

Library server is built-in; no additional app necessary.

But you mentioned you were running MC on other systems as standalone MC players, connected to their own main library.  Instead, have each client connect to the server's library.  Expand Playing Now, and then expand Playing from Main library (or use File > Library...).  On each client, connect to the server's main library.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Server

When you have your files mapped to the same drive, you can tell MC clients to play from local files (MC server will just say "play file on drive\path" instead of streaming the file over the network).

This is what I've been doing. I'll check into "play file on drive\path" because I don't think that's set. Is this something you set at the server or clients?

BTW, I don't use drive mapping on the clients. The files are just stored on a network share '\\media\music'. However, since I setup the older musicplayer PC a long time ago, i used drive mapping because MC required it at the time. On musicplayer all my music is stored on the mapped drive F: (so F: is mapped to '\\media\music'). Will I need to change the file location on the musicplayer to '\\media\music' also? I think there's a library tool for doing this, but it will take awhile with over 45,000 tracks on a pretty slow PC.

Thanks for your help!

[MrC]

You'll set the option on the clients.

See Jmone's response here:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=64107.0

The main idea is that all your systems use the same file system path (eg. M:\<artist>\<album>\<tracks>).  This way, you can set the play files locally option on the clients.  All the MC systems will play, or be told to play (via library server), the same file path, which ultimate gets served via Windows file sharing (and thus avoids MC trying to stream the files using its own protocol).  You can use UNC paths if you want (eg. \\system\path), or a network drive mapping (eg. M:).

I see you had an unanswered thread late last year which seems to be the same idea.  I'll apologize for the Interact community that it was neglected.  Folks are pretty responsive here.  Bump when necessary, threads get lost.

If you happen to change the underlying location of files in your file system, tools in MC can update MC's database to re-point them.  See Moving Files in the wiki.

Also a good thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=63814.0