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[Snarglefarg]

I use MC16 and have my music stored as VBR MP3's. I'd like to sync my library to a 32GB SDHC card for use in my car (2010 VW Jetta Sportwagen with RNS-510). The problem I'm facing are:

• I need to downsample all my music to 128kbps CBR MP3's, to fit on the SDHC card and also because my car's player doesn't show a progress bar with VBR, only CBR and I want the progress bar
• I want to manage the folder structure differently on my PC than on the SDHC card. On the PC the folder structure is based on music source (CD's, online purchases, my wife's music, my music, etc.) whereas in the car it's based music type (artists, soundtracks, comedy, kids music, etc.) (
• I want to name the tracks differently on the SDHC card than they are on the PC. On the PC track names are [Track #] - [Artist] - [Name], whereas on the SDHC card, I want [Name]. This is because while the tags are displayed while playing songs, the browsing method in the car shows filenames/folders and not tags when browsing the collection. Showing only the song title is ideal because it's easier to read in the limited space provided per line on the car's display.

Currently, I exported all my music to CBR MP3 128kbps to a separate folder on my hard drive and then manually moved the tracks into a usable folder structure and then copied to the SDHC card for use in my car. I didn't rename files yet simply because I know I need to find a better way. Also, as I buy new music I would have to manually keep track of which songs I exported and which are pending, since the folder structure is totally different and I really can't do a "sync".

A few things to note:

The car can't play or identify playlists. I must use MP3's or WMV's only. I've thought about creating additional database fields to store info about the file structure and I'm open to that but couldn't figure a way to get that working with "Devices & Drives" in MC16. The car has the ability to connect an iPod and I believe the iPod creates and makes available music based on artist names, album names, etc. I'm not sure if an SDHC card could be made to spoof an iPod or if MC16 can treat an SDHC card as though it was an iPod. I'm also not sure that would provide me with everything I'm looking to do.

I would imagine I'm not alone in looking for a solution to this problem. Any help would be appreciated.

[glynor]

You can do a sync.  Set the SDHC card up as a handheld in MC.  It'll do everything you want.  Plug in the card, go to Options -> Handhelds and add it as a new device.

I can help you with details tomorrow.

[Alex B]

As glynor said, create a handheld instance. However, don't create it directly on the SDHC card. Create it on a hard drive instead. The handheld system does not support changing the filename (you can only use a folder rule). When the converted files are on the hard drive in a separate repository you can rename them during the final copy process.

In addition a hard drive location is not limited to the size of your flash memory card(s). If/when preferred you can have more than 32 GB of files and copy only a selection to the memory card. For instance, if 128 kbps CBR appears to not be good enough, you can use 160 kbps and copy only the current favorites to the card(s). When you have a synced repository of converted files on a hard drive location you can easily copy some of them to any current or future device (phone, netbook, MP3 data CD, etc).

For syncing the actual card I'd recommend installing and using the latest MC15 build (it will work with the MC16 license) ... *. You can set it to automatically import only the files that are in the "virtual" MC16 handheld. In MC15 you can use all library features independently from the MC16 library and handheld system. Since you will need to rename the files you can't create another handheld in MC15 for syncing the memory card, but the Rename, Move, & Copy Files tool should be adequate for the task (it can rename the copied files). Don't consider renaming the files that are in MC16's virtual handheld, because that would break its handheld sync. Also, you must disable the handheld cache (aka stacking) in MC16 to avoid duplicate file copies. More info:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=64663.msg433155;topicseen#msg433155
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=63899.msg432953;topicseen#msg432953
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=58805.msg397736;topicseen#msg397736


Glynor, please fill in what I missed. I am going to spend a few days at our summer cottage and I may not be "available" -- though I have a new 3G/HSPA+ mobile broadband dongle for my laptop (a Huawei E367 USB stick), and it might work there...


EDIT

Attached a screenshot of my handheld settings.

Log in to the forum if you can't see the attachment.

EDIT 2

* ... alternatively, an additional, portable install of MC16 should work as well. Select the custom mode in the MC16 installer to access this option.

[glynor]

Thanks for the help, Alex.  I'll try to help him get going if this doesn't do it.  You're right, I forgot that it doesn't have file-naming rules, only folder naming ones.

That said... It depends on his needs which way would be best.  If it was me... I'd probably strive to use the SDHC card directly as a handheld, rather than using the hard drive folder then manually copy via another mechanism method.  Simply because of this exact thing:

In addition a hard drive location is not limited to the size of your flash memory card(s). If/when preferred you can have more than 32 GB of files and copy only a selection to the memory card.

The benefit of using the card directly is actually this very thing as well.  If you add the card directly as a handheld device, then MC will "know" how much space you have to work with.  Instead of "pre-creating" all of the files you need, and then manually copying them all over to the card, you can set it all up as part of the sync.  MC will automatically convert new files as needed each time you sync to the card.

If everything fits after conversion, you can just select all of your music media in the Handheld Sync dialog, and it'll always sync everything over.  Conversions can be handled via the conversion cache, and the only thing you'd need to do to "update" the card is plug it in, open MC, and hit "sync" and all your new stuff will go right over there automatically.  And, if you run out of space on the card, you'll get warnings from MC, and then you can deal with it.

If everything WON'T fit after conversion (I'd never even get close, even with a 32GB card and 128k CBR files), then you can use the powerful Smartlist features of MC to make a randomly changing "set" of songs to sync over to the card each time you sync it.  You won't have everything, but you can be pretty clever.

Alternatively, especially if managing the file names themselves is very important to you, it might be better to use Alex's suggested method.  This would let you use the handheld sync to a folder like a "cache" of pre-converted files, which you can then go in and move over to the card yourself however you'd like.  I'd probably rather give up on the file name thing and use what MC does itself (while simultaneously begging the powers that be for the ability to set a filename rule in the Handheld Sync options, like you can folder rules).  It would be much easier to do it this way over the long term.

[Snarglefarg]

One issue I just thought of when looking at the screenshot was how to deal with albums with multiple artists vs. those with one. For instance, I'd like the car folder structure to look like this:

Root
  - Artist
     - Billy Joel
     - Elton John
     - Howard Jones
  - Kids
     - Glenn Miller
     - Sesame Street
  - Soundtrack
     - Cars
     - Tangled
     - Toy Story
     - The Sound of Music

If I name folders as you suggest, the artists will work out right but for Soundtracks where each song may have its own artist, I need for the albums to stay together. I'm thinking I may need to manually define what I want in a database field and then use that when creating the path. Do you think I'll need to do that or is there a better way? (and yes, my kids listen to Glenn Miller!)

[glynor]

MC can handle multi-artist albums well if you use the [Album Artist (auto)] field instead of the [Artist] field.  I don't use this personally, so I can't really comment, but many people here do so you can get help if you need it.

Basically, just substitute [Album Artist (auto)] for [Artist] when you're setting up the sync, and I bet it'll work like you want.  It basically puts single-artist albums in a folder named for that [Artist] and multi-artist albums in a "Various Artists" folder.

PS.  That's exactly how Alex has is set up in that screenshot.  I was pretty sure that he was an "Album Artist" user.  I'm weird.  I prefer them separated.  For me, multi-artist albums are just a mechanism to get me the tracks.  I rarely if-ever care to go and listen to a full soundtrack by multiple artists (and since I don't have to use folder-based structures to browse my music anyway, it doesn't matter, because I can still get to the full album if I want to easily).

[Snarglefarg]

I don't seem able to get the exact folder structure I want. For instance, in the Artist folder, I want a folder with the artist name and in there, that artist's albums. That makes 3 folder levels. But for the Soundtrack folder, I simply want a folder for each soundtrack. That would make 2 folder levels.

It seems that would need to create and assign a custom tag, such as "Root Folder" to each track, so I can define which folder off of the root I want each song/album placed. That would seem to get my music into the correct folder, but from there, I'm not sure how to proceed. Can a library field have conditional if/then so that I can add [Artist] to the destination path if the folder off the root is "Artist"?

[Snarglefarg]

I figured out how to do this by using a second library field and calculated data. I've never gone into that area before. Powerful stuff.

[patricklang]

Thanks for the info!  I'm setting up a similar structure right now.  However, there's one problem I haven't figured out yet.

On my receiver (JVC KW-HDR720), it only has the ability to display tags.  After I pick a folder such as "Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther", it plays the tracks in a seemingly random order. 

The manual is poorly written, but I think it's trying to explain that files are played in order if the filenames start with numbers.

I can use Library Tools > Rename to rename the files in my library to the format track number - song name, but I don't want to rename all of my original files.  Is there any way I can rename files as they're sync'd to a portable device?  It seems like a feature that would make sense in the current settings since folder & file formats can already be adjusted at sync time.

[patricklang]

Update - I just confirmed that adding the track number before the name works.

Here's what I have now for Audio Path:
[Album Artist (auto)] - [Album]\

If this was possible, I think it would fix my problems with the JVC:
[Album Artist (auto)] - [Album]\[Track Number] - [Name]

[MrC]

Try this, if you have Track #'s correctly assigned to your tags, and you're using a virtual handheld device (eg. a folder).

Perform the sync to get the converted versions into the device folder.

Perform a Rename operation using the device files located under Drives & Devices.  Use [Track #] [Name] as the file name rule, leaving the other sections unchecked.