More > JRiver Media Center 18 for Windows
Organizing My Media
DanoRoo:
I really want to buy and use this software, because it plays music in it's native resolution and it looks nice. But, I'll be darn if I can see how the organizational techniques used in Media Center "organize" anything.
I have a vast music collection on my hard drives and I can play anything requested within seconds. It's well organized. I imported all my music into Media Center and it took me 15 minutes just to locate a Beethoven file. In fact, there were no references to Beethoven at all, only references to the orchestra or conductor.
It (Media Center) found a JayZ reference (JayZ doing something on a Linkin Park album) in my Linkin Park folder, and made a completely separate album art icon for this one file. This happens over and over . I have artist references and album art to artists I don't even know (who is Wendy Carlos).
On the other hand, Media Center organized my Led Zeppelin collection perfectly. It created a Led Zeppelin album art icon, and when I click on that icon all of my Zeppelin stuff is there. Isn't there some way to point Media Center to my hard drive and tell it to reference my collection exactly as I have it organized there? I would be happy just to navigate through my collection from Windows, using Media Center to play them, but I want to set up a media server in my listening room that I can navigate via remote control on my big screen.
Can someone here give me some ideas on how to proceed?
tcman41:
Not sure what you mean by references and album art icons, there are a million different ways to organize your media in JRiver.
My method is pretty common:
Artist folder > Album Folder > songs labeled artist-track name-track#, I embed all cover art inside of the song file via something like mp3tag.
I then use a common view in JRiver called panes with album thumbnails underneath.
Also you can use the little search bar in the upper right corner of MC18 to find files instantly.
also maybe look at the help section in MC18 or go to the wiki page for more info.
The view and organization you want to setup is only going to be as good as your tags, pay attention to things like the differences between artist tags and album artist tags, etc.
hope something helps
my screenies:
kstuart:
--- Quote from: DanoRoo on February 14, 2013, 09:23:14 am ---I really want to buy and use this software, because it plays music in it's native resolution and it looks nice. But, I'll be darn if I can see how the organizational techniques used in Media Center "organize" anything.
I have a vast music collection on my hard drives and I can play anything requested within seconds. It's well organized. I imported all my music into Media Center and it took me 15 minutes just to locate a Beethoven file. In fact, there were no references to Beethoven at all, only references to the orchestra or conductor.
--- End quote ---
Since you did not mention how exactly you previously could play anything requested within seconds, and you mentioned that it is well organized, I am going to guess that you mean you have your music organized by folder and filename.
Over the past 10 years, digital music has been moving towards organizing by data stored in the files called Tags.
This is all due to iPods, and the desire to play individual tracks entirely separately from their album of release. So, each file has to have its information internally, not determined by which folder it is found.
Note that CDs are 75 minutes, because the President of Sony ordered that it be big enough to contain Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
I'm pretty sure that the iPod plays individual tracks, because Steve Jobs was from a demographic group of people who wanted to hear "hits" (the one good pop song from an otherwise mediocre album).
Since nowadays less than 5% of the public plays classical music, that trend has continued.
Media Center has views oriented towards the 95%, which is why Led Zeppelin is easily found, and Beethoven is not.
Go to Search above, click Advanced, click "... in Titles" and search for Classical Music to get some ideas on how to add Views for Classical Music.
PS And I would be willing to bet that if you go back in your time machine and prevent Wendy Carlos from being born, then when you return to 2013, you would find that in the new alternate universe you had created, the President of Sony was not interested in Classical Music in the late 70's...
glynor:
--- Quote from: kstuart on February 14, 2013, 11:27:48 am ---This is all due to iPods, and the desire to play individual tracks entirely separately from their album of release. So, each file has to have its information internally, not determined by which folder it is found.
--- End quote ---
Just a minor quibble: I've been using tagging based workflows since well before the iPod was a twinkle in Mr. Jobs's eye.
That certainly popularized it, and iTunes was probably the first time most people encountered a metadata management system, but it was common well before that, even for digital music.
glynor:
Examples of other "tagging" and "tag-based" systems (most of which MC uses):
EXIF
XMP
TIFF
XML
HTML
The main benefits that tagging provides over filesystem-based metadata management are:
1. Tags are contextual. You can tell without knowing about the "folder structure" ahead of time that "The Beatles" is an Artist, and "The Dark Side of the Moon" is an Album title, because the tag contains the context. This also allows for far more flexible searching (as you can search for specific results, like [Artist]=="Pink Floyd" but [Album]!="The Final Cut", because that album stinks.)
2. Tags are far more flexible. A single file can be in multiple "folders" simultaneously without creating filesystem duplicates (and complex structures with symlinks and whatnot). So, for example, you can apply multiple Genres to a single track or album. Or multiple keywords to a photo, and that item will show up in both "folders".
3. Tags allow for content aggregation. It doesn't matter which physical disk my content is located on, or even if it is "local". They all show in the same database, and are all searchable.
If you ALREADY have a structured filesystem-based metadata system (folder and filename structures), this is VERY simple to import into MC. It probably parsed some things already, but you can import all of this metadata via the Fill Properties from Filename tool (right click on some files in MC, select Library Tools > Fill Properties from Filename).
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