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[kensn]

Is there a way to have the library differentiate two of the same albums (think remastered, or in a box set) without changing the album name? I think it would be much better to keep the original album name and set up a field, like Version for example, to show if it was remastered, part of a box set or a HiRes version of the album. The thumbnail text would look a lot nicer if the Album name was the same for the Album, but a second line would have the Version such as Remastered.

I think this would work like Disc # for Multi Disc albums, something the libray knows without setting up custom expressions.

Thanks for looking,
Ken

[AndrewFG]

^^

I have a few albums like this too. Usually where I had the original 44.1KHz 16bit CD rip, and then subsequently bought a hires 88.2KHz 24bit version.

Currently I solve this by putting a suffix on the album name e.g. Love Over Gold [CD] // Love Over Gold [HD]

[6233638]

This comes up a lot. I use the Description field for it, and added a custom field to group by it.

We really need an officially sanctioned method though; the current workarounds have big limitations. Sorting gets messed up when using my Album (description) grouping, for example.

[kensn]

Yes I really like the Album name to be just the Album name. Polluting the album name with descriptors is what I do now and it is getting to be a little messy in thumbnail views.

A simple 4 0r 5 letter Album name can get overloaded with putting in "[The Studio Albums]" from HD Tracks for example. I had done the "Name - Disc 1" and "Name - Disc 2" until I found JRiver as my player. Since then I have removed these from the album name .... well because they are not part of the album name.

It seems to be a lot more common now for me to have a couple of versions of the same Album.

Ken

[mojave]

I use the Publisher tag and put the label name in that tag. I then add Publisher as a category in my View.

When I click the artist I can see all the albums by that artist, but it doesn't show the multiple versions of the same album until I click on that Album.

[mojave]

If all the duplicate albums are higher bit depth or sample rate, you can just add a Category to the View based on either bit depth or sample rate. This way you won't even have to add/change any tags.

Here I changed the Category to Bit Depth and add the following expression for the thumbnail text:
if(isequal([bit depth], 16, 1), CD, HDTracks)

Now 16 bit versions show as CD and all other versions (which are probably 24 bit) will show as HDTracks.

[kensn]

Thanks mojave,

I have done similar things in views to get the desired results I want.

My main playback device is a HTPC that I use TheaterView exclusively for and it seems to be getting increasing complex to get the desired results without having multiple views set up in there.

Again I revert back to the "Disc 1' and "Disc 2" example. There are many ways to get around not using the Disc # tag, but using it has all kinds of adavantages over workarounds.

Not all are higher res files, it seems that in my library there are an increasing number of Albums that are different versions.

Ken

[kstuart]

After going through a very long thought process (detailed in an MC18 Forum thread), I came to the conclusion that the Description field is the best way in the real world.

If I was getting metadata from online databases, I found that most users used "Comment" instead of "Description", so it was available.   And it is fully supported by MediaCenter and most other programs.

Leaving the Album field to be the actual title of the Album adds various benefits - adding " [30th Anniversary Remaster] " to the Album field causes a variety of annoying problems.

In MediaCenter, one simply needs to add Description to the Views, Panes, and so forth.

[kensn]

Thanks for thinking about it kstuart...