More > JRiver Media Center 22 for Windows
Switching from Winamp or iTunes
chromedigi:
--- Quote from: blgentry on November 16, 2015, 05:31:32 pm ---In general, you must create corresponding fields in MC's database to receive the values from the fields in the files you are importing.
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Does this mean that I define the field before I do the import? If so, how does it know which field to import each tag into? Do they have to have identical names, or is there some way to define a mapping?
--- Quote ---You may not realize that your tone seems to be challenging and/or demanding. Perhaps you don't mean it that way.
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I don't, and I'm sorry I gave you that impression. I just think that transitioning from iTunes ought to be a lossless process; iTunes is the gorilla in the room, after all.
--- Quote ---I use third party tools to rip discs and MC imports them using auto import.
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Why do you choose to do it that way? Do you have tools that have better error detection/correction capabilities? If so, what do you use?
--- Quote ---MC has a C++ API for it's Core Commands. But that's separate from the Expression Language. I don't think the Core Commands API will do what you're looking to do, which is to manipulate tags.
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I will look into this. Thanks for the pointer.
--- Quote ---The Expression Language *does* have conditionals.
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I knew my first look was too cursory. This is a very complex package, and a lot to take in all at once. And I'm just trying to preflight some of my issues before biting the bullet, because no matter what I do, it will be a long, tedious process. But it helps to have a good plan, so as to minimize redoing things.
--- Quote ---What you've described about your genre tree structure is kind of confusing (to me), and I'm guessing this is what you want the calculated fields for?
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I understand. It's hard to describe the lattice of a simple production system; much easier to draw one. But if you have familiarity with an object-oriented programming language, the idea is a lot like multiple inheritance.
When I say something like A => B, that's an implication rule meaning that if I know A, I can conclude B. So if I were to mark something as "Zeuhl," it would also come up in a search for "Prog" or "Rock." Granted, this sort of thing can be done with a preprocessor, by explicitly populating a field with all of the implied tags, but that is brittle, and makes modifying your lattice much more difficult than if these things can be calculated on the fly.
Honestly, I didn't expect that I'd be able to accomplish this, but it's been on my wish list for ages, and you never know. This system looks pretty powerful, so I thought I'd raise the question.
I also thought that these questions would be answered by an employee of the company: tech support or dev. I very much appreciate your efforts to help out.
I'm also still wondering about whether this is a truly relational DB, or if everything's stuffed into one table. I'm getting the impression that it's the latter. But it would be very cool if one could build a schema in the thing.
RoderickGI:
Brian has done a great in answering most of your questions. At a first read through, I think you will be very happy with MC.
Your requirement for a Genre Sublattice, and the many-to-many field relationships may be an issue, but that doesn't mean what you are trying to achieve can't be done in MC. Basically you are asking for a technical capability, rather than the support of an outcome. You may need to rethink the method you need to use to support the outcome.
I was pretty comfortable with all of your other requirements, but like Brian I don't know if MC will import all iTunes tags. However, I do know that the issue has been discussed extensively in the forum, and solutions are available for getting all the tags into MC. I think, depending exactly on how you have structured your tags in iTunes, and how you decide to structure MC for your collection, you may need to do a little work outside MC and iTunes to transfer the tags.
As you are a very experienced iTunes user, with very specific requirements, I suggest that you proceed by researching your specific requirements, such as iTunes tags, in the forum particularly, and also in the Wiki. Do note that a lot of the Wiki is a bit out of date, but out of date articles are often marked as such, and/or MC version numbers are associated with the article.
Particularly looks at the Expression Language, and how people have used it, MCWS (Media Center Web Service), and MCC (Media Center Core) Commands. Also View creation, particularly Pane Views, Smartlists, User Library Fields (including relational field settings). In fact, have a look through all of the Developer Zone. The MC isn't a relational database in what I consider the traditional sense, so don't expect to have a tool that shows the schema and allows the creation of additional tables and so on. But it does allow one-to-many relational fields.
Brian didn't answer this question;
"4) Can this program be used to sync the iPod Classic 160G?"
I think the answer is generally yes, but there are some caveats. Research Handheld Devices and the iPod Classic 160G in the forum and Wiki.
Once you have a bit of an idea about what MC can do, and how you would use it, then I suggest you download the 30 day trial, and test everything you can in that time. Even if you are unsure at the end, for such a large collection, and for the advantage of bringing that collection all into one database, the purchase price of MC just to complete the evaluation it isn't that high.
You are about to do a major software and collection upgrade. It is going to take time and effort. You should design how you want to use MC, probably by running a small collection in parallel to iTunes, and make all the library changes, views, expressions etc. that you want, before migrating the full collection. Design the migration once, do it right.
JRiver is a small company, and doesn't charge much for an excellent product, so they can't support a full presales process answering complex questions for everyone. They rely on the forum and experienced users to assist with such questions. Although you will see the developers answering a lot of questions on the forum, often. JRiver is very responsive that way.
Good luck, and enjoy!
PS: In case you were wondering, you posted while I was typing, and it looks like we said similar things.
mwillems:
FWIW the genre tag in MC supports both list type entries and hierarchical entries in any combination and at several levels of depth. The semi-colon is the list separator, the backslash is the hierarchical "subordinator."
So for example, you can tag something as "Rock\Prog" and MC will interpret that (by default in views) as a main genre Rock and subgenre Prog; by contrast "Rock; Prog" is two distinct top level genres. Searching either term will yield the album in either arrangement. But you can get arbitrarily complex with it, for example you could tag something straddling the line between fusion and prog as "Jazz\Fusion; Rock\Prog" and so on. Multiple levels of indenture can be specified without any limitation that I'm aware of. I have tracks and albums that have five or more genres each replete with sub-genres, etc.
You mention that populating a field is "brittle;" you can use other tags as a source for calculating [Genre] either on a one time basis or on the fly. A word of warning though: having a lookup/calculated field (every time) rather than a static value (however derived) generally causes a hit in database performance (sometimes a significant one with large collections or weak hardware), so it's generally a good idea (especially with very large collections) to try and populate the fields directly whenever feasible. That said, MC excels at large collections. I have about 60K files, but many folks here have well more than 100K and a few users have had half a million or so. For me, with 60K and very limited calculated fields it's very, very fast, but you'll see what your hardware and the size of your collection will allow.
Also not a dev, just an enthusiast.
JimH:
--- Quote from: chromedigi on November 16, 2015, 06:29:18 pm ---I just think that transitioning from iTunes ought to be a lossless process; iTunes is the gorilla in the room, after all.
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Maybe, maybe not.
chromedigi:
--- Quote from: mwillems on November 16, 2015, 06:48:34 pm ---FWIW the genre tag in MC supports both list type entries and hierarchical entries in any combination and at several levels of depth. The semi-colon is the list separator, the backslash is the hierarchical "subordinator."
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Although this doesn't provide the full generality of a lattice, it may be good enough. I'm used to having to compromise with my tools. Lord knows, iTunes itself is far from ideal, and a number of the things that power users do with it are, to be honest, kludges.
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