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[Ahriakin]

Greetings and apologies if the title doesn't seem to make sense, I couldn't find a better way to phrase it in a small title bar. Also apologies if something like this already exists and I'm just too stupid to find it  .

Basically I'd like to see a process akin to file linking but where you can specify a replacement file to play instead of the one chosen. My main reason would be for if/when you have multiple fidelity-levels of basically the same song but do not want to delete the duplicates while at the same time only playing the highest quality version when any are selected. E.g. You have a nice new high res FLAC but removing the MP3 duplicates would place gaps in their parent Albums (like compilations).


Maybe that's just between my OCD and me .

[JimH]

Welcome to the forum.  Stacks might work for you.

[ferday]

The easiest way is to sort your views by file type.  Stacks are complex and I've never got them to work better than another way

I've categorized mine by bitrate (if MP3), CD or HD (if FLAC) and then sort by that...

[kstuart]

There is some discussion of methods of dealing with different versions of the same album, in the following thread:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=78390.0

When using the setup I describe in that thread, I then define a Keyword called "Superseded".

When I have compared different releases of an album, and determine that one is best, I tick the "Superseded" Keyword for all the others.

Then, in my Views, in "Rules for Display", I have "Keyword is not Superseded".

( NOTE that when using this in a general sense - beyond your example of MP3 vs FLAC - my experience is that the best sounding version is NOT always the most high resolution version, and is usually not the most recent release.   This is because analog master tapes deteriorate over time and lose magnetism.  That loss is greater than the improvements in mastering technology.  So my overall findings - which vary depending on the release:

* Blue Note label releases are best on the 24/192 HD-Tracks release.
* Other pre-1980 recordings are usually best on the earliest CD pressing (contrary to the hype that all the early ones were done wrong and they had to be re-done).
* CDs of "original master tapes" are often worse than CDs mastered from studio copies, because the original master tapes were often subsequently played over and over to generate new releases of popular albums.  The wear is often worse than the single generation. (a good example is Close to the Edge.)
* CDs that were released at the time of the album release are invariably better than later versions (a good example is REM).
* And all the above can be totally different from some particular album, no rule applies absolutely.

[Ahriakin]

Many thanks for taking the time to reply folks. I had originally planned on using keyword tagging and views but the problem there, and with Stacks, is that it removes the lesser versions from those views whereas I still want them shown so that they do not break existing Album structures. My aim here is not just to find the preferred version but to have it play automatically if the lesser version happens to be chosen instead, say if it is included in the 'Playing Now' from an Album selection, allowing for the fact that the preferred version may well have a different Album name so can't just supersede it in a view.
I could see it working partially with Tags if JRiver had a custom field for this where the alternate fully qualified path could be entered and read as std. when playing and the intended action applied. It'd be more efficient to do via the DB I imagine but I'm not a coder.