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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 27 for Windows => Topic started by: High-End on July 19, 2020, 02:47:09 am

Title: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: High-End on July 19, 2020, 02:47:09 am
Since 9 years I regularly buy a new version. Since the fewest new features are relevant to me, I'm more interested in supporting the product. The last useful feature "for me" was the direct processing of DSD files.

Since I only used my HTPC to listen to music and have an extensive local collection of music, I don't need any kind of streaming services, TV and so on. Just playing local music.

My requests for MC27 are the same as the last 6 years:

* genre specific tags for the remote
Today, when I start playing (any genre) a song the remote (EOS/ Gizmo, what ever) is showing
1st row: song name
2nd row: interpred and album name

what I would like to see in genre classical
1st row: song name
2nd row: composer
3rd. row: orchestra / soloists / conduktor / Chorus
the Tag and there order should be configurable.

As I understand MC it provides the remote (EOS/ Gizmo, what ever) the data to display. So the remote shows what is delivered. Therefore a kind of "debt to be brought forward".

* Offline DB for the remote
sometimes I am surfing the net and some possible new music came across.
because my music server was not up and running ( or not available, offline, what ever) to check if I did not already have the CD I had to let pass the opportunity ( had to park the cd's in the shopping cart, what ever).
That is the reason why I am asking to implement the possibilities for a offline DB on the remote.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: RoderickGI on July 19, 2020, 08:23:06 pm
I like both of these. They could be implemented in the "Customise Views for JRemote, Gizmo, & Panel" dialogue. I might even use the first one in Panel more that JRemote2.

* genre specific tags for the remote

Rules based would be good, so if [Genre]=Classical, display these field under thumbnails. If [Genre]=Jazz, display these other fields. The remotes could just pull down all relevant fields, so the functionality is just changing what is displayed. That will add to data usage though, and slow screen updates. Hopefully not by much.


* Offline DB for the remote

I would use this when out and about shopping. (If I'm ever allowed to go outside shopping again.) Not so much for music, but for Blu-rays for sure. Just like the Client-Server model, copy the Library down to the phone, perhaps on request rather than every time JRemote2 is opened, and allow the user to switch to the local copy. I would be happy if I had to remember to switch to the local Library to force a download before I left home.


So plus one for you High-End.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: joshhuggins on July 21, 2020, 12:25:09 am
I like both of these. They could be implemented in the "Customise Views for JRemote, Gizmo, & Panel" dialogue. I might even use the first one in Panel more that JRemote2.

Rules based would be good, so if [Genre]=Classical, display these field under thumbnails. If [Genre]=Jazz, display these other fields. The remotes could just pull down all relevant fields, so the functionality is just changing what is displayed. That will add to data usage though, and slow screen updates. Hopefully not by much.


I would use this when out and about shopping. (If I'm ever allowed to go outside shopping again.) Not so much for music, but for Blu-rays for sure. Just like the Client-Server model, copy the Library down to the phone, perhaps on request rather than every time JRemote2 is opened, and allow the user to switch to the local copy. I would be happy if I had to remember to switch to the local Library to force a download before I left home.


So plus one for you High-End.
Agreed, I really like both of these.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: tlenthe on July 21, 2020, 01:56:55 pm
This may not be compatible with industry standards, but I have found the following tags to work well for classical:

Composer, Conductor, Ensemble, Performer (where Performer can have multiple values)
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: jmschnur on July 21, 2020, 05:27:26 pm
All these are great ideas. I would also like to see Tidal and| or Qobuz supported easily.
BTW I have a 2018 IPad Pro. I really would like the IOS remote updated.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: Awesome Donkey on July 22, 2020, 03:40:56 am
I would also like to see Tidal and| or Qobuz supported easily.

In my opinion, I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. There was a recent topic about this and it was explained why Tidal/Qobuz is unlikely to happen.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: JohnWalker on July 22, 2020, 07:47:28 am
This is why I gave up using Roon and never relied on iTunes.  My solution  works across platforms, and allows me to use software tools (where necessary) to help, but it entails doing much of the management yourself when you add files to the library.  My audio collection is divided into 9 main directories one for each genre, eg 'Blues', Classical', 'HardToClassify', 'Jazz', 'Rock+Pop' etc. For most genres, I have a folder to represent each artist - eg 'Rock+Pop/Beatles', 'Jazz/Davis, Miles'. However, the classical directory is organised by composer - so 'Beethoven, Ludwig van' etc. Each album gets its own sub-sub directory, and I've found it useful to prefix each album name with the year of release.

Once you have done this, in mediacenter, use the 'Files' entry to walk through your collection. It's then very easy to move the column headers around to suit. I've attached a screenshot, which I hope helps.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: Sjettepet on July 23, 2020, 03:41:18 am
JohnWalker I do this in a similar way but I wonder how you let your folder structure reflect albums by composer.
I find that many classical CD's contain compositions by various composers.
I have one folder per CD, and MediaCenter divides them into 'albums' (actually: compositions) by composer, through tagging.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: JohnWalker on July 23, 2020, 04:57:52 am
Sjettepet, good point. One has to use judgment, and I'd advocate staying with whatever works for you. In your specific case, I sometimes use a "various' composers'" folder, other times put such an album with other works by the composer of the primary work.

I've chosen not to divide into individual folders per disc in the way you describe, because that seems to me to be an artificial division that does not reflect the underlying structure of an album. I'm thinking of big works like Mahler symphonies. In the end, my method works for me, but I do all the work, rather than letting the playback/browser software do it for me. Adding the year of release to the folder name points me towards the most recent works, which are more likely to be in higher resolution formats. All of the information I need ends up encoded into the (long) pathnames.

This has a further benefit - it facilitates backing up the collection. How many of us do that, and know that their collection would survive a data loss? My grown-up daughters don't bother with any of this, because all their music is in the (Spotify) cloud. They still manage and save their playlists though.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: bdmacl on July 29, 2020, 09:14:37 am
I would love a quick and easy read of the enhancements to upgrading to MC27, without having to search through multiple forum threads.
Title: Re: Classical Music and Remotes
Post by: Frobozz on July 30, 2020, 09:23:24 am
I like the idea for an offline cache of the library in one of the mobile apps.
That would allow me to browse what I have in my collection when I'm away from home. Like at a record store.

What I've been doing is exporting tags to a CSV file. Then importing that CSV into Google Sheets. I can access Google Sheets offline on my phone. So I'm able to see what I've got in my collection when I'm at a record store. But it's a manual process. And a hassle to do. So it only gets updated about once a year.