Topic: Radio mode (Read 7666 times)

jengajumanji · « **on:** May 28, 2008, 05:19:40 pm »

Quote from: eba on May 28, 2008, 04:24:43 pm

#2) not sure why it should select certain artists multiple times, but anyway you state you want to be able to see what's coming up and rearrange them, so how about just selecting everything you want included, then right click, More -> Play (shuffled)? (also try the smartlists)

#3) you may want to take at look at these threads:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39883.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=44532.0

When you choose radio mode it says something like "radio mode chooses a portion of your library" so it looks like it plays 5 songs in a row from a genre and then change genre or something, just a guess, but the amount of times an artist repeats in a short period of time is discouraging. Thanks for the shuffle recommendations, I'll try a smartlist. The toolbar links were a great help too, thanks. Anyone have any advice on dealing with TV series in video?

Matt · « **Reply #1 on:** May 28, 2008, 07:33:48 pm »

Quote from: jengajumanji on May 28, 2008, 05:19:40 pm

When you choose radio mode it says something like "radio mode chooses a portion of your library" so it looks like it plays 5 songs in a row from a genre and then change genre or something, just a guess, but the amount of times an artist repeats in a short period of time is discouraging. Thanks for the shuffle recommendations, I'll try a smartlist. The toolbar links were a great help too, thanks. Anyone have any advice on dealing with TV series in video?

The radio algorithm is actually pretty elaborate.

Make sure you have a newish build of the player, because it should be rare to have songs from the same artist played too closely together.

Also, remember that it learns as you skip tracks you don't like. That feedback loop should make the mix improve as playback goes on.

matt-uk · « **Reply #2 on:** May 29, 2008, 10:19:28 am »

Quote from: Matt on May 28, 2008, 07:33:48 pm

The radio algorithm is actually pretty elaborate.

Make sure you have a newish build of the player, because it should be rare to have songs from the same artist played too closely together.

Also, remember that it learns as you skip tracks you don't like. That feedback loop should make the mix improve as playback goes on.

I find it seems to get stuck in little patterns where it'll just play tracks from about the same 4-5 albums with the very occasional track from elsewhere.

sirrahmit · « **Reply #3 on:** June 02, 2008, 04:17:24 pm »

Quote from: matt-uk on May 29, 2008, 10:19:28 am

I find it seems to get stuck in little patterns where it'll just play tracks from about the same 4-5 albums with the very occasional track from elsewhere.

I agree with this. After reading this post, I learned about the Play Radio feature and thought I'd give it a try.
I did not select the option to base it's seed on the currently selected files.
I have 394 artists in my MC Library and in the span of one day at work, I heard both Dave Matthews and Foo Fighters at least ten times each.

Not sure if it matters, but it seems to keep picking songs from a location of songs I just added that I have not yet done my usual maintenance to.
They have never been played, do not have a rating, and are in a different root file location than my files that have already had their tags maintained. Could that have something to do with MC making its selection? I would say the Play Radio mode selected 90% of the songs I heard today from this new location (which only has a handful of artists).

I love the Play Radio concept but it seems like it might need some tweeking or maybe I just need to keep using it more to let it learn...

Listening to: 'Broken' from 'Wonderful Virus' by 'Green Apple Quick Step' on Media Center 12

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** June 02, 2008, 04:27:59 pm »

Quote from: sirrahmit on June 02, 2008, 04:17:24 pm

I have 394 artists in my MC Library and in the span of one day at work, I heard both Dave Matthews and Foo Fighters at least ten times each.

That's probably because they are either highly rated or you listen to them a lot.

Radio also learns from what you skip. So if you don't like something, skip to the next track. If you do that before the mid-point in a song, it counts as a skip.

sirrahmit · « **Reply #5 on:** June 02, 2008, 05:22:18 pm »

Quote from: JimH on June 02, 2008, 04:27:59 pm

That's probably because they are either highly rated or you listen to them a lot.

Radio also learns from what you skip. So if you don't like something, skip to the next track. If you do that before the mid-point in a song, it counts as a skip.

Sorry. My previous post was a little unlcear.

The Foo Fighters and Dave Matthews tracks that the Play Radio feature selected so much of had never been played or rated.
I have a folder called Temp Music that holds my music files that need their tags updated (missing date, missing cover art, no rating, things like that). The Foo Fighters and Dave Matthews are two of 33 other artists that I currently have in this location awaiting tag maintenance.

Throughout the day, the Play Radio mode selected way more songs from this location than songs from other locations in my MC Library.
To give you an idea, in the last 40+ minutes, 5 out of 11 songs have come from this Temp Music location but this location only represents .02% (not 2%) of my entire collection.

Anyway, cool feature! I'll keep using it and let it do some learnin'...

This is interesting. As I copied my "Listening to:" info into the post, I realized most of the files in this Temp Music folder are missing the album tag.
Listening to: 'Aurora' from 'Unknown' by 'Foo Fighters' on Media Center 12
Maybe I'm getting a lot of songs from this location because almost all of the files will have the same album tag of "Unknown"?
Just a thought...

rogueblue · « **Reply #6 on:** June 10, 2008, 12:07:54 pm »

I'm also experiencing the same problem.
Radio isn't random enough. I have too many of the same songs of the same artist playing within too short a period.

eso · « **Reply #7 on:** June 29, 2008, 01:35:57 am »

Is there a way to make a smartlist that plays in radio mode? If not I think that would be a nice feature because it would allow to use the radio mode from UPnP devices too.

mabes · « **Reply #8 on:** June 29, 2008, 07:10:53 pm »

When a song is played does it look for related artists for the next one or is it just random?

To the OP, you can set the options to limit the selection of tracks. You would have to use an advanced expression to limit it to one track per artist. Limit (advanced) -1,1,[artist]

datdude · « **Reply #9 on:** June 29, 2008, 10:00:22 pm »

I think it looks at things like rating, number of plays, skips, artist, album, and year. I don't think it is smart enough to find truly similar artists, but it soon may be!

damian_pentney · « **Reply #10 on:** August 23, 2008, 04:00:29 pm »

Ok my 10 cents on this. I'm using 12.0.529. In "Play Radio" mode keep getting tracks from the same artist playing way to frequently to be random, so I ran a test:

My library has approx 100,000 albums, and 1.8m tracks.
I started a fresh library, set all ratings to Null, set all plays to Null
Ran Play Radio

I'm 60 mins in at this point and three Albums have repeated themselves in that period (ie not artist, but Album repeating).In a popluation like this, surely that's not random.

Now I could understand if tracks from certain Artists that I have a concentration of played more often...for example I have a couple of artists with 50+ Albums (I like Maddonna and Frank Sinatra

). But the repeating Albums referred to above are seemingly random (no more than 3 Album s per artist, not played in over 2 years).

....oh in the few mintues it took me to write this, we can add one more cycle of repeats from the same Albums. aaaaaggggghhhhh!!!

Go figure.....

Matt · « **Reply #11 on:** August 23, 2008, 04:29:01 pm »

Quote from: damian_pentney on August 23, 2008, 04:00:29 pm

Ok my 10 cents on this. I'm using 12.0.529. In "Play Radio" mode keep getting tracks from the same artist playing way to frequently to be random, so I ran a test:

My library has approx 100,000 albums, and 1.8m tracks.
I started a fresh library, set all ratings to Null, set all plays to Null
Ran Play Radio

I'm 60 mins in at this point and three Albums have repeated themselves in that period (ie not artist, but Album repeating).In a popluation like this, surely that's not random.

Now I could understand if tracks from certain Artists that I have a concentration of played more often...for example I have a couple of artists with 50+ Albums (I like Maddonna and Frank Sinatra ). But the repeating Albums referred to above are seemingly random (no more than 3 Album s per artist, not played in over 2 years).

....oh in the few mintues it took me to write this, we can add more my cycle of repeats from the same Albums. aaaaaggggghhhhh!!!

Go figure.....

Radio is supposed to be smarter than just random.

It plays less of things you skip and more of things you don't skip. It also looks at ratings, play frequency, and other variables.

I wonder if the "more of things you don't skip" system is what people looking for a random mix don't like?

damian_pentney · « **Reply #12 on:** August 23, 2008, 06:20:04 pm »

Matt,

I hear you...I really do...and I get what you mean....but, with a fresh library and reset stats, does this mean, if I listen to a track from first Album that Play Radio cues, that this predisposes that 'Album ' to be selected more....it doesn't figure ...I'm not hearing the same track over and over again and I've skipped some tracks on these Albums yet I'm five hours through now and still hearing tracks from the same Albums over and over again (note: different tracks are played from the same Album, it's not the same track over and over again). Am I going to keppt hearing the same Album until it realizes I only like one track ?

I really like the concept, I'm just not sure it's executing. I know it's not random...I get that. But out of 100.000 Albums, how can I be hearing the same 4 Albums repreated over 6 times in the first 3 hours of play ? I really think somethings not working here. To be clear....the albums repeating themselves are Albums I've not played in years...I'd get it if they appeared once or twice (ie throwing in the 'unheard' track) but their persitence is beyond random tracks that haven't been played in along while.

I like the concept so much that I'm willing to troubleshoot this as long as it takes. Is there any data I can share that would help?

DP

Vali Mihai · « **Reply #13 on:** August 24, 2008, 02:05:10 pm »

i agree. I expect to listen various artists and various genres. and that smart editor is not working. i have almost 50.000 songs in my library.

marko · « **Reply #14 on:** August 25, 2008, 03:50:32 am »

damian_pentney · « **Reply #15 on:** August 25, 2008, 08:58:39 am »

Marko's experience is almost identical to mine, only I reset all my stats to try and eliminate some variables. I also find that selection eventually moves on to 'new' Albums, but then continues to select tracks from that 'new' group of just 3/4 Albums.

marko · « **Reply #16 on:** September 04, 2008, 11:28:16 am »

Quote

1. Changed: Tuned Radio playback algorithm to be less likely to focus in on a certain artist or genre during playback with little user input via skips.

This change in build .532 (and later, .533 is available at this time) more or less takes care of all the above problems.
Radio MC is back on air!

You should try it

-marko.

sirrahmit · « **Reply #17 on:** September 04, 2008, 01:48:43 pm »

Much better! Been listening for a while now today and loving every song MC picks. No repeating artists or albums.

Great job and thanks for a great product!

Listening to: 'Cold Fire' from 'Counterparts' by 'Rush' on Media Center 12

bwaldron · « **Reply #18 on:** September 05, 2008, 07:44:29 pm »

Quote from: sirrahmit on September 04, 2008, 01:48:43 pm

Much better!

It is working better.

Now could we have a button for it that we can place on the toolbar?

damian_pentney · « **Reply #19 on:** September 06, 2008, 09:28:28 pm »

Spot On. Thanks Matt/Jim or whoever the Can-Do-Did was. I know it wasn't just me voicing off, but to think that a company actually listened to its users means a lot

thankyou.

Not to push my luck, but:

i) I second the request (and will shortly bump an earlier post) for a button or quicker way to get to the 'Play Radio' mode.....specifically, can I get a Command Line to launch it from Girder. or is that an MC13 teaser feature ;-)

ii) can we have "stations" please

....please

hit_ny · « **Reply #20 on:** September 08, 2008, 11:21:31 am »

Quote from: damian_pentney on September 06, 2008, 09:28:28 pm

ii) can we have "stations" please

This would be good for groups of genres or styles that don't play well together.

You could set up a station that only dips into certain genres for station a, and so on for other stations.

Eccles · « **Reply #21 on:** September 30, 2008, 04:44:16 pm »

Quote from: sirrahmit on September 04, 2008, 01:48:43 pm

Much better! Been listening for a while now today and loving every song MC picks. No repeating artists or albums.

I'm finding it still to be a little hit-and-miss with 12.0.534. Sometimes the selections appear wonderfully random, while other times it still seems to favor a small subset of my collection, with the occasional curve ball thrown in for good measure.

Great idea though, and it's become my preferred method of listening, but the algorithm could still use a little more work.

MrHaugen · « **Reply #22 on:** September 30, 2008, 05:16:50 pm »

Quote from: jengajumanji on May 28, 2008, 05:19:40 pm

Anyone have any advice on dealing with TV series in video?

Looks like this one has not gotten any attention. Here is a little guide i wrote a while back. http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=44472.0
It's pretty simple but gives you a nice view for all your videos and movies.

Deivit · « **Reply #23 on:** March 24, 2009, 09:26:32 am »

Hi,

Just started using "Radio Mode" a few days ago and like it so far. I have however a couple of questions whose answer could not find searching the forums. Sorry if they have been previously answered:

1.- When in radio mode, sometimes I'd like to listen to a specific song and therefore I add it to Playing Now as "next to play". However, once that song is finished, the playback finishes too. I need to restart "Play as radio". Is there any way to do not interrupt the session when adding a song? What I would like is to be in the middle of a "radio session", play a song I hand-picked and then continue with my session.

2.- Are song skips saved between sessions? I mean, a song skipped today could affect a "radio session" next week?

Thank you.

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Author Topic: Radio mode (Read 7666 times)

damian_pentney

damian_pentney

damian_pentney

damian_pentney