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[Hometownwesty]

Hi,

sorry if this has been answered before, but I couldn't find it:

I'm currently ripping all my CDs to FLAC to use them with JRiver.
All songs are saved to a folder JRiver is watching and automatically importing into its library.
Is there a way to have JRiver also auto-convert all new media to mp3 (keeping the FLAC originals) and saving them to a different folder?
I'd like to have mp3 versions on a seperate laptop so I can use these with iTunes to sync my iPhone for train rides, while I keep my FLACs on my htpc for listening at home.

Thanks in advance,
Simon

[glynor]

Your best bet is probably to set up the iTunes folder as a handheld in MC, and then sync to it.

You can schedule the sync to occur automatically on a recurring schedule.
If you'd like, with some elbow grease, prod's MCiS application can even sync MC and iTunes, so that playstats and whatnot sync back and forth between iTunes and MC.  This takes some effort, though, if you need to convert everything to a different format.

I accomplished it previously, and it worked well for about a year.  But, then I re-built my home Server and never set it up again because JRemote meant that I hardly-if-ever actually cared about syncing things to my phones locally.

[MrC]

Not quite automatically, but you can create a folder-based Handheld to do the conversion/sync.

You can just do an HH sync whenever you need to.

[glynor]

Not quite automatically, but you can create a folder-based Handheld to do the conversion/sync.

You can just do an HH sync whenever you need to.

You can schedule them.  There's a MCWS command to sync them now (finally based on the Handheld device name).

[glynor]

http://<SERVER>:<PORT>/MCWS/v1/Handheld/Sync?Device=DeviceName&DeviceType=Name&ShowWarnings=1

Code: [Select]

Parameters:
            Device: The device to sync. (default: )
            DeviceType: The type of value provided in 'Device' (Name: device name; ID: session id). (default: Name)
            ShowWarnings: If warnings are allowed. (default: 1)

[Hometownwesty]

You guys... Wow! Thanks for the quick replies. I'm new to the handheld option (well, still new to JRiver itself) so I didn't think of it.
Will try your suggestions tomorrow.

@glynor
I'm not sure I can sufficiently read between the lines of your JRemote comment.
Are you using the app to send media to your iDevice (and store it there within the app? Is that possible?) or just using it around the house for streaming?

Thanks again.

[MrC]

I've never found synchronization to be reliable enough to want to automate/schedule it.  I always have to manually test my synclist against the HH files, as MC does not synch correctly after some tagging changes.  In fact, I just ran a sync, and find there is an extra file on the HH that did not get deleted, so the sync list and HH file list counts are different (Delete HH files not in sync list is enabled).

Manually figuring out these differences is very hard for users; I've created views that I export to help me here, but being fed up with that manual process, I'm writing a scriplet now to do this for me.

[glynor]

I've never found synchronization to be reliable enough to want to automate/schedule it.  I always have to manually test my synclist against the HH files, as MC does not synch correctly after some tagging changes.  In fact, I just ran a sync, and find there is an extra file on the HH that did not get deleted, so the sync list and HH file list counts are different (Delete HH files not in sync list is enabled).

There are problems with the HH sync, for sure, but depending on your needs, you can absolutely automate it with decent results.  I found that almost all of the problems were eliminated when I stopped trying to sync directly to devices, and went to an intermediary location on a regular hard disk instead.

Here's basically what I was doing:

* Sync essentially my ENTIRE library over to a folder on my computer's hard drive.  For use with iTunes and iOS devices, since you have to sync using iTunes anyhow, this is your only choice.  I did exclude some stuff from this list, but not much.  Basically, all Music and Audiobooks.

* Imported this stuff into iTunes separately.  I tried using MCiS to do this, but it does the import the "slow, dumb way" and with 66K assets or whatever I had, it would have taken weeks to complete.  So, the first time, I imported manually.

* Then, I set up MCiS with the fancy iTunes File Key thing it can do to point the iTunes versions of all of my files to the handheld sync location (which, I believe, was right where iTunes looks, in the User's Music folder).

* Scheduled the Handheld sync and the MCiS sync to happen automatically twice per day.  Since the big bulk conversion was already done (and those files are largely static) these syncs usually only lasted a few seconds.  But, they'd automatically pick up any new stuff I'd added to my Library and sync that.  I even made a nice "New Files" smartlist that would sync to the iDevices that showed what was new.

* Since MCiS enables bi-directional sync of some file metadata, I could do things like rate files on the device, and then that would eventually sync back to my MC Library.  This, in practice, didn't actually help much because I found I was too lazy to actually re-sync my devices much.

It worked quite well.  The main thing that would bork it up was if you moved files in MC (going by memory, but I believe that was it).  Basically, if the Handheld has already synced a particular file, it WILL NOT resync it just because the Path should have changed.  If the file is there, and MC determines that the file itself is "correct", it won't resync it, even if it "should" (according to the path organization rules you've defined) be in a different spot.  I imagine this is an optimization to speed transfers, but it messed me up.

This stinks, as it would break the MCiS iTunes File Key thing if I moved files around after the fact in certain ways.  The only way I found to work around this was to find the offending files in the iTunes "handheld" folder and delete them.  This was made somewhat easier by the fact that I imported these files into MC (specially tagged so I wouldn't see duplicates everywhere), but it still was problematic.

The system was a massive pain to get set up properly and working (not for the feint of heart) but it did work reliably for more than a year before I gave it up.

At least, the MC part of it worked.  iTunes on the other hand... Well, if you've done a bunch of syncing through iTunes, especially with a Library of 66K+ items?  Then you know what I mean...

So...

@glynor
I'm not sure I can sufficiently read between the lines of your JRemote comment.
Are you using the app to send media to your iDevice (and store it there within the app? Is that possible?) or just using it around the house for streaming?

Why did I give it up?  Well... I didn't really give it up "on purpose".  I upgraded my server to Windows 8 a while back (by nuking it and re-installing from scratch) and I'd intended to set my system back up again, but I never have, and now I've decided that I don't miss it.

JRemote can stream not just on your local LAN, but if you open the appropriate firewall port on your gateway, it can stream over the Internet.  I'm actually listening to music on my iPhone RIGHT NOW, streamed to my phone from my MC server at home, and I'm on 4G cellular at a weird mansion in Acadia National Park (don't ask, it isn't a fun mission).

I found, over time (prompted by laziness) that I just don't care.  If LesPaul adds local caching of content to JRemote it'll be even better (as right now, my iPhone needs to be able to get online for it to work), but since I'm using a phone and iPad with cellular connectivity, this just doesn't happen very often.

Basically only when I'm going on a trip and flying, but then I generally want to sync over a few movies or whatever to the iPad anyway, and having music there would just suck up space (and I'd probably delete it before I left).

Other than that, it just hasn't been a problem.  I have a small set of "emergency music" on my phone (mostly used for testing, and left over from the last sync I actually did with my old system), and I've removed the music from all of my other devices, and hidden the default Music app in a folder on the last page of apps.

[MrC]

... you can absolutely automate it with decent results.

This part is where we might differ in opinion.  A sync needs be 100% reliable.  Otherwise, it isn't a sync.

HH sync is great for pre-flighting the sync conversions.  But if one has to work really hard to figure out why the sync list and the HH list differ, the process isn't so useful and makes it untrustworthy.  I'm reasonably sure most users would be hard pressed to figure out how to figure out what's missing or duplicated.

btw. I always do HH conversion to a folder; device HH sync was really troublesome.

[MrC]

It occurs to me that I might be coming off as too negative here, and might be scaring off the OP.

HH folder sync is good and useful.  Check the results of your sync list against your HH list if you have concerns.  I believe the only time I have issues with items not being deleted is when I've changed metadata that causes MC to no longer notice the two files are related.

[glynor]

This part is where we might differ in opinion.  A sync needs be 100% reliable.  Otherwise, it isn't a sync.

It depends, I guess, on what you're using it for...  If iTunes is missing 12 of my 66k files?  I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Plus, when you find a sync engine that is truly 100% reliable (that's a higher standard than POTS uptime, mind you), you go ahead and let me know. 

[MrC]

I think the point of these threads is to inform users about what works, what doesn't work (and when), and how things work.

I think we're all fine if you won't care about missing files.  But I and maybe others do.

I think your last statement adroitly attempts to shift the burden of proof, and sets up an impossible proving of a negative.  I'm not falling for it, Mr.  :-)

[glynor]

I think we're all fine if you won't care about missing files.  But I and maybe others do.

I think your last statement adroitly attempts to shift the burden of proof, and sets up an impossible proving of a negative.  I'm not falling for it, Mr.  :-)

Perhaps.  But I stand by my assertion that it works decently.  I can't say in all the time that I used it, that I ever saw it do something inconsistent that I was easily able to identify as a problem with the utility, rather than a difference in the way it was designed compared to how I was using it (or, pure PEBKAC).

Like I said, the main issue I had was that it wouldn't obey changes to the folder rules for files already synced.  I think, there, I was just using it way beyond the design.  Saving the time to copy files over a (typically slow, with most sync destinations) connection for an unchanged file seems reasonable.  It just messed me up in certain edge cases.

But otherwise?  I didn't see any serious issues at all.  The only other thing I encountered was that it wanted to continually re-sync a handful of my files (something like 12 of them of the whole set) that didn't change, but re-synced every time.  I can't say.  Something was probably "special" (eg. broken) about those particular files.  I never cared enough to try to find out.

But, I wasn't doing anything like adding/removing files en masse, which sounds more like what you were doing (syncing a subset of files, shifting semi-randomly, I'm guessing).  Even here, though, if files at the "receiving end" had changed, at all, from the originals, I think a reasonable course of action for MC would be to skip them, and only change what you last touched (and, therefore, put there in the first place).  The one example you gave, like my thing with the file paths, sounded more like "it doesn't work the way I like" than a "it is broken" thing.  Different strokes for different folks.

As far as my comment on sync engines, I'd agree with you if any of them were simple and 99.8% effective.
I'd say that's a farce though.  In my experience, the only one close to that goal is Dropbox, and I've absolutely had Dropbox bork up syncs too.

I've never seen one, maybe apart from Dropbox, that I'd call 90% effective, much less 100%.  The handheld sync engine in iTunes is laughably bad.  Basically every single time I re-synced my wife's iPhone, it would "forget about", not just a handful, but essentially ALL of the files on her device, and would always complain that it was out of space, even though the entire list had changed.  It usually took three consecutive syncs in iTunes to get her phone to work right.  But even with things like rsync and Goodsync, I've seen "issues" (and those are anything but simple to set up).

That last 1% is a doozy, and sync is Very, Very, Very HARD.  Because, there aren't clearly defined goals, and everyone's idea of "right" is different.

[glynor]

I should say, though: Syncing to Handhelds from a Media Network Client is, or was last I used it (which was MC18 probably), terribly broken and unusable.

I wasn't counting that.  You also probably have huge lists of threads where you've reported all sorts of weird idiosyncrasies (in 4,3,2...).  Perhaps.  I haven't seen them, and didn't experience stuff like that (or didn't notice, if so) and so... Meh.  You didn't 'splain that here, tho. 

[MrC]

For several years I avoid MC's sync, because, after I had many troubles:

    http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43689.0
    http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=53171.0

Each time I tried it, the results were unpredictable and entirely wrong.  And I went on a rant here:

    http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=50695.0

and because even today sync misses tracks because [Disc #] as not part of the MatchKeyExpression:

   http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=66978.0

one might want to know what the limitations are.

So finally I put on my thinking cap and decided to be part of the solution by debugging sync:

   http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=71023.0

and Matt made a bunch of nice changes that substantially increased HH sync's reliability.   I mentioned some of these issues to you:

   http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=75126.msg509130#msg509130

in one of your sync problems / issues threads.

Anyway, I think our points have all been made, so I'll bow out.

[glynor]

Hahaha.  You're awesome. 

* glynor bows to you, MrC.

[glynor]

To Hometownwesty, if you're interested in learning how to use JRemote to stream files outside your home network (assuming your device has an always-on network connection), let me know.

If you're trying to go to an iPod Touch or something else too, or your network connection on the iPhone isn't reliable on your normal commutes, well, then...
An alternative, that might work better (not sure, I haven't used it) if you want to sync everything (or almost everything) to iTunes in a particular format, would be to use the Sync Library tool in the Library Manager.

Nevermind, that's for syncing from another copy of MC.

[glynor]

and because even today sync misses tracks because [Disc #] as not part of the MatchKeyExpression:

   http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=66978.0

I hadn't seen this one... That might have bitten me (could have explained a few of the handful I did have trouble with, and never cared enough to investigate).  That's still with us?  You should bump it again, Mr Mentioned It Once Twice In 2011.  

[Hometownwesty]

Sorry I didn't get back earlier to all you helpful people but my PC refused to boot and I was close to sending the mainboard in.

Anyway:

It occurs to me that I might be coming off as too negative here, and might be scaring off the OP.

Not scared at all, as you guys seem to be way ahead of me. It don't need any automated updates twice a day, and I don't need a 100% bulletproof solution.
I'm willing to put in some elbow grease should need be, but just didn't want to convert everything manually each and every time.
The solution you guys provided seems to be what I was looking for.
Thank you very much.

To Hometownwesty, if you're interested in learning how to use JRemote to stream files outside your home network (assuming your device has an always-on network connection), let me know.

I knew about streaming. I thought there was a way to store tracks within the app (I think I may have read that about the Android app. Could be wrong).
Streaming won't do for me as I have bad reception along my train ride.
But again: the inputs you guys have provided are just what I was looking for.
Thanks very much.