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[haggis999]

I have created a custom metadata tag called AlbumGroup and I want to start by making this contain the same value as in the existing Album tag.

Is there an easy way to run some form of global update that will set this initial value for all my music files?

[blgentry]

The direct answer to your question:

Select all files.  Open the tagging window.  Find your new field.  In this new field type:

Code: [Select]

=[Album]
That will populate all existing files with the value from the [Album] field.  But future files will not have this automatically populated.

Questions and ideas:  Is this field kind of an "override"?  Meaning, will most of your albums not have a special value here, but simply be a copy of [Album]?  ...and for some of them you will give them a different value?  If so, there's a very slick way of doing this that I can explain to you in more detail if you'd like.

Good luck.

Brian.

[haggis999]

Many thanks for that very easy solution to my original problem.

It is indeed my intention that the vast majority of my music files will have AlbumGroup=Album. The exceptions will be for cases where I have three separate rips of the same SACD, i.e. CD, SACD-Stereo and SACD-Multichannel. At present, I apply a suffix of either [CD], [SS] or [SM] to the album titles, with the result that each SACD is represented by three pseudo-albums.

I normally listen to my music via a Naim network player, with MinimServer running on my NAS (JRiver is my primary tagging tool). I want to experiment with the idea of storing the original album title, without any suffix, in the AlbumGroup tag and adding AlbumGroup to MinimServer's list of indexed tags. The aim is to make MinimServer present my albums using AlbumGroup and thus display only one result per SACD instead of three. Clicking on an SACD album would then show the three variants. At least, that's the result I am hoping for...     

[blgentry]

I would try this out with a few sample albums first. See if it works with your whole setup.  I continue to be confused by why people use minimserver, but I guess it doesn't matter.  Give it a try and if it works for you I can try to help you with some extra setup that will make it easier for you.

Good luck.

Brian.

[haggis999]

You will only fully understand the benefits of using MinimServer if you are familiar with the complexities of the metadata required to easily browse a catalogue of classical music. Non-classical metadata is much more simple. For those that need it, MinimServer is a very powerful tool.

Using an AlbumGroup tag has not been as successful as I had hoped. Unlike the Album tag, it does not trigger the display of album cover art. I don't yet know if MinimServer can be configured to achieve that.

[ferday]

I think what he's saying is why don't you use the JRiver server.  Then you can use any view that you use in MC

[haggis999]

I don't want to turn on my PC every time I play my music. MinimServer runs on my Synology NAS and thus keeps things nice and simple.

[blgentry]

I'll also never understand this obsession with turning off computers.  Computers last longer and work better when you leave them turned on all the time.  This whole culture of "every Watt of power consumed is evil!", is very counter productive.

But hey, just ignore me.  I'm the weird one. 

But I'm also here to help with your metadata needs if I can.  Good luck.

Brian.

[Spike1000]

I turn mine off (most of the time  ) I deal with this via Wake on LAN (WoL). It's simple to set up and I use an app on my phone to wake things up in the right order when I need them.

Spike

[haggis999]

JRiver is installed on my primary PC, which is located in our living room. It's a big tower workstation with fans and even my high-end Eizo monitor has a small fan. These fans don't make a big noise, and I am oblivious to them while I am working on my PC. When we are watching TV, the PC goes to sleep.

However, I would probably be more conscious of the fan noise if I used the JRiver media server, as playing my music would prevent this PC from going to sleep. In other words, it's not really a power saving issue in my case.

That said, I will take a closer look at whether the JRiver media server is able to generate a better interface for classical music than MinimServer. In the rather unlikely event that it offers significant improvements, then I might be tempted to buy a quiet HTPC.

[AndyU]

I continue to be confused by why people use minimserver, but I guess it doesn't matter. 
Good luck.

Brian.

One of the good, and I think unique, features of Minimserver that endears it particularly to classical music lovers is that doesn't impose a heirarchy for browsing. So it makes browsing a lot easier. You can browse in any arbitrary order of relevant tags. A bit like Panes view does in MC (which of course you don't get through a tablet based control point). Here's how minim server describe it ..

Intelligent Browsing in MinimServer allows you to make any combination of selections in any order. For example, you could search for a violin concerto by artist, then composer, then conductor, then orchestra, then album. Alternatively, you could search first by composer, then select violin concertos, then artist, then orchestra, then conductor (or any other order of selection). At each step you see all the music that matches your previous selections.

As you make your selections, Intelligent Browsing presents you only with relevant choices that help you to narrow down your current selection of music. Continuing with the example of choosing a violin concerto, if you've started by selecting recordings by violinist Rachel Podger, and these recordings are all Bach compositions, your next selection menu won't include an option to select by composer—this is redundant because the only available composer is Bach. Some time later, you might add to your collection a Rachel Podger recording of Vivaldi concertos. If you now select all of Rachel's recordings as you did previously, you'll automatically get a next selection menu with a Composer option and choices of Bach and Vivaldi.

It would be splendid, and possibly not too difficult, if MC had a similar feature when used with JRemote or Gizmo.

[JimH]

Intelligent Browsing in MinimServer allows you to make any combination of selections in any order. For example, you could search for a violin concerto by artist, then composer, then conductor, then orchestra, then album. Alternatively, you could search first by composer, then select violin concertos, then artist, then orchestra, then conductor (or any other order of selection). At each step you see all the music that matches your previous selections.

You could add a view to MC that would do this.

Right click on audio to start.

[AndyU]

You could add a view to MC that would do this.

Right click on audio to start.

How? I think you might be missing the point. Sure in MC you can add a view that goes, say, SubGenre > Composer > Work > Artist and use that in JRemote. But then you have to select a Genre first, then a Composer, then a Work .. the order and hierarchy are imposed. By contrast minim server lets you pick first either a SubGenre or a Composer or a Work or an Artist, and it narrows down the selection accordingly. Say you had picked a SubGenre of Concertos, you would then be able  to pick either a Composer or a Work or an Artist. Say you picked an Artist, you would then get a selection narrowed down to Work and Composer. Or you could have picked a Composer and got a selection narrowed down to Work and Artist. etc. Factorial 4 ways through the four tags.

This is a very powerful browsing strategy. It gives a UPnP type system the same power as a Panes view in MC. Just like in Panes view you can narrow down your selection in any Pane, minimservers intelligent browsing lets you narrow down your search through any set of tags on your tablet control point - there's no order or hierarchy imposed.

If I'm wrong and you're right, could you tell me how to do this with MC and JRemote!

[JimH]

Have you tried setting up a view?
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Views

You could have one that started with Composer, another with Instrument, whatever you set up in MC will be visible from a client machine or remote.

[haggis999]

You could add a view to MC that would do this.

Right click on audio to start.

Perhaps I've misunderstood something about how to configure JRiver, but doesn't right clicking on Audio only allow you to customise a view for MC itself?

AndyU was asking about customising MC for use with JRemote or Gizmo, in which case I have always assumed that you need to go to 'Tools/Options/Media Network/Advanced/Customize views for JRemote, Gizmo & WebGizmo'. In my own case, I would need a DLNA solution that can be consumed by my Naim app. The only way I know how to do that is to go to 'Tools/Options/Media Network/Add or configure DLNA servers'.

[haggis999]

Have you tried setting up a view?
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Views

You could have one that started with Composer, another with Instrument, whatever you set up in MC will be visible from a client machine or remote.

If I understand this correctly, you are suggesting the creation of multiple different views in order to obtain the wide variety of browsing options provided by MinimServer in a single view. That's not really a viable solution.

There's nothing wrong with MC's straightforward drilling down through the browsing tree and some people might not like the slightly more cluttered interface of MinimServer, but there is no denying that MinimServer provides a very smart and powerful way to browse your music. I doubt if there is anything else quite like it.

[AndyU]

Have you tried setting up a view?
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Views

You could have one that started with Composer, another with Instrument, whatever you set up in MC will be visible from a client machine or remote.

I've set up loads of MC views. I understand absolutely that I could set up one view with Composer, another view  with Instrument and so on. But suppose I was potentially interested in 5 tags. Lets say Composer, Conductor, Soloist, Orchestra, Work. In MC I would need 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 = 120 views to give me what minimserver does with 1. In MC I have to select the hierarchy of tags, but in minimserver I don't. In minim server I can drill down through the tags in any order.  I might want to go Conductor > Composer .. I might want to go Artist > Orchestra >  ... I might want to go Soloist > Conductor .. This is what makes minimserver attractive to people who have large, comprehensively tagged, classical music collections, and like to browse them through arbitrary paths. If there was some kind of Panes type view on JRemote then MC would have a similar power. I can live with MC and JRemote the way they are, but I can certainly see how people are attracted to minimserver.

[dtc]

I have never used MinimServer, but, if I understand it correctly, the dynamic browsing looks interesting.  With a MC category view you have to hard code the hierarchy. If i understand the description of MininServer above, you can determine the hierarchy on the fly. That is, you select the first tag, then you can select from any of the other tags, and so on down the line. If there are 5 tags involved, that would be 5! options requiring 120 pre-defined MC views. Four tags would require 24 MC Views, and even 3 tags would require 6 separate MC views. The MC views are fixed and  hierarchical, the MinimServer views are dynamic.  Seems like a nice feature, especially for classical music.

[blgentry]

One of the good, and I think unique, features of Minimserver that endears it particularly to classical music lovers is that doesn't impose a heirarchy for browsing. So it makes browsing a lot easier. You can browse in any arbitrary order of relevant tags.

Thanks for the explanation.  That makes a lot of sense.  I'm not much of a classical fan, but I still see how this would be an interesting and powerful feature.

Brian.

[blgentry]

AndyU was asking about customising MC for use with JRemote or Gizmo, in which case I have always assumed that you need to go to 'Tools/Options/Media Network/Advanced/Customize views for JRemote, Gizmo & WebGizmo'.

Correct.  But note that you can copy any view from Audio (or elsewhere) into the JRemote area.  You don't have to build them all from scratch there.  I suggest doing it that way actually.

In my own case, I would need a DLNA solution that can be consumed by my Naim app. The only way I know how to do that is to go to 'Tools/Options/Media Network/Add or configure DLNA servers'.

Also correct!  ...and again, note that you can copy views from Standard View here also.  I like to have a separate group in Standard View that I call "Remote Views".  I put all my views here that I'm going to use for JRemote or for DLNA.  That way I can test them, copy them, edit them, etc.  All easily in Standard View.  Then, when they are right, I can copy them to JRemote or DLNA and be fairly sure that they will work correctly.

Brian.