Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jonjski]

I am running MC 24.0.45 64 bit on Windows 10 pro.

I have noted a significant difference between the number of files produced when a Smartlist generates a playlist.  For example:  I have 825 files in the audio section for string quartets, all of these files are linked to produce playback of whole works; the resultant Smartlist identifies and imports all 825 files; the generated playlist contains 2005 files due to the inclusion of every instance of each linked set i.e.:
 
The set of linked tracks in the library:
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 1. Un poco andante-Allegro molto ed agitato
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 2. Romanze; Andantino
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 3. Intermezzo; Allegro molto marcato-Piu vivo e scherzando
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 4. Finale; Lento-Presto saltarello

produces those four tracks randomly appearing in the shuffled Smartlist.

The resultant playlist is populated with the following groups of files shuffled in with the rest of the similarly generated groups:

String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 1. Un poco andante-Allegro molto ed agitato
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 2. Romanze; Andantino
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 3. Intermezzo; Allegro molto marcato-Piu vivo e scherzando
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 4. Finale; Lento-Presto saltarello

String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 2. Romanze; Andantino
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 3. Intermezzo; Allegro molto marcato-Piu vivo e scherzando
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 4. Finale; Lento-Presto saltarello

String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 3. Intermezzo; Allegro molto marcato-Piu vivo e scherzando
String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 4. Finale; Lento-Presto saltarello

String Quartet in G minor, Op.27, 4. Finale; Lento-Presto saltarello

To compare with MC21:
I have 765 files in the audio section for string quartets, all of these files are linked to produce playback of whole works; the resultant Smartlist imports 765 files shuffled with respect to whole works; and the generated playlist is a copy of the Smartlist.

The apparent difference in the Smartlist functionality between MC21 and 24 is:  in MC21 the Smartlist is the playlist, and in MC24 the Smartlist is treated as a library from which a playlist is generated.

I recognize that the cause of the bloated playlist in MC24 is the presence of the track links.  However, the link feature was introduced in MC20 to allow entire works to retain their association across sorts, and that functionality worked well and with the Smartlists through the last revision to MC21; it was lost when MC22 was deployed, and remains lost in MC24.

My music library is extensively classical and I don't listen to excerpts of works.  I have tried to work around this problem since MC22 was deployed.  I have found no way to use the Smartlist function to produce a shuffled Playlist that contains the same number of files as the source Smartlist or Library Category with only one instance of each work as defined by the links.

It would be greatly appreciated if the originally designed functionality of the Smartlists with respect to generating a Playlist the recognizes whole works as defined by the track links as present in MC21 was restored to MC24 and retained in its subsequent editions.

[swiv3d]

My classical smartlist works just fine with my linked files - no problems. Perhaps your smartlists are not ideally set up.

[jonjski]

For the cited example;
The smartlist rules are:  "Media Type is Audio" & "Grouping is String Quartet"
The smartist modifier is:  "Shuffle"

I have applied different modifiers to the list with little variation to the output.

Like I said in the original post, I recognize the cause of the bloated list is the use of shuffle with the linked tracks.  I can produce a proper playlist whose size corresponds to the number of files in the source list by removing the shuffle modifier.  The point of using shuffle is to avoid listening to the music in the same order all the time.  In MC24 The shuffle modifier produces a playlist that is several times the size of the source tracks due to a failure of the program to eliminate duplicates.  If you create a smartlist in MC21 that employs the shuffle modifier it does not produce a playlist with partial movements, it recognizes and keeps together linked groups and the Playlist is the same size as the source list.

A possible workaround in MC24 would be to filter out the first instance of every grouped track link.  This would produce a smartlist result that would produce a correctly shuffled playlist.  However, it would also filter out single movement works which are indistinguishable from the final movement track of a set of linked tracks due to the lack of a link.

Another workaround would be to go through my entire library and select an unused field to populate with a unique value on which to filter in smartlists which would return what only the first movement of linked works and single movement works.  I am reluctant to do that because in MC21 the functionality I desire exists and in subsequent versions it does not because the programming is broken.  Being an engineer I prefer to correct root causes rather than waste time patching them as the patches invariably require patching.

[DJLegba]

Another workaround, if only to avoid playing the same thing all the time, is to use a view that lists pieces in random order. From there it's only a few clicks to add several pieces to the "Playing now" list.

[swiv3d]

[Media Type]=[Audio] [Link Start]=>0 [Link]=0 [Genre]=[Classical] [Last Played]=>3w ~limit=[20,1,Album]

This would give you a group of 20 linked files you haven't played in the last three weeks, when sent to the player they will be expanded to the full linked sets. You can change [Genre]=[Classical] to whatever you want. The smartlist picks one linked track from 20 different albums so shuffling is pointless.