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[Ignoramus]

I have a number of CD's that have the same title, by Various Artists (or Various Composers), and based on their genre will depend where they go. However, I have a few that have the same genre as well, so they go into the same folder (as separate folders). As I use the album names for the folders, and Windows doesn't permit folders with the same name to exist in the same location, I add a number at the end. However I don't change the audio tags. And it's here the problem lies. Because two CD's have the same title (despite being in different locations) Media Center clumps them together, unsatisfactory. Is there some way that audio files in different locations, but have the same CD title & the same genre (and effectively the same album artist "Various Composers") can be kept apart? EXAMPLE ATTACHED

[Dawgincontrol]

I believe one of these is a 2 CD set and the other a 3 CD set.

I'd rename them as such or use an appendage that delineates them (eg. Time To Relax (2CD Set)), the year of the album release or use the catalog number.  I also never use "Various Artists" as the Album Artist.  I use something in relation to the album. In this instance I might use "Classic FM Artists" in lieu of.  It makes things easier. 

On Greatest Hits and/or Best of albums I add the artists name to the album title for the same reason.

[Ignoramus]

Yes, in this case they are multi discs, I use that fact in the file name (e.g. 2.10. Gustav Holst - Venus, The Bringer Of Peace [The Planets, Op.32], second disc - track ten). As you can see, with classical albums, I use the composers name, not the artist's. The problem is not the file name, but the album name. Although I ensure the albums are in folders with different names, Media player, reads the tags...and I don't like adding to the tags in the Album name, as that's on display in the program. If there was someway of adding files, based on their location, that would solve this problem

[JimH]

A couple of comments ...

There is no need to distinguish albums by separate folders.  MC will take care of that.

You could use the tags for Track # and Disc # and simplify your names.

MC has some useful tools for filling the tags from the file name (or doing the reverse).  The wiki should help.

[dtc]

You could add differentiating detail to the Album names and then define a separate tag that contains the Album Display name and use that for display in your views. 

To do that, you can use two variables, one (Manual Display Name) with the Display name to use when it is not the same as album name, then one (Display Name) that equals Album unless Manual Display Name is not empty.

You could try to use extract Folder Name from Filename(Path) to do your sorting but that could get somewhat complicated.

[lepa]

As MC uses fields 'Album' and 'Album Artist (auto)' (calculated from artist/album artist) to determine one album the combination needs to be unique.

Because of that like above writers I have used square brackets to add album special info to Album field.
e.g.

Code: [Select]

Pseudo Filename Template:
E:\Music\'first letter'\[Album Artist (auto)]\[Album]\[Disc #]#[Track #],2) - [Name] [[version]]

Filename:
E:\Music\B\Beatles\Beatles For Sale [Mono]\01 - No Reply [mono].ogg

Artist: The Beatles
Album: Beatles For Sale [Mono]
*Album (short): Beatles For Sale
Name: No Reply
Version: mono

* expression for Album (short): ListItem([Album],0,/ /[)
I could then use Album (short) user field (or the raw expression) instead of Album field to hide that specialization in the views when needed

[Dawgincontrol]

One thing to keep in mind, it isn't the name of the file per se, but the Album Artist (not to be confused with the Artist field), which decides the folder the rest of the album and tracks will be put in.

I know Media Center, as a program,  doesn't care about the folder structure, but I do, like many others.  Housekeeping is much easier with a good folder and file structure.  It also makes it easier in Media Center in certain look-ups.

[blgentry]

For albums like this, you need SOMETHING that differentiates them.  Think if you were telling someone to go play that album for you and to go find it on your CD shelf.  They would tell you they found 2 that have the same title and the same album artist.  Which one do you want them to play?

The answer might be "the one with the blue cover".  Or the one published by (whatever the publisher name is).  Something that you recognize has to differentiate these albums. 

I would suggest that this differentiating factor be part of the album name.  This makes it very easy; everything just works from there.  But if that's not something you want to do, you can do it the hard way.

In two of my Album views, I have the Albums grouped such that it takes the file format into account.  So I can have an album in FLAC and the exact same album in MP3, and it shows them to me as separate albums.  I do this by defining the Album field (inside the view) as an expression.  I use this expression to group them:

Code: [Select]

[Album Artist (auto)] [Album] [Album_info][File Type]
That [Album_info] field is a custom field I defined.  I use it to differentiate albums that have the same album artist and album name.  For example, I have Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album in both CD and DVD-A form.  The [album_info] field holds this extra information and my view uses it to group the albums.

This all works great if you ONLY USE YOUR OWN VIEWS.  As soon as you use stock views, or JRemote, or Theater View, it no longer works.  You have to redefine every view that you want to use these grouping rules.

That's why I called it "the hard way".  It's a lot of work and you need to figure out every single place that uses Album that you care about and change it.

For that reason I gave up on this a while back and just change album names to reflect this extra information.

BTW, if you still want to do it the hard way AND you just want to use your folder name, you can make your expression use the parent folder name to group by with an expression similar to mine, but using that parent folder expression.  I'll leave the details of that to you or someone else that wants to mess with expressions today. 

Best of luck to you,
Brian.