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[fuzzy]

Thats what i think about Media Center 12 (beta) so far. I have tried the following programs to manage my huge collection of MP3's:

Catraxx
Audio Catalog
Melomania
Zortman MP3 Studio

and  Media Monkey

I absolutely love MC 12 and it completely blows away the competition when it comes to presentation and UI and overall layout. There are a few short commings that need to be addressed before i can invest in this software however and I'm hoping that either a) its just a matter of i don't know how to do what i want to do within the software or b) it can be resolved with a simple addon ie a plugin.

Problem #1
When it comes to Auto-tagging, downloading images,artist info, bios and other info from the web Media Monkey is far superior. I simply right click on an album/artist and hit auto tag from amazon and it gets ALL the info in one neat nice pane. I can then select what info i want to be applied to the selected files. During my testing I would attempt to dl an image for an album using MC 12 and it wouldn't find anything, I would then pop right over the Media Monkey and i would get the all the info that MC just failed to find. This is a huge huge drawback as i cant completely jump ship until this is resolved. (an amazon plugin would be nice)

Problem #2
This is more of an annoyance than a problem; Lets say i am in MC12 and for some reason i edit some of my MP3's outside of MC12 it would be nice to have a little rescan folder button instead of having to go through the longer "add files to library process" in order to reflect the changes made.

Problem #3
This is a request/question; Lets say I'm browsing my music in the Artist view and i double click an
an artist, when i get to the next pane it list all the albums for that Artist. Now if i double click an album it will then show me all the files for the album to the bottom (this is nice). Now what i would like to know is if there is a way when i double click on the Artist initially, the next pane that list all the albums can also show me the "all files" view to the bottom without having to double click an album 1st. Then if i select and album it will filter the "all files" view. (Hope i explained that well)


The 1st problem is major (for me) but the other 2 would be very nice to have . All suggestions responses are welcome.

Fuz.

[Robert Taylor]

You are correct. I also have not found any other program which could handle my library of ~45000 tracks.

1. If I find some area of functionality which MC lacks, I use whatever software is out there which does the job well. It doesn't mean that I have to abandon use of MC just becuase it doesn't do every tiny little last thing I want to do. (It might one day, but I'm happy to wait).

2. Have a look at Tools / Options / Library & Folders / Update for External Changes option. Does that do what you need?

3. In your view scheme, select Artist from the drop-down (next to the Refresh, Back and Forward buttons) at the top left of the album view pane. Notice at the bottom of that window, you have a black bar with dual upward pointing arrows, click and drag this up to expose the track list. ie. It should show ALL tracks for the selected artist. It doesnt seem to remeber this however, I will inbvestigate more when I get home...

[fuzzy]

Thanks for the quick response;


#1
I guess you're right about the right tool for the job, but it would be great if MC could get the tagging part right

#2
I looked at the option there and its already checked (not sure what it does) but MC still wont update unless I rescan the folders manually

#3
I tried bringing up the "bar" without anything selected to see if it would "remember" next time i came to the view but it did not. I either have to double click on an album or double click on the bar to see "all files". I think this should be an option to turn on/off at a users preference. Some people may want it up some may want it down, i just want the option :-)

Hope the dev crew can squeeze these in for the MC12 release.

Fuz.

[marko]

for #2 to work, you must have auto update enabled, and have the folder(s) in the 'watch' list.
See 'Tools > Options > Library and Folders'
Once set correctly, it works pretty well. Beaware of the 'options' though. If you have files on network shares or external drives, make sure the 'fix broken links' option is set to leave network files. Also note that all the optional tasks apply to the library globally, they are not confined to the watched folder list, which is being debated in various threads around the forum.

for #3, it's all or nothing. There's an option to 'always show the files', or, if using thumbnail views, there's a "File" link that unhides when you hover over a thumbnail and clicking this shows the files.

-marko.

[dcwebman]

#3
I tried bringing up the "bar" without anything selected to see if it would "remember" next time i came to the view but it did not. I either have to double click on an album or double click on the bar to see "all files". I think this should be an option to turn on/off at a users preference. Some people may want it up some may want it down, i just want the option :-)

As marko said, if you right-click on the top bar and select the menu item Options > Always Show Files, it will do exactly like that at the bottom. This is true in the main library view for Artists and if you double-click an artist (or hover on an artist and single click Album) to see the albums. The default when you get to the Album view is all the files for all the albums of that artist shown at the bottom. You can then filter like you want by clicking on an album. Click on an empty space to get the all view back.

[fuzzy]

Thanks for the responses, i got MC to show me the "all files" only drawback is that it shows them all the time (I would prefer to have it only when I double click an artist and go to view the albums for the artist) but its not a deal breaker.

As for the folder monitor, its not working for me the way i think it should, i.e. I see an album that needs its image tagged, so i go to another program and tag it. When i return to MC it still shows me that the album art is blank (even if i do a qucik refesh of the screen). Im using 12.0.130....

I have to use this version because i discovered a huge bug when i updated the software to 12.0.139, whenever i right clicked on my start button on in explorer anywhere explorer.exe would crash and generate the following error:

Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.2180, faulting module jrtools.dll, version 12.0.281.0, fault address 0x00017f97.

Once i uninstalled and went back to .130 (no reboots in betweens update, uninstall and re-install) that problem went away. (i should probably start another thread for that bug).

Fuz.

[marko]

Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.2180, faulting module jrtools.dll, version 12.0.281.0, fault address 0x00017f97.

Once i uninstalled and went back to .130 (no reboots in betweens update, uninstall and re-install) that problem went away. (i should probably start another thread for that bug).

Fuz.

Already done. This should help you ---> http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38088.0

[dcwebman]

As for the folder monitor, its not working for me the way i think it should, i.e. I see an album that needs its image tagged, so i go to another program and tag it. When i return to MC it still shows me that the album art is blank (even if i do a qucik refesh of the screen). Im using 12.0.130....

I don't think I've ever read how often the Auto-Import checks in the background. I do know it's not immediate. I have made changes and wait a little bit and it finally shows up. There's some time-delay, just not sure what the number is.

[fuzzy]

Thanks for all the reply's, I'm just wondering if there is any documentation for MC12 as yet? I would really like to see all that this program has to offer and the best place to start is wit the docs.

Now for a request/question

Is it possible to have a "relation" or "link" field between files?
Let me explain;
Lets say I have Song A, Song B, Song C and File D
Song A is a remix of Song B and Song B was sampled from Song C
If i start playing Song A, i could "link" it to Song B as a "remix of"
Song B could be "linked" to Song A as "original of" and to Song C as "sampled from"
Now File D is a music Video of Song A so when i play that song i can "link" it to the video as "music video for" Song A

I have a Huge collection of Music (10k++) and as i listen to stuff i tend to come across music thats related and would like to "tie" them together for reference later on. Plus with most Albums being released with a music video or 2 or a bonus disc the music video link isn't such a bad idea.


Fuzz.

[dcwebman]

A working documentation for MC 12 can be found at http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php

I don't think there's a way to link files, but somebody else might be able to suggest something.