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[leezer3]

It has nothing to do with how advanced the user is. The developers can't possibly know you tag your audio books with [Genre]=[Audiobook] or your holiday music with [Genre]=[Christmas]. Attempting to guess how a user's library is tagged is futile and is likely to encourage unnecessary confusion. A better assumption is MC users are reasonably intelligent, and will have no difficulty setting a simple rule to exclude whatever they please.

Sorry, but I don't agree
The biggest need is to have something that just 'works' when a new user pushes the button. This type of user is most likely to have music that's been tagged from sources such as FreeDB or downloaded stuff, not a hugely complex set of personalised library tags.
The 'advanced' user in my example would be someone who understands how the library and smartlist system works, and would obviously want to fine-tune what is and isn't caught.

Altogether, this means for the new user, customisation can come later. The initial run needs to be able to produce a reasonably intelligent playlist from their library with the minimum of effort. If you make it so they have to learn how to setup a custom smartlist first, all you'll do is discourage many of them.
What this means that MC needs to have something of a defaults list. This doesn't need to be perfect, but it needs to catch the most obvious use-cases for stuff that shouldn't be included.
Both Christmas & Audiobook are relatively commonly used in id3 v2.4 genre tags (Obviously this will not catch all Christmas music/ audiobooks), and so I believe it makes eminent sense to exclude them by default.

-Leezer-

[wig]

I just experimented with the Play Doctor for the first time. I thought it worked pretty well, and I like the potential. I don't think it's quite ready for prime time, though.

My biggest complaint is that the "Type something you like or press play" is just too vague. A real world example; I have three songs in my library named 'Stormy Weather' by different artists (The Pixies, Echo & the Bunnymen, and Wayne Hancock). I typed Stormy Weather in the box, and it apparently chose the Pixies tune and the seed and created a list based on that.

I think it's important to have some sort of confirmation of what the Doctor is seeding off of (Artist, Album, Track Name), and the ability to select a specific Artist/Album/Track when there is ambiguity in the typed material.

[gappie]

i try again.. the play radio was really nice. im listening to the doctor now. apparently he choosed some stuff my wife likes. me not. this is normal here. play radio and when some of those come by, and skip, radio played nice. doctor is not. the active user input is gone.

really so much a pity and a reason for me to go back to 15 for as long as there is no reason to go 16.

[Scolex]

From what I have read it seems the premise for Play Doctor is to be simpler than Radio.
IMHO it is not easier, with Radio it is a simple single click process and the Doctor requires
you to use settings to tailor what you hear instead of just using skip and the skip is
remembered.

I understand that the play doctor format is better for volume leveling because it has 100
songs to balance which gives a better average replay gain.
My question is why not just leave it as Radio with the select 100 songs to start.

Another option would be go ahead and keep the name change but add a feature that if
I skip a track it removes it from given prescription and replaces it with a new one based
on the seed preferences.

The number of songs selected should also be selectable, for example
when I have a gathering at my house it can last much longer than what 100 songs can cover.
I don't want to have to go to the Doctor for a refill a few hours into the party or hear the
same song twice.

[pcstockton]

I really dont see why we cant have our cake and eat it too...

Leave Radio as it is.  It seems to work well for everyone.

Create PlayLIST Doctor.  Creates a "genius" playlist based on the new parameters.  Can include LastFm (i will not be buying a lastfm subscription to stream crappy bit rate MP3s so I couldn;t care less about this feature).

I am in the same boat of NOT upgrading to anything past 15 without a necessary reason to do so.... that is unless Radio stays as is.

-Patrick
(Ducks for the incoming)

[bunglemebaby]

Okay, to bring a voice to the aid of the doctor. I love it. The amorphous "search for what you feel like" is actually very powerful with well tagged music. As an experiment I typed in "Japan" for my seed. Music from Japanese artists began playing. I tried "saxophone John Zorn" and a track featuring John Zorn on the sax was used as the seed. It gives a new level of flexibility to the radio style feature and still keeps it random enough to not be predictable. Using last.fm metadata to help choose tracks also gives a nice "wisdom of the masses" element that my own collection and tagging schema will always be lacking.

There is certainly some room for tweaking it, but I myself won't ever miss the old "play as radio" feature. That said, I also don't see any great reasons to take it away either. Given that I like the new feature a great deal more than the old one, it makes complete sense to me that those that loved "play as radio" might hate the play doctor.

WRT tweaks/fixes: When right-clicking and choosing "play with play doctor" the seed track seems to be repeated a ton. I had one yesterday show up 12 times and another tonight show up with the seed track repeated 100 times. (The 100 seeded song was the only song I have from that artist).
Also, a slider that could dynamically update the playlist instead of the 4 variety radio buttons would be a nice touch. This idea is straight from the Mog "radio" feature, as a point of reference (this is the one thing they definitely got right IMO).
A slider for "% of tracks streamed from last.fm" (just like the last.fm DJ MC plugin) would be nice as well.
I'm not really sure how the last.fm API works, but it would be interesting to see if querying based on tags rather than artists or songs would work. For example, when I searched on Japan it seemed that MC used my Country tag to choose some other artists from Japan but from what I could tell last.fm queries were all done based on the Artist. The playlist worked out well enough, but keeping queries focused on the original "seed term" seems fun in my book.
A little bit of control over the seed terms for advanced users might be nice too. A search for "chill" turned up a playlist based on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which isn't quite what I had in mind. I guess in my mind being able to use a normal search of "mood=chill" to seed, but not to limit the entire playlist would be nice.

Anyway, aside from my lengthy list of stuff I think would be great...the doctor makes me feel good, two thumbs up!!
-JB

[pcstockton]

Unfortunately my tags are not as sophisticated...

Album, Artist, Year, Genre, is about it on my end.

My tags know neither that John Zorn plays saxophone, nor that Ruins are from Japan.

[Scolex]

Okay, to bring a voice to the aid of the doctor. I love it. The amorphous "search for what you feel like" is actually very powerful with well tagged music. As an experiment I typed in "Japan" for my seed. Music from Japanese artists began playing. I tried "saxophone John Zorn" and a track featuring John Zorn on the sax was used as the seed. It gives a new level of flexibility to the radio style feature and still keeps it random enough to not be predictable. Using last.fm metadata to help choose tracks also gives a nice "wisdom of the masses" element that my own collection and tagging schema will always be lacking.

There is certainly some room for tweaking it, but I myself won't ever miss the old "play as radio" feature. That said, I also don't see any great reasons to take it away either. Given that I like the new feature a great deal more than the old one, it makes complete sense to me that those that loved "play as radio" might hate the play doctor.

WRT tweaks/fixes: When right-clicking and choosing "play with play doctor" the seed track seems to be repeated a ton. I had one yesterday show up 12 times and another tonight show up with the seed track repeated 100 times. (The 100 seeded song was the only song I have from that artist).
Also, a slider that could dynamically update the playlist instead of the 4 variety radio buttons would be a nice touch. This idea is straight from the Mog "radio" feature, as a point of reference (this is the one thing they definitely got right IMO).
A slider for "% of tracks streamed from last.fm" (just like the last.fm DJ MC plugin) would be nice as well.
I'm not really sure how the last.fm API works, but it would be interesting to see if querying based on tags rather than artists or songs would work. For example, when I searched on Japan it seemed that MC used my Country tag to choose some other artists from Japan but from what I could tell last.fm queries were all done based on the Artist. The playlist worked out well enough, but keeping queries focused on the original "seed term" seems fun in my book.
A little bit of control over the seed terms for advanced users might be nice too. A search for "chill" turned up a playlist based on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which isn't quite what I had in mind. I guess in my mind being able to use a normal search of "mood=chill" to seed, but not to limit the entire playlist would be nice.

Anyway, aside from my lengthy list of stuff I think would be great...the doctor makes me feel good, two thumbs up!!
-JB

The problem is that this is getting marketed as a smarter version of Radio and it is only smarter
if your library is well tagged. If I am lazy and don't tag my music specific enough so it is no better
or worse than Radio due to the fact it is only a suggestion algorithm based on what I chose as
a seed and does not factor live changes. I want to know where it gets it's "similar" artist from
because it matches bands that are barely in the same genre let alone the same sub genre.
Maybe this is due to the fact that I think for the most part people have too many genres listed
and I believe a genre/style (sub genre) philosophy. For example Elvis and Metallica are both *rock*
but one is 50s rock and the other is 80s rock (metal).
Again maybe it is just me but there are way too many genres used today: "alternative" is not a genre
it is a style of "rock".

[bunglemebaby]

The problem is that this is getting marketed as a smarter version of Radio and it is only smarter
if your library is well tagged. If I am lazy and don't tag my music specific enough so it is no better
or worse than Radio due to the fact it is only a suggestion algorithm based on what I chose as
a seed and does not factor live changes.

I guess the algorithm relies more on local tag data (compared to last.fm suggestions) than I'd realized. Either that or last.fm has a better understanding of the music I listen to than yours (okay, not so likely)?  An option to only rely on Last.fm picks might make the lazy man route more feasible...wisdom of the masses isn't perfect, but it could get the job done.

With regard to live changes, I like the fact that after the playlist generates I can quickly peruse it to weed out the few outliers (e.g. death metal with a chamber jazz seed) once and then be done with it. Every time I tried Play Radio, it felt like work to come back every 2 or 3 songs to skip a track that annoyed me at that moment.

My tags know neither that John Zorn plays saxophone, nor that Ruins are from Japan.

Oops, I think my OCD is showing... but it warms my heart that you know that Ruins are from Japan even if your computer doesn't.

-JB

[mobyfrag]

This new function seems to be a great one!
Can't wait to try!

[marko]

last.fm selection is destroying me this morning... (see attachment) 

Seriously, I'm really trying to get on with the doctor, and I suppose, he's kind of OK-ish, but there is no way he (or she?) is an improvement on the old "Play Radio" and skip what you don't like system, which was simply brilliant. It's one of those 'same but different' things, and I seriously miss radio MC.

If we're stuck with the doctor as it is, what can be done to improve the experience?

I apologise to the poster, but though I remember reading it, I don't recall who posted it, but the point was a good one, in that you cannot consult with the doctor while something is playing. Perhaps Play Doctor could be added to the Action Window while something is playing?

Perhaps if the 100th track is actually reached, the doctor should issue a repeat prescription rather than just stop playing? Sure, 100 tracks averages 5 hours of playback, but it was not uncommon for the old Radio MC to serve up over 7 hours of background music for us. It's quite horrible when the doctor's prescription expires, demanding attention to ask for a repeat prescription.

Is there any form of learning going with the doctor? If I type "quiet" and don't entirely agree with what the doctor considers quiet, will he learn what I want for next time by the tracks I skip? If not he should, don't you think?

I'm not happy with the last.fm implementation either. Currently, if I decide to "just press play" as suggested by the doctor, with last.fm option checked, none of the last.fm tracks will play. Their filenames are all shown as "webmedia://Last.fm/Radio/" and they all fail.
If on the other hand, I decide to give the doctor a hint and type something, it doesn't use what I type for last.fm, it uses the first artist returned in the list, whoever that may be, and asks last.fm for similar artists... like so: webmedia://Last.fm/Radio/lastfm%3A%2F%2Fartist%2FStereophonics%2Fsimilarartists

Saved prescriptions are still waiting for some attention too.
The edit button still says "Coming Soon", but for me at least, it's been saying that too long now... "Soon" passed by some time ago
The play doctor playlist group currently only has "Current Playchart" and one saved prescription I called "Mellow" and when I select this group in Theater View, MC takes too long to open it. The wife keeps thinking it's not working and typically begins pressing every remote button available in an effort to provoke some response from the system, then tells me she doesn't like it... She was a big fan of the old Radio MC system. She "got" that, it was simple... press that "Radio MC" button, if you don't like it, skip it, it will learn... simples!!

How are the boardroom discussions at JRiver regarding the play doctor going? Anything happening soon?

-marko.

[rick.ca]

I apologise to the poster, but though I remember reading it, I don't recall who posted it, but the point was a good one, in that you cannot consult with the doctor while something is playing. Perhaps Play Doctor could be added to the Action Window while something is playing?

There's a number of us. We're all happy you're here to help bust down the boardroom door.

[marko]

I don't want to stage a coup or anything like that, but would appreciate some information/action... I wonder if those wikileaks guys could find anything out for us!!

[Matt]

I've been thinking about how to incorporate real-time learning into Play Doctor.

I can think of three main approaches:

1) Switch back to showing a single file at a time when playing, where the next track selection can factor in learning

    a) One of the major features / changes requested internally was to see the list, which this breaks.
    b) Providing a full list makes usage with a handheld, DLNA device, Theater View, etc. work nicely without new hooks or user interface.


2) Show a full list but customize it with each play or skip

    a) Users are allowed to customize the list (reorder, add other tracks, remove tracks) which learning would clobber.
    b) Showing a list of tracks that isn't really what you'll hear is strange.


3) Have two play modes in Play Doctor or keep Radio and Play Doctor separate

    a) This is the most complicated from a coding perspective.
    b) Having both right-click "Play (with Play Doctor)" and "Play (as Radio)" is confusing.


No decisions yet.

[bunglemebaby]

I can think of three main approaches:

My 2 cents, for whatever it's worth in JRiver duckets:

1) Switch back to showing a single file at a time when playing, where the next track selection can factor in learning

I don't like it. It's really nice to be able to quickly fix any "oddities" that show up and then be done with it.

2) Show a full list but customize it with each play or skip

I'd probably like this, but without a way to "turn off" the auto-updates I could see this getting irritating.

3) Have two play modes in Play Doctor or keep Radio and Play Doctor separate

I guess I like this in combination with #2 after paying attention to my response to it. Two modes within a single interface is a nicer way to go, to me. I agree that two separate options on the right-click menu seems like a bit much. Adding a check-box for "live list updating" seems like a nice way to go, from a user's stand point.

Anyway, best of luck figuring out a glamorous way to tighten this up so everybody loves it. I still give it two thumbs up as an improvement over PR, as is.
-JB

[pcstockton]

Matt,

Firstly, thanks for continuing to consider the positive aspects of Radio Play.  

I would wholeheartedly support the latter portion of Option #3.  Keep both and keep them separate.

In order to differentiate the two, why not see "Radio" as a playBACK method.  Then consider the "Doctor" to be a playLIST creator.  

Maybe this could be done for MC16 and reservation can be held on the relative merits/drawbacks of each until MC17 is developed.  This would give you a good idea of how much people use one rather than the other, and why.

I really dont want to edit a Doctor playlist, nor a Radio playlist for that matter.  A simple skip to the next track is about as much as I want to do.  If I seeded a 5 hour Doctor playlist, I dont want to have to go through the entire list of hundreds of tracks looking for items to exclude.  Also, In many cases I dont know if I want to exclude something until it actually plays.  It doesn't take much effort to hit "Next".  Then in the background, and on Media Centers own time, it can edit the list.  I am fully willing to sacrifice a little control for less time fiddling with a playlist.

Playlist Doctor
Play as Radio

Maybe you could even stack them on top of each other by using Doctor to generate a list, then use that playlist as a seed for the Radio Playback.  Or would that create a blackhole or something.

My 2 cents.
Patrick

[bwaldron]

    a) One of the major features / changes requested internally was to see the list, which this breaks.

I guess I'm weird -- I *liked* seeing only one track; made it feel more like "radio" to me. For other types of semi-random playback, I used my own smartlists.

[rick.ca]

I think #2 it the best approach. Essentially, Play Doctor, with the Play Radio "learning" ability included. It is cool to see an entire list, but I don't understand the concern about preserving it. It's easy enough to add a function that saves some or all versions of list automatically (modified lists might be saved as children of a playlist folder created for the original list). Skipping a track should result in that and all "similar" being removed from the list, and an equal number of "smarter" selections being added (so there's always 100). Hopefully, removed items could be shown in strike-out in the active list—as they were in Play Radio.

Not only would #3 be confusing, it would also just result in Play Doctor users wanting the ability to learn and Play Radio users wanting the ability to see and save playlists.

[bunglemebaby]

It doesn't take much effort to hit "Next".

It does if you're on the other side of the house and need to skip 2 out of every 3 songs. (I'm sans smartphone still)

Skipping a track should result in that and all "similar" being removed from the list, and an equal number of "smarter" selections being added (so there's always 100).

I agree with this in one sense, but on the other hand I'd want a way to turn this off unless the "remove similar - add smarter" algorithm managed to be really good. I guess I just have bad memories of Play Radio fixating on Saturday morning TV show themes after seeding with a chamber jazz song and skipping a handful of death metal songs (with no amount of skipping TV show jingles able to stop them from appearing over and over). That was my final experience with Play Radio...

If the Play Radio feature were implemented as one half of a Radio/Doctor option within the current Play Doctor interface I'd give three cheers. This of course wouldn't satisfy people who don't like to see what's coming up next...but there's always the option of not looking, right?

For other types of semi-random playback, I used my own smartlists.

For my uses, the Last.fm integration of Play Doctor gives a nice mix that my own tags won't ever have, as my tastes lead me to tag much differently than what the masses seem to. So it's a different listening experience than a smart list. It's also quicker to create.


-JB

[rick.ca]

I agree with this in one sense, but on the other hand I'd want a way to turn this off unless the "remove similar - add smarter" algorithm managed to be really good.

I was assuming, of course, the same algorithm (or some subset of its logic) would do this in some way that would at least appear to be sensible. After experimenting with Play Doctor a little, I now see this is probably not a valid assumption. I'm having trouble seeing it produce a list that has much to do with the search terms I enter. It seems to work if I enter an artist's name. Otherwise, it seems very sensitive to a term existing in an album or song title—returning a list including an entire album and/or only tracks from one artist. That certainly isn't what I would normally expect or want. It does seem to respond to my Style terms, but not much else—like Years.

Even if Play Doctor does work well by some measure, the user needs to have some clue what it's doing. Entering search terms that more often than not seem to be ignored or produce an unexpected result is frustrating and annoying.

Unless someone can tell me what I'm missing, maybe I should change my vote to reinstating Play Radio as a completely separate feature. So far, I just can't see how Play Doctor can possibly be of any use to me.

[struct]

Haven't played with it much yet, but find it a bit random...  I sometimes would like to limit the "smartness" to similar artists (or song) only, as defined by last.fm.  Discovering new music similar to something I like is often all I want to do.  Play doctor doesn't do this necessarily.  A little floating bar letting me select degrees of separation (i.e. a way of getting from Artist A to E when they may not actually be listed as "similar") would give me a little control.  This is just one example.  I guess I am saying that a few knobs and sliders to help control the behaviour may give more people what they want out of what is possible a cool tool.

The lastfm dj plugin was almost what I wanted as it would let last.fm make a playlist from my currently playing song, but it would just choose one song and then regenerate a list based on the next song.  Thus you sometimes quickly diverged from your initial choice.  Something that could create that first list and then only update it after I had made enough deletions and then somehow use this to make an ever smarter playlist would be great.

craig

[gappie]

I've been thinking about how to incorporate real-time learning into Play Doctor.

I can think of three main approaches:

1) Switch back to showing a single file at a time when playing, where the next track selection can factor in learning

    a) One of the major features / changes requested internally was to see the list, which this breaks.
    b) Providing a full list makes usage with a handheld, DLNA device, Theater View, etc. work nicely without new hooks or user interface.


2) Show a full list but customize it with each play or skip

    a) Users are allowed to customize the list (reorder, add other tracks, remove tracks) which learning would clobber.
    b) Showing a list of tracks that isn't really what you'll hear is strange.


3) Have two play modes in Play Doctor or keep Radio and Play Doctor separate

    a) This is the most complicated from a coding perspective.
    b) Having both right-click "Play (with Play Doctor)" and "Play (as Radio)" is confusing.


No decisions yet.

well.. i dont know, but considering option 1.. radio always played fine with thv.

speaking for me.. i just used radio unseeded. wont care for a seed option, just that it starts playing and we can manipulate the list by skipping if necesary. ofcourse with the option to leave certain files out.

i see the use of doctor, though its not for me, but when it would have a second button besides it, play as radio, i could use it. 

gab

[bunglemebaby]

I'm having trouble seeing it produce a list that has much to do with the search terms I enter. It seems to work if I enter an artist's name. Otherwise, it seems very sensitive to a term existing in an album or song title—returning a list including an entire album and/or only tracks from one artist. That certainly isn't what I would normally expect or want. It does seem to respond to my Style terms, but not much else—like Years.
Even if Play Doctor does work well by some measure, the user needs to have some clue what it's doing. Entering search terms that more often than not seem to be ignored or produce an unexpected result is frustrating and annoying.

Yeah, I've begun to notice some very hit or miss type results the more I play with the doctor (that might just be the last time that phrase passes my keyboard...).

It would be nice if the search term could be used for multiple seed tracks, such that my "ocean" list that I just generated would at least find: ...and Oceans [artist], Ocean Machine [album], Oceanic [album] and Ocean Sized [track name] and any others in my library related to the word "ocean" before robotically filling out the playlist with ...and Oceans tracks (which is the result seemingly returned every single time for an "ocean" prescription. The pre-generated list seems like it would allow for this, which would be another benefit of the doctor over the radio feature.
-JB

[rick.ca]

Using just a single word as a search term, it seems to be picking one track by searching, in order, Name, Album, Artist, Style, Genre. It then fills the list with "similar" tracks. With variety=none, the list is filled with tracks by the same artist. I don't know exactly how "similarity" is determined if greater "variety" is requested. It won't pick from outside the Genre until I set variety=lots, but it will always provide tracks selected from all Styles of that Genre.

That may "intelligent" in a strictly robotic way, but is nothing like the AI-like behaviour I was expecting it to be. Based on how it's presented, it seems perfectly sensible to enter something like "blues-rock from the 70's." Getting 100 tracks from The New Pornographers is far from what I would expect, and I can't even hazard a guess as to how it got that result. That's fine—I'm happy to get that sort of playlist using a less gimmicky approach. But it would be nice if there were better direction as to the type of search terms it will respond correctly to.

I have no idea how the selection logic differs, but it sure makes me miss the simplicity of Play Radio. No matter how dumb it was, it at least seemed to learn with repeated skips of unwanted tracks.

[gappie]

using doctor gives me often many duplicates.. so you have to go to the list to get them out. when i make a smart list, 'no dups' before saying it should be 100 songs works fairly well... does that make my smartlists smarter then the doctor.


can we get radio back..
 
gab

[rick.ca]

using doctor gives me often many duplicates..

I didn't even notice that. I should have known I don't have 100 tracks of The New Pornographers.

I'm losing trust in this doctor. I suspect he's a puppet of the big recording companies, prescribing duplicate doses of tracks I don't need that are habit forming and will ultimately kill me. I sure I'd be much better off with a sensible diet of smartlists and regular Play Radio. 

[Supersnake]

I want to have Play Doctor offer me a listing containing only Last.fm files.
Is there any way to command Play Doctor to exclude my library items from the list - so that
the list will only be Last.fm items?

As a temporary workaround I am clicking twice on the "Filename" header of the list so that the list sorts all the
"webmedia://Last.fm/Radio/lastfm..." selections to the top of the list which helps out somewhat - but as someone posted earlier, after
15 minutes (whatever) of MC playing the Last.fm selections then MC ignores playing any more last.fm files until you manually take over.

[Matt]

I want to have Play Doctor offer me a listing containing only Last.fm files.
Is there any way to command Play Doctor to exclude my library items from the list - so that
the list will only be Last.fm items?

Use Menu > Player > Play Last.fm Radio...

[glynor]

I didn't even notice that. I should have known I don't have 100 tracks of The New Pornographers.

I have 76, so I'm close.   

[Supersnake]

Use Menu > Player > Play Last.fm Radio...

Thanks Matt, am familiar with that feature, which does nicely retrieve a related music file.  However, I was looking for a way to generate more than a one item listing.   Please see my next post...

[Supersnake]

I was crossing my fingers that Play Doctor would create a multiple item  Last.fm-only listing.

Can you please elaborate how this is different than Play Radio? It said to enter something I liked and I entered "Hoobastank" figuring it would at least start with finding something from them in my library. No, I get Neil Diamond. Quite a stretch there.

Using dcwebman's request, here is an example of what I am hoping that MC can do.

I launched Foobar and went to File > Open Last.fm Radio Station > Open a custom radio station > [and typed "Hoobastank"].  Foobar called Last.fm and generated a
5 item listing of songs which was relevant to my search item (see screenshot).

If I played a song in that listing and didn't care it for I select and play a different song in the listing.  The media player also self-updates the 5 item listing.

Matt,
MC, like Foobar, is a Last.fm supporting media player.  Is there a way to enable MC to offer the same Last.fm features that (Foobar) does?  Does Last.fm provide supporting media player programers with an SDK or something to access features like this?
 

[rick.ca]

I have 76, so I'm close.   

You might have to wait for them to record more.

[jkrzok]

I want to have Play Doctor offer me a listing containing only Last.fm files.
Is there any way to command Play Doctor to exclude my library items from the list - so that
the list will only be Last.fm items?

Not being a Last.fm subsriber I can't test this but...

In that Play Doctor window, select "Set rules for files that can be included" and add a rule where the volume name is not any one of your hard drives.

That play doctor window only seems to open in the top of playing now when play is stopped. It might be nice to add another way to get to it.

[Supersnake]

Not being a Last.fm subsriber I can't test this but...

In that Play Doctor window, select "Set rules for files that can be included" and add a rule where the volume name is not any one of your hard drives.

That play doctor window only seems to open in the top of playing now when play is stopped. It might be nice to add another way to get to it.

Am impressed jkrozk.  You're good, real good!  Your rule did create an all Last.fm listing.
The listing wasn't perfect however because the items were duplicated in identical groupings but this is still a leap forward and
your rule did (!) filter out non Last.fm files.   Because Play Doctor remains a work in progress I'm optimistic that future builds will be incorporating improvements.

Thanks again!  

[kewe65]

excuse my ignorance, but im still just trying to figure out what sort of results i should be expecting - i have no gauge to tell me it behaves reasonably or not from a 'baseline', whatever that might be.

i've excluded all the available drive volumes, for example, and typed in various works - latest "jazz" and the results just populates the list of all the radio URL favorites i have in the library.  I have last.FM account and its connected properly..

even when i exclude HTTP: from volume those items show up.

back to the top, though, it seems to behave more like a randomizer - there is rarely a connection between the word i type in and the results.

EDIT -  okay, it helps to be cognizant of a couple things.  if i type in a word like "bluesy" or something that resembles any genre it will just put those in there.  i tried an abstract noun - "anarchy" - and the results were far more interesting. 

so far my mileage is that nouns work better than adjectives and avoid words that are in other filters such as genre..  how does play doctor benefit/extend if you want an artist or a genre and can get that simply other ways

[glynor]

You might have to wait for them to record more.

Eh... There's a few live sets floating about that I don't have.  I've never been super-impressed with the recordings I've heard of them live.  They seem to be a much tighter band in the studio.  Not surprising considering that they're a "super-band" and probably don't rehearse that intensively.

[AoXoMoXoA]

Besides repairing the problem of Play Doctor being full of Dupes, I'd like to add my $.02

1) I'd like to see both Play Doctor and the old Play as Radio (personally I could live with only Play as Radio).

2) I would be extremely pleased if there were some way not to have Play Doctor staring me in the face whenever I open Playing Now. Could it be collapsible or moved elsewhere?

[Magic_Randy]

Besides repairing the problem of Play Doctor being full of Dupes...

You can eliminate dups in Play Doctor by adding a stock rule (no duplicates) under "set rules for files that can be included...".

[rick.ca]

You can eliminate dups in Play Doctor by adding a stock rule (no duplicates) under "set rules for files that can be included...".

That doesn't seem to have any effect on the list produced.

[Magic_Randy]

That doesn't seem to have any effect on the list produced.

I tried it again and looked at the results carefully. You are right. Not only do I have duplicates but in some cases I have the exact track (same song, same album) is listed multiple times.

This is still a new feature so there will be some bumps, but this needs to be fixed.

[gappie]

I tried it again and looked at the results carefully. You are right. Not only do I have duplicates but in some cases I have the exact track (same song, same album) is listed multiple times.

This is still a new feature so there will be some bumps, but this needs to be fixed.

which is to expected. first the rules, then the doctor, just like it was with radio. no way to eliminate the dupes except by looking through a list before playing.. or being an 'advanced' user. amazing how simple radio was.. 

[rick.ca]

no way to eliminate the dupes except by looking through a list before playing.. or being an 'advanced' user.

There is a command to Remove Duplicates from Playing Now.

[Magic_Randy]

There is a command to Remove Duplicates from Playing Now.

I was using this myself, but then I saw the option to  "set rules for files that can be included..." which is where I added no duplicates. Not sure why this option is there if it does not do anything.

So for now I'll just continue do Play Doctor and Remove Duplicates from Playing Now after it generates the list.

[rick.ca]

Not sure why this option is there if it does not do anything.

It's there because it's a standard search dialog. It's possible all the modifications work. Most of them are irrelevant, however, as Play Doctor creates the list after the search.

[Supersnake]

I was using this myself, but then I saw the option to  "set rules for files that can be included..." which is where I added no duplicates. Not sure why this option is there if it does not do anything.

So for now I'll just continue do Play Doctor and Remove Duplicates from Playing Now after it generates the list.

Same here, the Remove Duplicates command didn't apply whether it was within Add New Rule, Add New Stock Rule, or Add New Modifier - even if all items on the lists were selected.

[rick.ca]

the Remove Duplicates command didn't apply whether it was...

How the Remove Duplicates command is added never makes any difference to the search (click Import/Export to see the actual search expression). But it doesn't make any difference anyway—for the reason I stated.

[Supersnake]

There is a command to Remove Duplicates from Playing Now.

Which unfortunately had short comings as described in the next three quotes. There is a way to remove duplicates and avoid these short comings.  See below...

I was using this myself, but then I saw the option to  "set rules for files that can be included..." which is where I added no duplicates. Not sure why this option is there if it does not do anything.

So for now I'll just continue do Play Doctor and Remove Duplicates from Playing Now after it generates the list.

Same here, the Remove Duplicates command didn't apply whether it was within Add New Rule, Add New Stock Rule, or Add New Modifier - even if all items on the lists were selected.

How the Remove Duplicates command is added never makes any difference to the search (click Import/Export to see the actual search expression). But it doesn't make any difference anyway—for the reason I stated.

Found a way to remove the duplicates. Avoid the Playing Now section altogether and try this. In the left tree select Playlists, in the drop down menu you will see the Play Doctor folder.  By clicking on the icon for the Play Doctor folder (not the Current Playchart that you will see within the Play Doctor folder) you will generate a Play Doctor Playlist that contains only Last.fm stations. This playlist that is generated will not contain duplicates.  

P.S. Don't forget to "Set rules for files that can be included" and add a rule where the volume name is not any one of your hard drives.

[rick.ca]

Which unfortunately had flaws as described in the next three quotes, but there is a workaround.

[removed by JimH]

There is a command to Remove Duplicates from Playing Now.

After the playlist is created, right-click on the zone and select Remove Duplicates from Playing Now.

There is an easy to apply workaround...

This doesn't help those who don't subscribe to Last.fm. But it has nothing to do with removing duplicates either. Clicking on the playlist, not surprisingly, generates a new playlist—just as a smartlist would. This is not the same as the list originally generated and in PN. It may also have duplicates (which can also be removed with a search rule).

[Supersnake]

You're not reading carefully, and jumping to inappropriate conclusions.

After the playlist is created, right-click on the zone and select Remove Duplicates from Playing Now.

Hi Rick,
Glad to see you in the thread again.
When I used the term inadequacies I was referring to the lengthy playlist as seen in the below screen shot.
Was going under the assumption that the shorter Last.fm playlist generated when removing duplicates via the Playlist folder method would be preferred to the lengthy redundant Last.fm playlist generated when removing duplicates via the Playing Now method.  (See screenshot below and compare it to my previous screenshot)

This doesn't help those who don't subscribe to Last.fm. But it has nothing to do with removing duplicates either. Clicking on the playlist, not surprisingly, generates a new playlist—just as a smartlist would. This is not the same as the list originally generated and in PN. It may also have duplicates (which can also be removed with a search rule).

True, this alternative method doesn't help those who don't subscribe to Last.fm.  Perhaps I should have stressed that this method may be preferable for those subscribing to Last.fm.  Thanks for clarifying how and what this alternative actually does.

For some reason Now I can't get the Play Doctor control panel to appear again.
Could you help me on this?

Thanks,
Supersnake

[rick.ca]

Now I can't get the Play Doctor control panel to appear again.

It appears you've covered it with the list. Click the down-arrow on the splitter.