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[hvdh]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post on this forum, mainly because everything I've tried sofar with Media Jukebox, and now Media Centre 16 works exactly as I wanted. I had no trouble transferring my Jukebox library to Media Centre.

I do however have one small problem:

I have one Win7 PC with all my music on C:\music organised just the way I want it, including all tags, and for most files I already have defined Ratings within the Media Centre Jukebox.

The problem is, that I have an almost identical music collection on my other PC. ( I use robocopy to keep it up-to-date)
Unfortunately, this music is located in D:\music.

Is it possible to import the existing Media Centre 16 library to the other PC, and retain all library fields, but applicable to D:\music, instead of C:\music?

I have found some old posts regarding this issue, but haven't discovered any method yet that will let me do what I want without having to import all music again, and that is something I'd rather avoid, as my collection is rather large....

Thanks,

Henk

[JimH]

Welcome to the forum.  The best way to do what you want is to use MC's Media Network to share a library.
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Network

One machine will become the server and the other will be able to use its library as if it were its own.

[hvdh]

Thanks for the answer Jim, but I'm afraid it doesn't solve my problem...
The two PC's I use are not sharing a network (other than the internet), the're too far apart for that.

I treat one of them as my "master", and every now and then use a mobile back-up disk to synchronize the other one using robocopy.
That works quite well for the music, but I don't know how to get the second machine to use the same library (except for the drive letter unfortunately, otherwise it would have been simple.)

Henk

[MusicHawk]

I do the same thing regularly. I have my master music library on a desktop PC. I also have it on a laptop to use when traveling. There are several ways to do this, some (to me) slow and cumbersome. My method involves setting up MC's paths a certain way, then outside of MC copying files from main to second PC whenever updating is desired.

Here's the high-level of what I do, in case it give you ideas...

1. Use the same drive letter and path on both computers. This allows the MC instance on both computers to find files in the same place. I use a second drive on each computer (internal on the desktop, USB on the laptop), which I set up as M:. I put my music library in M:\DATA\MUSIC. (It is also possible to use different drives but use Windows SUBST command to give a drive plus path an additional drive letter, in addition to the default drive letter.) The goal is to have the library always find the media files (music in my case) at exactly the same location. I find this much better than the methods that involve find+replace to change the path (change C: to D: in your case).

2. Store MC's library files the same place as the media files, rather than where MC normally puts them. My music files are at M:\DATA\MUSIC, in in subfolders created/managed by MC's Rename-Move action (folders named for the Artist but some users do it by Album). The library files (database) are in M:\DATA\MUSIC\LIBRARY. This setup can be created from scratch via MC's Library Manager (create the library then add the media files). With an existing library, copy the entire folder+files structure to the new location then edit the library in Library Manager to point to the new location.

3. One catch is that MC will put some files in its default Windows User location (saved views, for instance), but I've been able to steer all of that to my M:\DATA\MUSIC\LIBRARY location too.

4. Think carefully about where to put cover art / image files, because moving them later is painful. By far the easiest is to store them at exactly the same place (drive+path) on both computers. The find+replace method of editing the image path doesn't work, (no evident reason, but it is disabled for this field). Mine are in M:\DATA\MUSIC\COVERART but there are other ways to store them, such as in Album folders (not suitable for my library). In your case, even if you edited the library to replace C: with D: when you copy library files to your second PC, you won't be able to do this to cover art files. You might have to monkey with SUBST. Or use a technique that stores images in album folders (not applicable to my library so I don't have advice on it).

5. Set up MC on the second computer with the same library name and path. Copy everything to the identical location, made simple by putting library and media files in the same place such as my M:\DATA\MUSIC. When the master PC library gets changes that should be on the second PC, just copy everything over again.

There are small downsides to the one-way copying that don't matter to me. I don't care about Number of Plays and similar. I have to resist any urge to modify the library on the laptop (fix a typo, re-rate a song...) because that must always be done to the library on the Master PC.

[hvdh]

Hi MusicHawk,

I think I can help you a little here:)

When I upgraded from Jukebox to Media Centre I didn't want to loose all my settings, so I simply restored one of my latest Jukebox libraries in my Media Centre. I think that basically does what you've explained in your rather elaborate response. So all you need to do when you've  synced the laptop is to copy the latest desktop backup library to the laptop and restore it.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy for me to make the drive letters on my two collections the same...

Btw, I have all my artwork as folder.jpg in the folders where the music resides, and it is also contained in the tags in all the music files, so that's not a real problem for me.

Still hasn't solved my little problem, but thanks for the help anyway:)

[MusicHawk]

Thanks for the suggestion. I copied and restored the library at first (been doing this for years), but since I also need to copy the media files AND the saved views AND cover art, etc. it's quite easy to copy the database files too. I use a backup program with a script that knows all the paths, etc. So with one click everything happens, and smartly -- only changed files get copied. A simple library restore wouldn't do all the other copying.

(I use several MC libraries, so I always put my MC library files in a custom location, making it simple and consistent to make backups. I avoid using MC's Default library name and path, due to some "interesting" experiences over the years of using MC and MJ since version 7.)

Because I don't organize my library by albums (half the 80K of library tracks aren't "from" particular albums), I don't have art-related folders so folders.jpg isn't suitable. So I have to store cover art in precisely the same location on each MC instance. (My HUGE WISH is that MC allowed Find+Replace to act on the Image Path field -- I'm not aware of any reason it is locked.)

However, since you are avoiding the cover art path problem, your problem of media files on different drive letter\path is solvable by using Find+Replace on the library copy to alter the Filename field of every record. (The fact that Filename field can be edited makes the Image Path field edit restriction even more annoying.)

One of the big values of MC is how much customization is possible, leading to any number of configurations and practices (and debates about which is best ).

[lepa]

I Haven't tried this myself so if you try this be careful and test with few files first. Also I don't really remember if and how mpl-playlists are still supported in MC so consider these instructions as a non tested with no guarentees

If you can do a fresh new library (ie don't need merge two libraries ) you could load library backup made from library on the other PC and then select all the files >>right click menu>> Library Tools >>find & replace >> check filename (path) find: "c:\" replace: "d:\"


But if you need to add the library to the library on the other PC then I guess you could:
1. choose all the files on the source library and save the selection as a mpl playlist containing all the "tags" for the files.
2. use some texteditor to search replace filename (path) fields from c:\ to d:\ (I guess this maybe could be done in MC afterwards also same way as above).
3. import mpl file (which imports files defined inside it) to destination library

[HiFiTubes]

Any thoughts on storing the main library on a NAS?

I currently just have a few clients access a main PC which has eSata storage, but I am building a Synology RAID 5 NAS right now.

Should I still continue to use one PC as the master serving clients? Eventually the NAS will be connected via eSata to the master machine, and I was considering having the clients access the same library on the NAS and assume I would get the read-only message/access.

thanks!