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[bblue]

I must not understand the Library logic as it relates to playlists and zone playback, and there seems to be remarkably little written about their behavior in a multiple-play zone environment.

I have (presently) two active zones playing back simultaneously from different libraries to independent playback devices for internet streaming.  Separately, a Python script tracks what's happening from the MC Server for titling to each remote player and for logging.  Originally, I had loaded library #1 and started playing it to zone #1.  Then loaded library #2 and started it playing to zone #2.  I'm not sure, but since loading libraries at that time affected playing zones, I went back and forth a couple of times and finally got them both going.

The problem is that I can't load a 3rd library to prepare it for another zone, without both zone #1 and #2 stopping playing, and not showing an associated playlist.  If I then reload the #1 library, both zone playlists (for library #1 and 2) show back up and work fine.  So I thought maybe I shouldn't be using the libraries directly on a zone, instead use a playlist.  So I created a playlist #1 from the active playing list on Library #1, and same for Library #2.  When you select each zone to view what its doing, the Tag Editor shows the right Playlist associated with it under 'Playlists'.

But still if I load a new library (not even populated) both zones playing from Playlists stop playing and there are no Playlists showing for them when you select the zone.  If I then reload the library that was active before I loaded the new library, both Playlists re-appear for zones #1 and #2.

I need to have 3 libraries and 3 zones active, and still be able to load a library for editing, repopulating, whatever, without interrupting playing zones.

What am I missing?  Can someone tell me how this is all supposed to work or point me to some accurate documentation or a thread?

Second part of the library question has to do with library updates which happen automatically when files are added to the appropriate directory.  That updates the library, but as far as I can tell, not any associated playlists.  How can that be made to propagate to playlists?  I remove numerous songs from any given library via the playlist.

I fooled around with smartlists but since you can't (apparently) seed them from other already existing playlists, my ordering and song removals aren't maintained.  I don't yet know if a smart playlist will survive a library load.

Suggestions welcome.

Thanks.

--Bill

[JimH]

Why not use a single library? 

[bblue]

Why not use a single library? 

Doesn't seem like a useful answer to my questions. 

AFAICT it would be far more confusing for maintenance and organization of the individual streams (zones), and extraction of titling for the remote players than it would be worth.

And it still wouldn't address how loading another library stops zones playing from a different one.

--Bill

[JimH]

MC doesn't support simultaneous use of multiple libraries.

[bblue]

MC doesn't support simultaneous use of multiple libraries.

Hmm.  Does that mean that a loaded library is the only one, playlist or otherwise, that a zone can play music from?

If so, something is not as it seems, because I'm currently playing two separate zones from separate libraries while only one of them is actually loaded.

This is actually one of the points of my query.  With so incredibly much flexibility with zone playing and the like, being limited to only one library being loaded to accomplish it seems really crippled.  But then, somehow I'm doing it with two zones and ... wait a sec.  When I built those, I started with two direct associations with (apparently) one library, and deleted the files appropriately in each zone's Now Playing to make them unique.  That gave me what amounted to two playlists from one library in two different zones.  Sound right?  They were really playlists, but didn't have an identity as a stand-alone playlist that you could export.

So what is the point of having multiple libraries (other than a global change for all zones)?  Seems terribly limiting.

If I'm really only using one library, the only way I could see all of it for editing, additions and all, would be like a maintenance zone that used the library, not a playlist for its source?  Is there any documentation that spells all of this out?

Thanks.

--Bill

[kstuart]

MediaCenter is basically a database plus a video playback engine and an audio playback engine.

Since it only supports one library at a time, then one can use groups inside the library to represent the same sort of grouping that you want to use as multiple libraries.

A simple example is that MediaCenter natively supports the groups Video files, Audio files and Image files.   This takes the place of separate Video library, Audio library and Image library - so they can be all in the same library.

Similarly, you can come up with your own groupings to fit your needs.

Information on the database is at:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/File_Properties_%28tags%29

and in other pages in the wiki...

[bblue]

MediaCenter is basically a database plus a video playback engine and an audio playback engine.

Since it only supports one library at a time, then one can use groups inside the library to represent the same sort of grouping that you want to use as multiple libraries.

A simple example is that MediaCenter natively supports the groups Video files, Audio files and Image files.   This takes the place of separate Video library, Audio library and Image library - so they can be all in the same library.

Similarly, you can come up with your own groupings to fit your needs.

Information on the database is at:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/File_Properties_%28tags%29

and in other pages in the wiki...

Thanks.  I've restructured my layout with that understanding (one library) and it seems to be working well.  I can see some advantages in doing it that way that I didn't see when thinking it was to be separate libraries.

One thing I noticed along the way, is a change of behavior with the Remove From Library function (associated with DEL) for any given title on a right click.  A couple of iterations ago, I found that when I deleted a playlist entry that had the Playlist showing in the Playlist field, when it removed the line item, it also removed the Playlist name from the Playlist field (which I'd think is correct behavior).  Now it's not doing that anymore.  I have to edit the Playlist field to remove the Playlist name, and then remove the Playlist line item.

Any idea about that?  I don't seem to find any options that might control that behavior.

While doing this changeover, the zone players were live.  I noticed that on some entries the timestamp for LastPlayed show several hours ahead of the current time (about four hours), yet the ones I was following as songs were being played all showed the correct time.  Not sure what happened there.

--Bill