Name: Anonymous 2006-05-07 12:33
There's gotta be some lurking mac 4chaners who've solved the problem of iTunes and server-based mp3 collections. Alternatively, this can be the "is there a foobar2k for macs?" question thread.
I have a Windows computer that acts as a file server for me. All my media stuff is on it, including my mp3s and everything is shared over the network to multiple computers, Macs and PCs. On the Macs, iTunes is set to not copy files into its own music directory so that everything stays on the file server and meta-data like playcount is kept on the client computers.
This works as long I don't try to add new files to the collection. If I add some new songs to the share, I can't just drag the share into iTunes because it's not smart enough to detect that some of the files are already in the library and I end up with a lot of duplicates.
This would be acceptable if I can somehow get iTunes to remove all the duplicates (and pick the duplicate that has no rating rather than the one that has) but as far as I can tell you can't do this in iTunes. The "show duplicates" option doesn't mean "show entries that have the same physical address as some other entry" but rather "show entries that have the same name as some other entry". The only thing this does is show me how many different renditions of Fly Me To The Moon I have.
Setting up iTunes on the Windows file server and doing a bonjour share over the network runs into the same update-duplicate problem unless I let iTunes import everything and let it handle its organisation. That and you can't rate shared songs either.
Actually, how do you handle temporary songs with iTunes? Say I download a whole jazz of songs by a dozen singers, this week's top 30 or someone's recommended list. I dragged them into a new playlist and mark off the the ones I don't like and delete them. How do I take care of the entry in the iTunes library? Even if I remove the item in the playlist, it's *still* in the library.
To be honest I find iTunes to be a decent mp3 player but piss-poor in actually managing mp3 collections. Is it because I'm still thinking in Windows mode and not doing it the Mac way that would make this all so easy? Or is iTunes really that bad for pro-users and there's some secret and better application that they all use?
I have a Windows computer that acts as a file server for me. All my media stuff is on it, including my mp3s and everything is shared over the network to multiple computers, Macs and PCs. On the Macs, iTunes is set to not copy files into its own music directory so that everything stays on the file server and meta-data like playcount is kept on the client computers.
This works as long I don't try to add new files to the collection. If I add some new songs to the share, I can't just drag the share into iTunes because it's not smart enough to detect that some of the files are already in the library and I end up with a lot of duplicates.
This would be acceptable if I can somehow get iTunes to remove all the duplicates (and pick the duplicate that has no rating rather than the one that has) but as far as I can tell you can't do this in iTunes. The "show duplicates" option doesn't mean "show entries that have the same physical address as some other entry" but rather "show entries that have the same name as some other entry". The only thing this does is show me how many different renditions of Fly Me To The Moon I have.
Setting up iTunes on the Windows file server and doing a bonjour share over the network runs into the same update-duplicate problem unless I let iTunes import everything and let it handle its organisation. That and you can't rate shared songs either.
Actually, how do you handle temporary songs with iTunes? Say I download a whole jazz of songs by a dozen singers, this week's top 30 or someone's recommended list. I dragged them into a new playlist and mark off the the ones I don't like and delete them. How do I take care of the entry in the iTunes library? Even if I remove the item in the playlist, it's *still* in the library.
To be honest I find iTunes to be a decent mp3 player but piss-poor in actually managing mp3 collections. Is it because I'm still thinking in Windows mode and not doing it the Mac way that would make this all so easy? Or is iTunes really that bad for pro-users and there's some secret and better application that they all use?