Windows Phone 8 Sync with MM

[BajaPaul]

I have successfully synced my Windows Phone 8 with MM. I was wondering if this would work. I searched this forum extensively before I made the phone purchase. I never did really find the answer I was looking for. I post this as an answer to all other WP8 candidates who wonder. It is my contribution to MM.

I made my purchase regardless and figured it all out afterwards. I am on Verizon and got the WP8 HTC-8X. BTW, I am really happy with it. I have used Android and iPhones in the past and really like the WP8 interface a lot more. MS has done a great job, IMO.

I am running W8 Pro on my computers. The setup of them is another long story. I don't see why any earlier version of Windows wouldn't work with MM the same way. Just as an aside, I don't, and absolutely refuse, to sync my MM library with any MS product or W8 App. It's all about the Metadata. WMP is the primary MS program. I feel Media Center and many W8 App's use the WMP API's, so what applies to WMP also applies to them. Bottom line, in my opinion, is WMP will scan your files and make changes in the background that you can't control or prevent regardless of the settings. In just a few moments, WMP can and will destroy hours of work you put into making things right via editing in MM.

That said, I think WMP is an excellent CD ripper. I like it a lot more than MM's equivalent. It may just be my opinion since I have ripped over 2000 CD's using it versus a few dozen in MM. All in lossless WMA. Just keep WMP pointed to a separate directory from MM. Rip the CD's and match the Metadata the best you can without doing any editing. If you edit it, WMP will just change it all back, so don't bother. After you are done ripping in WMP, manually copy it all to another directory separate of your main MM library. I call mine MM Imports. Make all your changes there in MM Imports using MM and get it all just the way you want it. It should all Auto Organize cleanly once you are done. See those files under the Unorganized Files tabs. At that point manually move it all to your MM Library. All is now perfect in your MM Library. So now that you got your MM Library in perfect shape, move to the next step and sync with your W8 Phone. Rinse and repeat for future rips!

I should mention this is one way sync. MM to WP8 only. Or at least that is what I am doing! Once it gets to WP8, all music is locked into a specific directory. WP8 won’t let you control that to the best of my knowledge to date. If you are downloading stuff on your phone it all goes into the same place. You can choose to reverse sync any changes back to MM onto your computer, but I don’t chance it.

In my experience, WP8 interfaces with W8 flawlessly. Plug it in and there it is. It works much better than any other portable device I have used with Windows before. Sometimes they used to work and sometimes not. What a pain. I never get that crap with my WP8.

Apparently W8 App’s and WP8 App’s don’t know anything about your Star Ratings that you have spent hours and hours determining in MM, or WMP for that matter. This really sucks and is something MS needs to rectify ASAP, if not sooner. No excuse MS! But my playlist from MM transfer flawlessly so all is not bad. Besides, I only select 4 and 5 Star songs to sync with my WP8. So what gets transferred is what I want to listen to anyway!

Very important, you need to turn off all web syncing on your WP8 Music App before doing any syncing with MM. Otherwise it will attempt to change all your Metadata the same way that WMP does without your permission! Then you will have a mess, especially if you try to sync that mess back to MM! Go to Xbox Music App, then select Settings, then move all the sliders to off! Connect with Xbox Music=Off. Xbox Music cloud connection=Off. Now playing on Xbox=Off. See this phone image: http://sdrv.ms/1068qaS

The WP8 has some hidden folders under the WP8 Music folder which do some mysterious stuff. If you leave the sliders mentioned above on, it will download Metadata and jack with your music. If you want to do a clean re-sync, you will have to expose and delete the contents of these hidden folders too! My directory shows all my Artist folders along with the hidden directories named Album, Artist, Playlist, and PodcastSeries. There is going to be stuff in these folders regardless. But if you leave those sliders on, mentioned above, you will see a bunch of cryptic Metadata stuff that was downloaded that you won’t want syncing back to your MM library on your computer. Besides, it will screw up your stuff on the Xbox Music App in WP8.

You are probably going to want to jack with MM’s sync setting a bit to tweak things (see images below). Experiment with just a couple of albums to get started. You can select a couple of albums under the “Auto-Sync list” tab in MM. Then tweak the settings. If you don't like the results, you can delete it all on your WP8 and start over. Just opening up your phone’s folder, in my case, Computer\HTC\Phone\Music directory. Manually delete all the folders, and then sync again from MM. You can't delete the hidden folders but you will want to delete the content in them! Do it over and over until you get it just right.

Once you get the MM sync settings working the way you want, then you can select all your 4 and 5 star songs and any playlists you want to sync. Bottom line, start small, experiment, rinse and repeat, and perfect it. Then sync the whole shebang! Good luck. It does work! All of my artwork synced perfectly too! It's real slick in WP8.

Here is the Random Play/Shuffle button in WP8: http://sdrv.ms/VHWwkF Microsoft kind of tucked it away by sticking right in front of your face. I have seen on many web sites that people are bitching there is no way to shuffle your music on WP8 and play it randomly. Not true!

I hear a bunch of bitching on various web sites about the MS App on WP8. I was kind of naive too! But before you bitch maybe you ought to know a bit more about the app! I find this link invaluable! Check it out WP8 users. Mostly under the "To adjust playback" section: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/how-t ... d-podcasts I have no clue why MS is substituting the 5 Star rating system of WMP to the 3 Heart rating system used on WP8. I don't care for that!

To be honest, I only use 3 ratings. 5 star is totally awesome that almost everyone will recognize as awesome. 4 star is all the other great songs out there that are really good but not quite a 5 star. And 3 stars, I don't ever care to ever listen to them again, but am reluctant to delete them from my database since harddrives are so cheap and I spent the time to rip them in lossless WMA format. They don't cost me anything to keep! I just sync the 5 and 4 stars from MM to my WP8!

I just keep adding to this long WP8 dissertation! I am going to clue you into a really cool WP8 app! It will cost you about $12 bucks if you decide to go for it! It worked flawless for me so if you have a problem don't bug me!!!! How about having MM playing your music from your computer into your amp throughout your personal mansion through your awesome speakers during a party and controlling it all via WiFi through your W8P? And it has a really slick interface on your WP8 too boot! Your guest will be impressed! I am impressed! It's worth the $12 bucks just to see their faces! Check this link out! http://wp7remote.com/help/mediamonkey/ You will have to pay a couple of bucks for the "Remote" app for your phone and then another $10 for MonkeyTunes! It's all try by trial, so if it doesn't work for you, you aren't out nothing. I like it! I love it!

I got some nice Monster earbuds to go with my W8P. They are really nice. Question is, do I just walk around with my phone and earbuds, or fire up the computer, amp, receiver, other various components, and 12 speakers to achieve the same effect?

MM01: http://sdrv.ms/W3oLb9
MM02: http://sdrv.ms/XaTbXQ
MM03: http://sdrv.ms/XaTkKR
MM04: http://sdrv.ms/11wXPGA
MM05: http://sdrv.ms/11wXYd2
MM06: http://sdrv.ms/11wY44e
MM07: http://sdrv.ms/11wYac6
MM08: http://sdrv.ms/13z7GtZ
MM09: http://sdrv.ms/W5udJB

[vaderag]

Great post - i'm starting to use MM with my WP8 now and this has been pretty handy. Just wish I could get the ratings to sync both ways...

[jwnpghmediamonkey]

That was a very informative post.
Have you noticed that if you change the AutoSync settings to include playlists, and you select auto sync, the tracks in the playlist are copied separately and you end up with multiple copies of specific songs?

Is this happening to you?