One song, multiple albums

[Bundler]

the thing is, is it in any way possible to let MM have one copy of a song with several playlists or album lists using it?? YES!! what i was wondering is if it might be possible for it to be a feature of MM, not some cobbled workaround.

[lost]

say you have several copies of one file, with the album tag being the only difference,

what if you set the files tag to NULL or "multiple album" and use the database to distingwish the various albums the FILE (not nec song) belongs to,

maybe "null" and infere tags from path would make the most sense,

the problem then comes back to having either media monkey (or external app, perfer MM) being able to create these duplicate files and flaging them as non-duplicate in database,
also for those with out vista/WHS the ability to reference the same file in the database with various Albums entries, (ie maybe the same FILE appear several times in filelist each with diferent Album) and MM able to dynamicly tag the album correctly during syncronisation with players, for those who like to sync whole albums with correct tags to there ipods etc

[lost]

one way to aid with the universal (various player etc) problem came to mind awhile back and I should probly not mention it yet as it may confuse some people but in the hope it will generate interest in this discussion I shall share my idea.

is any body formiler with "HARDLINKS" (aka reparse points)
they have been used in Unix/linux for as long as anybody can remember.

it turns out that as of NTFS 5.0 (aka windows 2000) windows can also create hardlinks, anybody formilar with the mulitple install discs offered to microsofts MSFN customers (multiple versions of windows/office on 1disc)should be able to understand the principle. on those cds MS us a special cd authering program to create multiple File table entries, simular to the way way "windows home server"/(apparently vista) manages to save space when storing mulitiple copies of 1 file.

now it is has come to my attention that while the OS does not automaticly do this it is possible via Either API calls or infact a XP (and the Win2k esource kit) commandline utility called fsutil (linkd.exe for win2k)

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/bl ... n-windows/

for those who link to experiment there are various other programs available here http://shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=284
some with source code, (sysinternals juntions for example)

but I degriss what I was planing on purposing once the database could handle multiple entries was,,

store all the (origonal) files in one hidden directory (MASTER\<ARTIST> , for example,)

then have APP create hardlinks or pointers to the files elsewhere, akin to how Itunes currently organises music added to its database (My music\Itunes\<ARIIST?\<ALBUM>\<TITLE>.mp3)

then if someone really (gosh knows why!!) wish to use another Application to play said music, (play boring winamp for example) the user has a choice to either load the origonal songs with out album data and duplicate entries from the masters folder or the copies in there resective album folders.

is that clear enough to create interest in this project or do I need to explan some more???

[Teknojnky]

The core problem with using any hard link based solution, is that the hard links all link to the 1 original file, which does not support the multiple different metdata that would be needed.

so in theory, your file system may 'look' correct and less wasted space, the source file can still only support 1 accurate set of metadata.

[Peke]

From What I read here solution/workaround would be that Mm do not Save any metadata in files an files are cleared of metadata. Correct Metadata Will be filled on Sync fo example. Even this should work it could be little bit tricky to maintain and unstable.

[lost]

the only time metadata or lack there of would,, would be much of a worry would be during the importation of databases, if as per my previous example MM managed the secondry paths, the user might only generate the hardlinks shall they wish to use other players, or they could be used as standised paths for fake entries when adding albums to database without the sound,

the compete idea has the files eventually not containing no metadata but rather all the metadata, where I am yet to decide, could be in album or comments or somewhere else.

the whole multiple entries thing could be handled in the database alone, however,,,

[Bundler]

ok, the "workaround" i came up with was to create playlists named whatever the album was named. this requires one and only one instance of each song, with as many playlists linked to a song as i feel like. why is it soooo hard for MM to do this? i can do this by a few clicks with a mouse and then i can eliminate a ton of multiple songs.
is this so hard to do in the program?? it could take note of a repeat file and ask if we wanted to pick which to keep (choose from best quality, etc.) and then we could eliminate repeat songs that benefit nobody but the hard drive manufacturers.
i have read that this requires a considerable amount of code and is something that is not wanted by enough to warrant the work to do it. any chance anyone besides me would want to sound off and say they want this?? if enough of us do, it might happen.

[Seeker]

Hi all.

Have recently started to port my collection to electronic format and, after a few months, have found Media Monkey to be great! This is my first post, so bear with me if this has been re/hashed before.

Yes, I am frankly amazed that no one has solved this problem yet.

My idea for a solution is a fairly simple one. Of course, it'd be specific to whomever adopted it (until it's standardized... ), but I think it's a fairly straightforward one.

Why not make a new file format for the duplicate tracks? These duplicate track files would essentially be shortcuts or soft links to the original. This new shortcut file would contain all of the meta-data specific to the duplicated track (like album art, track number, etc.), but, instead of music data, it would reference the original. (I'll leave the referencing how-to up to you -- I could even see this somehow being incorporated into your Virtual CD feature.)

So, each duplicate track would be something like 50 KB in size. Of course, the storage payoff would depend on the sample qualities, but I think it's definitely worth it. (Easy to say when I'm not doing the design or implementation.)

Of course, Media Monkey would have to be smart and know how to use these shortcut files to do the right thing during album playback, burning, syncing, ripping, etc.

So, if I had 1 song that appeared on 3 albums -- say the original album, a greatest hits, and some random compilation, I'd have:

- standard mp3 in the original album ~5 MB
- duplicate track file in greatest hits ~ 50 KB
- duplicate track file in compilation ~ 50 KB

For a savings of 9.9 MB. Not a whole lot, but it's just a start...

Anyway, there's my request and advice on how to fill it.

Thanks so much for making Media Monkey great.

@mr_btw: man, I'm going to sue you! I've got this idea months ago!
I just wasn't smart enough request a patent for it

I'm serious: I really had this idea some time ago (exactly as you stated it, I mean). I would call it "Virtual mp3 (*.vmp3)"
And I think it would be the final solution for the duplicates problem:

- Virtual mp3s wouldn't be added to 'Duplicates' in 'Files to Edit';
- All the playcounts could be summed up in the original file, keeping consistency on how may times the *song* has been played, instead of a specific *file* containing that song;
- A lot of space would be saved (at least for me...);
- ...

IMO, a vmp3 file would have exactly the same structure a regular mp3 has:
ID3v2 + Audio Data + ID3v1
only the 'Audio Data' portion would contain the link to the original file, instead of real audio frames.

In reading all this, I think the discussion has moved beyond what I think is the best idea of all - the one above (of course I think this - the above is my idea too.)

The reason the above is the 'best' idea to me is that it keeps all the specific metadata without repeating the large part - the audio. Such an idea would be extensible to even bigger video, once video has tagging standards.

Is tag used as an extension? If not, I could see this used as even a way to keep conversion issues clear. Say you have (like I do), your main file as flac, which is high quality and large. You also have a compilation album (which is a duplicate in flac, but different tags).

You also have an entire library for your mp3 files which are conversions for your mp3 player. Even that can get in the gigabytes, and is technically a converted duplicate.

So you could have:

bigfile.flac (with all the audio, and it's own track info)

otheralbum.flac.tag (with all the ideas above)

and

bigfile.mp3.tag (which should contain in tags bitrate and vbr).

Then, an intelligent system would properly: simply play the flac for all 3 if requested, but would also know to CREATE an mp3 from the flac if you are moving it to an mp3 player.

In this sense, it would be computing power vs. storage - and admittedly, both are growing fast enough to possibly make worrying about duplicates moot.

[Seeker]

The point is that some of us would like keep all albums complete without having to keep several copies of the track in the library.

But as storage becomes cheaper the problem gets smaller....

Yes, and yes.

[Skywave]

@lost: good idea, although with the limitations that Teknojnky has pointed out.

Bundler wrote:

is this so hard to do in the program?? it could take note of a repeat file and ask if we wanted to pick which to keep (choose from best quality, etc.) and then we could eliminate repeat songs that benefit nobody but the hard drive manufacturers.

@Bundler: Maybe not exactly what you are looking for, but look at this script: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16681
It displays a report that allows the user to select which song to keep, and which to delete.

@Seeker: The 'tag' idea is probably the best idea, but that will take a lot of programming from the MM Development side to do. The reason would be that everytime you sync with your device, MM has to know to sync the FLAC file, but to convert it first, and then it also depends on which format your player uses (and which it uses best). And then of course there is the problem of moving the FLAC file... If you are not in MM, and you decide to move your entire directory to another drive, for instance, (and you don't have MM Gold), then the bigfile.flac.tag and the bigfile.mp3.tag file will not know where to find the original file.

@Everybody: If you want the same song in different albums, with the tags based on that album, then the best approach would be to actually have duplicates of your songs. Harddrives are cheap enough, and big enough (at least for my collection ) to store even the duplicates. Use this script to sort out the duplicates (http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13000) which also has a Duplicate OK node, into which you could add the duplicate songs from Greatest Hits, and Motion Picture Soundtrack albums. This will then not show any of the 3 files, that you actually have as duplicates.

The biggest problem with having linked files will always be, "What am I pointing to?" if the original file was moved or deleted? The only way of overcoming this, will be to have a 'link' in the original file, pointing to all the links created to point to it. And then having the OS decide what to do. But I seriously doubt Microsoft will be helping us out in this respect very soon.

Please don't bite my head off... I do like feeling that little bit of brain-weight on my sholders in the morning when I wake up I was just expressing my opinions.

Reg'ds
Skywave

[Bundler]

i'm sticking with my idea for the time being, but it sorta makes me /boggle that i can make several playlists linked to a single song but it has to be done manually. ideally, to me, we could have a way to find duplicates and pick which to keep (some people like crappy quality over better) and have only one copy of a song that was exactly the same but linked to many playlists.

[nosedog]

I want this idea, or something like it, as well.

For instance, I just ripped all the CDs from a John Coltrane box set which contains tracks in the order they were recorded, not released. That's fine, but I'd like to have virtual albums (Giant Steps, My Favorite Things, ...) containing the appropriate songs. That way I can decide to listen to a particular album that he released in the 60s, or listen to (part of) the box set.

The interface I envisage is this:
* create a playlist with the songs I want in the correct order
* convert the playlist to an album (be prompted for the album name and album artist)
* add the cover art via CTRL-L as per normal

I doesn't seem like this feature is going to be implemented any time soon, so I'm going to make copies of the files and get what I want that way. The drawbacks of this:
* it's more cumbersome than what I described above
* metadata like rating and times played is now split
* wasted space, of course

The metadata and space issues don't really bother me, but this sure would be a nice feature.

[oldtimer]

I think you want to change your request from short cuts to database links. That is what I think you are asking for. The album and artist are in seperate tables. The album is linked to the song by an album id you would need a new link table between the album and tunes to allow multiple albums to be attached to the same tune.

It looks like it would be easy to allow several artists to be attached to the same tune. There is a link table there.
I don't believe you can link several artists to the same tune but the table structure allows for it. There are interface problems and performance problems to implement this. The big problem is getting the user to understand what is going on.

I would have liked the artist to be linked to the album then to the tune. That would create a problem if there was no album. I got some of them so I can see the pit falls. Maybe the MM structure is smarter.

[Lowlander]

To clarify, MediaMonkey already supports multiple artists per track by separating them using the ; semicolon.

Associating a track with several albums could probably be achieved with the same solution as currently used for multiple Artists and Genre's, but might require a database design change (breaking backwards compatibility).

[Diabolic-Destiny]

can we also do a multiple album year using the ; notation?