SageTV Music Management - Any Hope for Improvements .. Soon??

[fiftyplusgeek]

Been using Sage since V2. Used the Music Features more than others.. 22K mp3 songs and counting. V5 was not bad.. graphics big enough to be useful.. alpha list on side to jump forward / back. In V6 they added some neat new feature but blew up the nice interface in the process and really really changed in a bad way the part of the code that recognizes the tags. Where I would have a single album shown in V5 .. now V6 breaks it up and shows 2,3,4 and more albums... WOW I really hate this part of Sage.
This has m e frustrated to the point that ... and I really hate to say this ... may actually use Vista instead ... I was part of their beta program so I know the bugs and drawbacks But really ... they do manage the music much better than the music mess (as opposed to musicmatch) called V6. If there is help on the horizon please let me know and I will try to control my frustration for a bit longer.

[dflachbart]

Did you ever check out SageMC ? You may (or may not) like it. A few screenshots can be found here...


Dirk

[Opus4]

Do your music files have the Album Artist tag? SageTV uses that to differentiate albums with the same name by different artists. If you don't have that tag, you may be seeing issues when there are multiple artists on one album, or multiple albums with the same name. So... what types of songs/albums are not getting listed correctly?

And, re: the alpha buttons in v5... have you checked out the usage tips thread in the beta forum? Between the standard features in the v6 music browser and some of the hidden extras, you should be able to find/browse your music much more easily in v6.

Finally: you can use the Options command to configure the # of rows and sometimes # of columns for each browser view.

- Andy

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Do your music files have the Album Artist tag? SageTV uses that to differentiate albums with the same name by different artists. If you don't have that tag, you may be seeing issues when there are multiple artists on one album, or multiple albums with the same name. So... what types of songs/albums are not getting listed correctly?

And, re: the alpha buttons in v5... have you checked out the usage tips thread in the beta forum? Between the standard features in the v6 music browser and some of the hidden extras, you should be able to find/browse your music much more easily in v6.

Finally: you can use the Options command to configure the # of rows and sometimes # of columns for each browser view.

- Andy

It would take me forever to update the tags on my music. But I do have them all organized into directories.

Is there a way to navigate directories and just "Play all music here"?

[sainswor99]

One question I've always wondered: is there a way I can just hit a play button and randomly play all of my tracks?

Stu

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

It would take me forever to update the tags on my music. But I do have them all organized into directories.

Is there a way to navigate directories and just "Play all music here"?

The Play option is available in the pop-up options menu for a folder, or by using the Play command while the folder is highlighted. Note that this applies to the music directly in that folder, not all the music that is in all of that folder's subfolders.

Originally Posted by sainswor99

One question I've always wondered: is there a way I can just hit a play button and randomly play all of my tracks?

You could highlight a large group, such as some Genre, and tell it to play all of that music. But, there isn't currently a way to tell it to play every song in your collection from one place in the UI.

- Andy

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

Is there a way to navigate directories and just "Play all music here"?

SageMC's folder view does that, including all subfolders

Originally Posted by sainswor99

One question I've always wondered: is there a way I can just hit a play button and randomly play all of my tracks?

Stu

SageMC has an option to play all your albums, with shuffle on or off...


Dirk

[hemicuda]

I thought I saw that option in Sage itself; under Song View. It appears to list all my mp3s in one column and with the Mode set to 'Repeat+Shuffle' should it not cycle through the entire collection forever?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I thought I saw that option in Sage itself; under Song View. It appears to list all my mp3s in one column and with the Mode set to 'Repeat+Shuffle' should it not cycle through the entire collection forever?

No; see my comment above for the default UI. The repeat & shuffle settings apply to the contents of the currently playing playlist, not the browser view you are looking at.

- Andy

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by flachbar

SageMC's folder view does that, including all subfolders




SageMC has an option to play all your albums, with shuffle on or off...


Dirk

Dirk, I appreciate the work that you and others have done on SageMC, but I don't like SageMC. I use PlaceShifter for all of my clients, and many of the SageMC features and functionality are designed for either full client or Media Center usage. I also would prefer to limit myself to functionality that is officially supported by the Sage software.

I appreciate the development effort that goes on here by enthusiasts; I'm just not one of them.

I have, however, considered compiling a list of all of the quirky things about the core interface that I think (not that I'm a UI expert) need improvement, and I will grant you that many of them have already been implemented in SageMC. I just think they need to migrate to the core product.

Stu

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I thought I saw that option in Sage itself; under Song View. It appears to list all my mp3s in one column and with the Mode set to 'Repeat+Shuffle' should it not cycle through the entire collection forever?

Yeah, I see that view as well; I just don't see a way to play all of them. I can select a song, and hit play, and it will play that one song and then repeat that one song.

Maybe I have an option set incorrectly; I'm using Placeshifter with the default STV (Sage3.xml), and have the hidden extras enabled.

Stu

[mickp]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

Dirk, I appreciate the work that you and others have done on SageMC, but I don't like SageMC. I use PlaceShifter for all of my clients, and many of the SageMC features and functionality are designed for either full client or Media Center usage. I also would prefer to limit myself to functionality that is officially supported by the Sage software.

I appreciate the development effort that goes on here by enthusiasts; I'm just not one of them.

I have, however, considered compiling a list of all of the quirky things about the core interface that I think (not that I'm a UI expert) need improvement, and I will grant you that many of them have already been implemented in SageMC. I just think they need to migrate to the core product.

Stu

That's interesting. I thought it all worked on the placeshifter client. Which bits of mc are borked on the placeshifter.

Is there a client for vista?

Mick.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by mickp

That's interesting. I thought it all worked on the placeshifter client. Which bits of mc are borked on the placeshifter.

All SageMC functionality should be available on the placeshifter, except features that are limited by the nature of remote clients in general (like e.g. playing UI sounds), which are not SageMC specific restrictions.

Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

and many of the SageMC features and functionality are designed for either full client or Media Center usage.

Not sure what you mean here...

I also would prefer to limit myself to functionality that is officially supported by the Sage software.

Sure, fully understandable. When I point out features I don't want to 'evangelize' anyone to SageMC, it's just a 'FYI' in case someone doesn't know about it...

Dirk

[sainswor99]

All SageMC functionality should be available on the placeshifter, except features that are limited by the nature of remote clients in general (like e.g. playing UI sounds), which are not SageMC specific restrictions.

Sorry; I should have clarified. The above statement sums up one of my issues with SageMC. It's not that things break on Placeshifter clients, it's that options show up in the settings that are not supported by placeshifters (e.g Load at Windows startup, adjust various video settings, etc). It appears (to me) that SageMC doesn't know that I've installed it on a PlaceShifter or MediaMVP. SageMC runs fine, it just seems to add a lot of menus that are not relevant to the Placeshifter.

Again, not really a complaint against SageMC, but as a whole, the entire interface of Sage is a bit confusing; options are spread all over creation, including some that you can only get to by editing various property files. SageMC complicates this by adding it's own menu of options, including a couple of different ways to get there.

Stu