Music Playback v7

[wrems]

I don’t utilize Sage for music much, but I have been more and more lately. Firstly, I didn’t realize there were visualizations aside from the album info scooting around the screen. They look great. It seems weird that the visualizations don’t start automatically when the album info first appears. I have to trigger the visualizations manually by escaping to the home screen and pressing the left arrow once more to start them. Is that normal? Shouldn’t the visualizations start when the album info starts after a no key presses have been made (mine is set to 2min)? I would like it to.

How can I change the way Sage displays my collection? The only options are Albums, Artists, Genres, Years... I like to view my collection by artist but for some reason its really scatterbrained in this view. It breaks out every artist as their own album even if it’s one song. It’s annoying; how can they be grouped properly? They’re all tagged.

[darcilicious]

I'll have to double-check when I get home but I haven't ever got anything but the bopping album cover as a visualization -- how do I get other ones to show up?

You can group by Artist and then select what that means so you can get something like:



(Hybrid has a six albums for example)

Using this option might help?

[wrems]

How did you get to those options in your second screen shot???

To get to the visualizations that I'm referring to start playing an album and then using the directional arrow keep backing out of all the screens to the left, eventually you'll get to the home screen and then one more press will start the visualizations. Not the back button, the left arrow. I'm on an HD200 if that makes a difference...but you get the point. You can also hit options once the song is playing and I think visualizations is the last option and it will start them. There are a couple of options where you can set visualizations alone and combine them with the scooting album info.

[Opus4]

Just use the Options command -- you'll be able to jump to "Visualizations" and can choose to adjust the "Menu Options".

The Options command provides access to many options throughout the various menus.

- Andy

[wrems]

Wow, I looked in that menu several times and did not see the option "Choose people to include as artists"... I see it now. Thanks that was it, it needed to be set to Album Artist only.

Is there a way to have the visualizations start automatically, rather than manually triggering them?

[darcilicious]

Thanks Andy, it didn't occur to me to use the options menu after the song started playing; seems like you ought to be able to set that beforehand.

Also, I'm still feeling stupid: are "song info" and "graphics" the only choices?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by wrems

Is there a way to have the visualizations start automatically, rather than manually triggering them?

No, there is no option for that. A lot of people wouldn't want it to jump there automatically anyway since after adding one song/group of songs, we want to be able to browse & add more.

Originally Posted by darcilicious

Thanks Andy, it didn't occur to me to use the options menu after the song started playing; seems like you ought to be able to set that beforehand.

If you are on a PC, you can also use the mouse to click on the currently playing song art+title area to jump to the playback screen.

Also, I'm still feeling stupid: are "song info" and "graphics" the only choices?

Yes. Extenders and PCs use different types of graphic visualizations. And, on an extender you can have the graphic shown at the same time as the song info.

- Andy

[wrems]

Originally Posted by Opus4

No, there is no option for that. A lot of people wouldn't want it to jump there automatically anyway since after adding one song/group of songs, we want to be able to browse & add more.

- Andy

I'm talking about having the visualizations starting automatically like the screensaver. That happens after so many minutes of inactivity with the remote etc so it wouldn't interfere with ones ability to manipulate their playlist. It's just a button press to escape the screensaver... Are we talking about the same thing?

[Opus4]

If it enters screen saver mode, doesn't it already show your chosen music visualization style when music is playing?

- Andy

[wrems]

Originally Posted by Opus4

If it enters screen saver mode, doesn't it already show your chosen music visualization style when music is playing?

- Andy

No, it only shows the album info darting about on a blank/black screen no fractal art or whatever that is... That's why I never knew the visualizations existed. I happened to find it by mistake by hitting the left arrow on the home screen...

[idonen]

Speaking of music playback, is there any shortcut on the remote yet for skipping to the next song in the playlist?

[Opus4]

On the playback screen, use the Channel Up/Down keyboard/remote commands or use the up/down arrows at the top of the OSD with the mouse.

On the music browser, use the up/down arrows in the playback info area, or use the Options command to access the Prev/Next Song choices.

- Andy

[darcilicious]

When I have visualization set to Graphics, I get a black screen on the SageTV Client installed on Windows v7 x64...

[Comitizer]

Personally, I think the music interface is the worst part of sage. It just doesn't behave the way you expect.

There are multiple skip buttons on the remote and two of the sets perform the same function (I think it's skip and skip 2). Can't we make it so that one of the sets skips in the playlist regardless of which screen you are on?

To me, it should be ff seeks forward, skip fw skips tracks and skip fw 2 switches views. Is there a reason this isn't the case? No one that has ever picked up my remote has been able to figure out how to skip tracks.

This is how other devices and other media players work so it's a pretty standard convention.

[Rico66]

+1

Furthermore the different behaviour between playback and selection screen is confusing as well. It really only works nicely with a mouse/keyboard. Even with the remote on the tv it's kind of painful.

Yes, it's designed in the same way as the video library, but how often do you skip tracks for videos?

[Comitizer]

Originally Posted by Rico66

+1

Furthermore the different behaviour between playback and selection screen is confusing as well. It really only works nicely with a mouse/keyboard. Even with the remote on the tv it's kind of painful.

Yes, it's designed in the same way as the video library, but how often do you skip tracks for videos?

Exactly, I don't think I've ever skipped from one video to another. Regardless, if I did, I would want the skip button to work no matter when I was in the interface. Just like the play, pause, and stop buttons.

The thing that makes this more odd is that there are buttons with apparent duplicated functionality. One of them should be changed.

[Wirenut]

+1 Totally agree with this. I'd like to have a skip track button on the remote.... I can't remember when I would want to ffwd or rwd through a song to a chorus or bridge... and I'm a musician.

Everybody who has ever picked up my remote has had troubles with the music....

Sage... let us skip tracks... please?

[broderp]

Similar but different question about album art.

Does SageTV read image information from the MP3 file itself and display this or can it still use a image the folder for the songs?

Can you select wich image to use?

I have 100x100 sized images embeded in my MP3's so I an get them to work in my car radio and load quickly. But blown up this would look awefull on my 60" LCD TV. My image files are 500x500 or greater, I'd like to use those instead.

[miloj]

Originally Posted by Wirenut

+1 Totally agree with this. I'd like to have a skip track button on the remote.... I can't remember when I would want to ffwd or rwd through a song to a chorus or bridge... and I'm a musician.

Everybody who has ever picked up my remote has had troubles with the music....

Sage... let us skip tracks... please?

The only way I've found to skip tracks is to force or wait for visualizations, then use Channel up/down per the manual. Completely unintuitive, and hard to believe the remote doesn't behave like that of a CD player when music is playing, an established convention for decades.

[pjpjpjpj]

I have to agree, I have been using music more lately, and the only way I can skip tracks is to do the "Options/Next Track" thing (when in the browser), or the "up/down" when in visualizations. The "up/down" thing that Andy mentioned does not work except in visualizations.

My wife is extremely tolerant (bless her) of Sage quirks and occasional glitches, but even she has said "Can't they provide some way to skip tracks without having to pull up the options menu? That's stupid. There are all these buttons on the remote control, why can't they assign one to skipping tracks?"