Streaming Mt-daapd to Soundbridge – iTunes playlists problem

[rpedde]

@alan_birch wrote:

I’d like to control detail of the music library with iTunes. I’ve changed my iTunes around to use the library saved on the Slug. So I’m going on faith that as I add new songs, create and change playlists, etc. etc. that mt-daapd will pick it all up and roll it down to the Roku.

Gotcha. I think what you’ll find is that the “live” iTunes Music Library.xml (which is the one that gets changed when you modify playlists) is going to live in your “My Music” folder on your windows machine. Since that isn’t on your slug, your slug probably won’t pick it up unless that file gets moved or copied to the slug.

You can manually do that, or maybe set up a batch file or some kind of script to do that whenever you log on or log off or something of that nature.

On the other hand, if you did that by changing your “my music” folder to be on the G drive, it might actually work. So I guess it kind of depends on how you have redirected your iTunes library to determine how it will work.

My guess, though, is that it probably wont, without manually copying the iTunes xml file.

— Ron

[Anonymous]

OK, well iTunes is totally ticking me off.
I don’t understand why I cannot designate where it reads the “iTunes Music Library” xml file from.
I want to open up iTunes and it picks up all of the library data from the Slug. That way, if I lose whatever computer I’m using, all of my music library, files, and data is still safe at home on the slug.
Arrrgh.
Couple of questions about the mt-daapd software (w/ firefly):
1. What is the Playlist File? What does it do? I assume that is where the “smart” playlists are stored?
2. What is the Compilations Folder?

[Anonymous]

Let me attempt to step back and look at the bigger picture, maybe there’s another way…

I want to keep all of my music on a network server. This is currently an unslung NSLU2, with an unslung USB stick, and an attacted HD. All of the music files are on this HD.
I want to serve these music files to a Roku Soundbridge. I’d like some playlists that will help the wifey sort through music.
Currently, I really like to create playlists and otherwise organize my library with iTunes, it’s very easy to use (on the front end).
What I’d hope to do is:

1. Import CD-ROMs using iTunes and ALAC, saving them to my iTunes Music folder (set in iTunes preferences), which is currently:
\MediaSlugdisk 1Music Library
and organized so that iTunes sees my files like this:
\MediaSlugdisk 1Music LibraryArtistAlbumsong.m4a

2. Wifey uses a different login on the same computer. Her iTunes would reference the same music files on the Slug. Preferrably, she would save out her own playlists, and not see mine in iTunes, but I suppose that’d be asking too much. A compromise we’d both settle for is to open the same iTunes Music Library.xml and edit our playlists (and ratings, and tags, etc) together.

3. Somehow transfer our iTunes playlists from iTunes to the Soundbridge. Preferrably automatically. Hence, if I make a new smart iTunes playlist that only plays songs with titles containing the letter “Z”, then the Soundbridge would automatically see that new playlist. What happens in between is not important to me. Is this somehow possible?

4. If it’s not possible, then I’m not entire opposed to creating a windows scheduled task that daily “backs up” the iTunes Music Library.xml file from whatever location it has to live at to:
\MediaSlugdisk 1Music LibraryiTunes Music Library.xml
I suppose that would work.

5. However, it seems like the solution I want is for iTunes to open up, reference the iTunes Music Library.xml that is located at the top level of the MediaSlugdisk 1Music Library and go from there. Is it not possible to instruct iTunes to do this? Currently, the iTunes Music Library.xml file lives at
My Computer/My Documents/My Music/iTunes
and I cannot figure out how to move it…

Arrrrgh!

How is this working out for anyone else?
Thanks for all of the help.

[CCRDude]

1. What is the Playlist File? What does it do? I assume that is where the “smart” playlists are stored?

They were in an old version. Now these are stored inside the database, so that field is no longer important… imho… but why is it still there in the config? Hmmm 😉

2. What is the Compilations Folder?

iTunes is able to display compilations separately (there’s an option somewhere where you can tell it to list artists from compilations sa “Compilations” or “Various Artists” or something, so the Artist overview isn’t too filled with artists with just a single song. If you have all compilations in such a subfolder, enter that one here, and iTunes will be able to do that handling with Firefly as well. Quite useful imho 🙂

As for the other stuff… tagging, I do with a completely separate application (TagsRevisited and ID3TagIT). Ripping I do use FLAC or MP3, not ALAC, using CDex (maybe will try EAC = ExactAudioCopy instead). Those are Windows solutions though.

Oh, and playlists… smart playlists through Fireflys web interface, and a few static ones, generated through (shame on me!) Slimserver.

[Anonymous]

Compilations: I have a LOT!
So the problem is that I’m not sure if its possible to get the Soundbridge to recognize.
All of my compilations are here:
/share/hdd/data/public/Music Library/Compilations/Album Name/Song.m4a
So my question about the Firefly settings:
Do I set this as the compilation directory?
Do I “Group Compilations” setting, even if my compilations are NOT in a “Various Artists” folder?

And to the previous poster that suggests FLAC: Sorry, no dice for me. I need to use ALAC in order to remain compatible with my iPods. And yes, I usually digitize my CDs with EAC and then use iTunes to convert to ALAC.

[rpedde]

@alan_birch wrote:

Let me attempt to step back and look at the bigger picture, maybe there’s another way…

There is *always* another way. Here’s one.

One is to move your “My Music” folder up to the network.

1. Make a share on the slug (Music?), so you have \mediaslugmusic
2. Copy everything in your “My Music” to \mediaslugmusic
3. Install the “tweakui” powertoy:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe

4. Run it, and change “My Computer” -> “Special Folders” -> “My Music” to \mediaslugmusic
5. Reboot, cross your fingers, and start iTunes. It should look the same, but it should now be reading the iTunes Music Library.xml from the network. Make a change (change a playlist?) and exit iTunes. Then verify the time and date on the network copy of the iTunes Music Library.xml changed.
6. Now, do the symlink trick, and symlink the itms.xml from \mediaslugmusic to the music library folder, as described before.

NOTE: I haven’t tested this at all, but it should work. You probably want to back up the contents of your “My Music” before you do this, in case it explodes or something. I don’t think there is much downside, though. At worst, you might have to re-import your music into iTunes.

That I think gets most of your requirements — it basically moves your “My Music” folder to the network.

— Ron

[Anonymous]

@rpedde wrote:

If so, you could symlink /share/hdd/data/Music Library/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml to /share/hdd/data/Music Library/iTunes Music Library.xml

If that makes sense.

Is it possible to make symlinks with spaces in them? I’m having trouble making a symlink to “Music Libary” (with a space in the name). It’s only picking up the first word.

Thanks.

[jtbse]

With most ‘nixes, you would just enclose the name with spaces in single quotes. Otherwise he’ll get confused and think you’re providing a second argument.

[CCRDude]

I’ve never used quotes really, just escaped the blank 😉

e.g. /share/hdd/data/Music Library/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml, note the backslash that comes directly before any blank.

A good shell will also allow to use the tab key for auto-completion, which uses this escaping as well 😉

[Anonymous]

Alright. The “forward slash” trick worked great.
Now if I open up the slug in windows explorer, there are two iTunes Music Library.xml files, the one sitting in the iTunes folder (underneath all of my music files) and one sitting one level above in the Music Library folder. It looks to me that they update together (sort of like a windows shortcut but better).
I’ll have Firefly perform a full scan and see how that works… More later.

[Author]

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