Music for media browser (Screen shot)

[DemonSeed]

No, its aimed at getting some backdrops for your music folders, although, I have tried to keep it quite generic so it should work with movies and anything else really. Its not an automatic solution, purely because there isn't a db available to supply backdrops for music(not that I know of anyways). Its definitely not as clean a solution as MB currently has, but it should help speed the process up considerably compared to downloading all the music backdrops yourself. Thats if you bothered with backdrops, I quite like them, thats why i'm doing the app... its also going to allow you to choose CD cover art and I'm going to build in a crop feature for use when you cant find the pictures at the correct aspect ratios.

As for the music folder structure, do you think that people will generally have all their music structured the same way? so if they use [driverletter]:\[WhereEverYourMusicIs]\genre\artist - album\ * 01 *.*, will it be the same throughout their collection? is this a fair assumption to make?

That sounds grate!
On the folders. Only speaking for my self, mine are like so.
F:\Genre\Artist\ Album\*01,*02

[raadoo]

(...)Im going to assume that music will be arranged in one of two ways...
[driverletter]:\[WhereEverYourMusicIs]\artist\album\ * 01 *.*
[driverletter]:\[WhereEverYourMusicIs]\artist - album\ * 01 *.*
is that fair? or do you guys use something totally different?

I use first pattern, but I add also album date in brackets. Then the albums are sorted by date. It looks like this:
[driverletter]:\[WhereEverYourMusicIs]\artist\[1999] album\ * 01 *.*
[driverletter]:\[WhereEverYourMusicIs]\artist\[2002] album\ * 01 *.*
It would be good to skip words in [] or (). Sometimes people add not only [date] but additional information after album name like (Limited 2CD Edition) as well.

I connected to discogs to see the data they have available, its a bit tricky, but doable, in the future. The application I'm working on isn't part of MB, it will be external and its main aim will be to slightly automate the downloading of backdrops for music, as I'm not aware of any db that has these available.

I will look into the metadata side of things once I find out whats happening with the music plugin, If the code changes to MB's current plugin architecture are going to be part of the next MB release, then its worth it carrying on.

Maybe I'm to excited with music part of Media Browser, but I don't catch one thing. You say, that the app. isn't part of MB and will download backdrops etc. So my question is - is MB going to present that kind of data and be responsible for browsing and launching playback? Or the app. will not only download but will be standalone browser?

Initially it will read it as windows does or maybe media player does, we wont read the id3 tags. I first want to get a feel for things out there. And when and if we will merge to trunk/major release. As for reading of other dbs, getting lyrics and stuff it is not as easy as movies, there are so many releases or a single album that guessing the right one if going to do more damage than it is worth. But hey if you have an accurate way bring it on ...

Yes, I know that I overreacted after hearing that good news :) but I wanted to hear that yes - it's possible that in the future there will be sth more. I'll wait with ideas till release of your app, than we'll see and for sure there will be more important things to do. But I think that getting lirycs shouldn't be the biggest problem providing, you have correct tags. Displaying them in media player is different story.
*edit - addded quotes

[jcalton88]

I'd hate to overhaul it just to do it again

I hate that as well and that is why i wanted MB to browser by folder rather than try and get clever like iTunes and all the other applications out there.

Yeah, thats definitely a big plus for me. The overhauling I'll be doing (this week maybe) will be basically finding any duplicates that may be there, Fixing names of albums and songs, and maybe even finish ripping all of my CDs to the HDD...only about 1400 more CDs to go now. Atleast some more information came out on how things are assumed to be organized, so I know that I'm not going to be re-organizing folders later.

On that same note, I use the first format noted by craigt,
[driverletter]:\[WhereEverYourMusicIs]\artist\album\*01*.

BUT, are you using *01* as an example, or do the tracks need to be numbered like that, all of mine are the name of the songs, and the track number is in the tags(which I know won't be read as of yet)

[raadoo]

I can see the answer to my 2nd question in the post above. I definitely got too excited with the vision of replacing old and abandoned Music Browser to new and better Media Browser! Browsing folders is the best when you have very big collection and don't have time to tag everything as it shou'd be.

[craigt]

As it stands now, neph has added all the music functionality into media browser, and I'm working on an external windows app that will collect backdrops and coverart. MB will use these backdrops and coverart as is. When I'm happy with the way my app is collecting the art, I'm going to try collect metatdata in a way that mediabrowser can use as part of its default functionality. I might do a combination of scraping and id3 tags to get the metadata, not sure yet.

I have to obviously hear back from you guys on your current music structure, like raadoo mentioned, I should skip any brackets etc.

[APorter]

drive:\Music\Michael Jackson\Thriller\Billie Jean

[Dallasf]

I'm pumped about this idea sounds great.

I use drive:\(where music is located)\Artist\Album

Looking forward to it!!!

[brainfryd]

Hi
This is all sounding awesome.... cant wait to get to have a try... love MB and this looks like an awesome couple of functionality additions

FYI... My music setup is predominantly as follows - drive:\location\artist\album\01 - track name

brainfryd

[craigt]

Thanks for replying guys... seems most people use either \artist\album or genre\artist\album. But like I said, I will try and accommodate the three most popular structures.

I have a bug that I cant seem to get fixed... once its sorted out, the backdrop downloader will be nice and stable and I could possibly put it up for download somewhere so you guys can get your backdrops ready for the release of the music browser plugin.

[jcalton88]

Thanks for replying guys... seems most people use either \artist\album or genre\artist\album. But like I said, I will try and accommodate the three most popular structures.

I have a bug that I cant seem to get fixed... once its sorted out, the backdrop downloader will be nice and stable and I could possibly put it up for download somewhere so you guys can get your backdrops ready for the release of the music browser plugin.

Thanks for all the hard work! Definitely looking forward to this addition. I just know I'm gonna get in trouble with the missus now, I already play with my setup 24/7 as it is, and being able to add my music to it?! I'm gonna have to figure out how to put some extra hours in the day and a couple extra days in the week!

@Neph: Any word on an expected release?