PC Player with a good integration of directory browsing

[BillEl]

Most of the software out there seems to be optimized for working with its built in library function. My issue is I have a lot of media that isn't tagged properly so the library is a real mess.

 

Rather then retagging all the files can anyone recommend a player that has a good integration of directory browsing. Essentially if your files are organized it's as good as the library generated.

 

Thanks, Bill

 

[BobH]

1BY1 may work for you. It simply plays the files contained in the directory you point it at, very simple and no nonsense! It is available here : http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html

 

By default it is an mp3 player but is happy to use suitable plugins. I used the MediaMonkey 'in_wave.dll' plugin, for .wav playback, and it worked fine. It is very small, writes all its settings to an ini file in the installation folder - rather than clogging up your registry with rubbish - and doesn't want to take over the world!

 

Hope this helps.

 

[BillEl]

Interesting.

 

I didn't see on the site if it's able to support flac or different outputs.

 

Have you tried that as well?

 

[Maarten]

Hi

 

I assume you're on windows? Foobar2000 is my favourite player on windows. It integrates nicely with windows explorer: rightclick on a directory and you can add all music under that directory to its playlist. I like it much better than using music libraries.

 

Cheers

Maarten

 

[BobH]

Just tried 'Flac Plugin for Winamp 2 and Winamp 5'. This can be found under the 'input' category of the Winamp Plugins page. Works fine. I think the criteria is that the plugin must support Winamp2 - if it does then it should work. Just install the plugin into the 1BY1 installation directory and you should be good to go.

 

[audiozorro]

I believe that most players need to provide easy import and export capabilities to a comma delimited file or to a common file format such as Microsoft Excel. Many of the library problems inherent in most players, or caused when switching players, could be easily corrected in an external database or spreadsheet.

 

iTunes is one of the more capable players that allows the library to be exported, but working with xml and xsd files, such as importing into an external database or spreadsheet takes some computer language skill.

 

This is not rocket science and any database or spreadsheet program can take the online database tag info when ripping any CD, manipulate data and add additional data with virtually no limits. By contrast most players have limited library functions. It can sometimes take a lot of work to add additional data and transferring libraries between players can lead to less than desirable results.

 

Of course library management capability is just one feature that is important to many people. And of course the most important feature for many computer audiophiles is superior playback performance. Just to pick on iTunes again, it is well documented here and elsewhere that although iTunes on the MAC and PC computers is the same, the playback performance is not.

 

 

[PeterSt]

the playback performance is not

 

With this as the most important base IMO, you might just as well try XXHighEnd. It presents you a library of your music data while that library is not physically there. So, it doesn't depend on tagging or anything else, just your directories with music.

From there on you can create "Galleries" (like Rock, Lounge, World) as many as you want, and these are formed by normal folders and files on disk hence accessible by Explorer ready for dragging onto the player etc. Although possible, this latter really isn't necessary because of the built in functions for it (including a built in Explorer).

I manage some 12,000 albums with it myself and can find anything within a second (typing for a title etc. narrows down the list automatically).

 

Might you indeed want to try, don't forget to appoint a "music root" folder, which is the only requirement when you didn't setup Galleries yet (which you obviously didn't right now). Thus, under that root folder your albums must be found somewhere. Lateron this root folder will point to the top most Gallery folder, and all your albums will be found there, no matter on which drive they actually reside.

Oh, the most Gallery functions will be found under rightclick on (a selection of) coverart under the Library tab.

 

One small problem while in demo mode : only 100 items max will show in the Library Area (so from my 12,000 only the first 100 would show).

 

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?board=1.0

 

 

 

[audiozorro]

Thanks, I will give the demo version of XXHighEnd a try this weekend. I am firmly committed to iTunes on my Mac and do all my ripping there, but I am not wedded to MediaMonkey on my PC.

 

While I imagine MediaMonkey can be great if you use it to do your ripping/tagging, but for me transferring my iTunes library to MediaMonkey has not worked well. Many of the tags in the MediaMonkey library are either missing or are messed up.

 

Perhaps playlists may transfer better in MediaMonkey, which is something I haven’t tried or used. For now, all I want to do is for the player to start with the first track in my library and continue playing until every track has played, and I have to repeat the process a month or so later. Because the library tags are messed up in MediaMonkey the music tracks are sometimes out of order, almost like using the random playback feature in iTunes.

 

 

[Olive Empithrie]

I've done this successfully with JRiver. Provided your physical directories are organised (which in your case they are?) you simply import all files, select them all, right click and select Library Tools...then Fill Properties from Filename.

 

My music is all wav and mp3 and organised in directories by genre/atrist/album year - album name. EAC is set to output songs in the format artist/album year - album name/01 Song.wav etc, so under EAC Filename options use

%D%Y - %C%N %T

 

Then in JRiver the fill prpoerties to use are, for Directories

[Genre][Artist][Date (year)] - [Album]

and for Filename

[Track #] [Name]

 

 

 

This will organise your media library and allow you in view settings to have the albums for artists sorted by year rather than alphabetically :-)

 

If you have a picture (jpg is best) of your album covers in your album directories these will be imported as well.

 

Then you can sync to your mp3 player if you have one and JRiver will encode to mp3 (other formats as well). This will result in all your music being tagged on your portable device.

 

Olive

 

 

[audiozorro]

I thought I would give XXHighEnd a try this weekend but after some further research (reading instead of listening usually results in poor choices), I will pass for now.

 

From what I have read, the recommended Engine#3 requires Vista. Even though I have a copy of Vista for my low cost CA Windows XP Reference Music Server, at this time I am not willing to change OS configurations. Perhaps after some other folks like Gordon, Steve, Elias or Chris find the time to evaluate XXHighEnd and report favorably I may change my mind.

 

My bad, depending on others' opinions rather than listening for myself, but I neither have the time, money nor expertise to thoroughly evaluate all these things. I need to spend my time listening to music and building or dusting off my music library.