kirkmc

As I said, if you don't see checkboxes, then right-click and choose Uncheck Selection. When you "uncheck" tracks, they show as dimmed, even if there are no checkboxes. I don't see why those checkboxes would get "inadvertently changed too easily." If you want to make sure, create a playlist for all your music videos, and you can check it from time to time to make sure that not of the checkboxes have been checked. And then you can select all, right click, then choose Uncheck Selection. I'm not sure what this has to do with "Apple seem to be moving in directions th

If you uncheck the music videos, then they won't play in an album or playlist. To do this, either uncheck the checkboxes next to the videos, if they display (they only display in certain views), or right click on one or more music videos, then choose Uncheck Selection.

Mac apps always use virtual memory; that doesn’t mean they are actually using it. macOS memory management has apps claim swap memory before they need it. I would only worry it the Mac is using, say, more than 3 or 4 GB of swap. i bought an 8 GB MacBook Air, and I’ve run dozens of apps without it breaking a sweat. The memory management on these new Macs is quite astounding.

Exactly. In The Next Track podcast, Episode #193 - Is Stereo Wrong?, I raised a number of these questions. I don't have many recordings that sound how they would sound if I was at a concert, hearing the music performed live (even assuming that the exact same music could be performed live). The further away you are from a stage, the more obvious it is that there is no such thing as "stereo" sound in reality: it's just a way of manipulating audio to give us something like what we hear live, but it is certainly not accurate.

Consolidating should fix problems, even if the files aren't moved. But if it doesn't, and the script works, then that's your best bet. The problem with using an external drive for media is that if the drive is not available, iTunes/Music reverts back to the default location in your home folder. It's a good idea to check every now and then.

So it looks like at some point the Music app lost the path to the external drive. Have you changed the path to the external drive and consolidated the library? That should find them again.

So that's most of your library. Have you looked at where they are? Are the in the "other" Media folder, the one you don't want them to be in? Are these your tracks, or Apple Music tracks?

it's the default. Go to Music > Preferences > Files and choose the media folder on your external drive. You can do the same in the TV app.

If you have a folder on your external drive, then you set the iTunes preferences to use a media folder there. If you have one on your Mac, then the Music app preferences were not set to use the external drive. The correct file path now should be ~/Music/Music/Media/Apple Music. The Apple Music folder only contains files you've downloaded from Apple Music. So you can delete them. This AppleScript can scan your Media folder - not your entire Mac - for files that are not in your library: https://dougscripts.com/itunes/index.php?p=3468 Y

In your home folder, /Library/Caches/com.apple.music

Huh, I wouldn’t have expected that, but glad you found a simple solution.

Sound Check normalizes audio volume by adjusting the volume of each track. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/tv/atvba3404860/tvos

If changing cables doesn't make a difference, try swapping which HDMI port each device connects to on the TV.

Try swapping cables, but digital cables either work or they don't. I doubt you'd get a difference in sound quality. But it's easy enough to test. Again, do you have Sound Check on on the Apple TV? I find that normalization often deteriorates sound quality.

How does the music from your PC get to the TV? Is it streamed or via a wired connection? I'd suspect that the TV is doing something to the data that comes in via HDMI before outputting it via Toslink, but that's just a guess. The Apple TV doesn't do much; there is a Sound Check setting, and if that's on, turn it off, but there's nothing else (as far as I recall; not in front of my TV) that affect sound.