Track titles prefixed by Artist tag when displaying m3u playlist contents

[Andre Gosselin]

(11-09-2014 22:32)simoncn Wrote:  

(11-09-2014 22:19)scrutney2 Wrote:  Hi Simon.

I was actually quite pleased with the way update 40 handled playlists...

The reason is that I have iTunes organise my music files, and in doing this it names them with the track number and title, e.g. 04 A Case Of You.

I also use iTunes to create playlists, which I export to .m3u format using a program called iTunesExport. The resulting .m3u files contain #EXTINF lines containing "artist name - track name".

Prior to update 40 Minimserver displayed playlist tracks with only the track number and title, from the file name. Update 40 showed the artist too, which clearly made it a lot easier to identify songs! Now with update 41 I'm back to the previous situation..

Would it be possible to have Minimserver use the #EXTINF per the convention you mentioned, and display "artist name - track name" in playlists?

Regards,
Simon

Thanks for this input.

I would be interested to hear opinions from other users about which approach they prefer.

Definitely the current (old) approach, for the reasons you mentioned in your previous post when you decided to roll back the change.

[simoncn]

(11-09-2014 22:35)Andre Gosselin Wrote:  Definitely the current (old) approach, for the reasons you mentioned in your previous post when you decided to roll back the change.

Thinking about the other side of the discussion, a playlist is likely to contain tracks from many artists and albums. In this case, having the artist name visible in the entry could be very helpful for quickly finding what you're looking for.

Also, the current (old) approach is discarding information provided by the user that isn't available anywhere else.

[Andre Gosselin]

(11-09-2014 22:52)simoncn Wrote:  

(11-09-2014 22:35)Andre Gosselin Wrote:  Definitely the current (old) approach, for the reasons you mentioned in your previous post when you decided to roll back the change.

Thinking about the other side of the discussion, a playlist is likely to contain tracks from many artists and albums. In this case, having the artist name visible in the entry could be very helpful for quickly finding what you're looking for.

Also, the current (old) approach is discarding information provided by the user that isn't available anywhere else.

Simon,
Point 2) and 3) that you raised in your previous post are still very relevant. I really do not like displaying inconsistent metadata depending on whether a track is played through a playlist or through browsing the library.

[simoncn]

(11-09-2014 22:19)scrutney2 Wrote:  Prior to update 40 Minimserver displayed playlist tracks with only the track number and title, from the file name. Update 40 showed the artist too, which clearly made it a lot easier to identify songs! Now with update 41 I'm back to the previous situation..

Which control point are you using? Doesn't it show the artist from the track's metadata when you view the playlist?

[scrutney2]

(11-09-2014 23:43)simoncn Wrote:  

(11-09-2014 22:19)scrutney2 Wrote:  Prior to update 40 Minimserver displayed playlist tracks with only the track number and title, from the file name. Update 40 showed the artist too, which clearly made it a lot easier to identify songs! Now with update 41 I'm back to the previous situation..

Which control point are you using? Doesn't it show the artist from the track's metadata when you view the playlist?

I'm currently using Linn Kazoo. It appears to only display info that is in the .m3u file.

[simoncn]

(12-09-2014 13:15)scrutney2 Wrote:  I'm currently using Linn Kazoo. It appears to only display info that is in the .m3u file.

I've tried this and it looks like it's caused by a problem with how Kazoo treats playlist containers. Even though MinimServer is sending album and artist information for the playlist items, Kazoo doesn't display this information. With Kinsky, this information is displayed for playlist items. I will report this problem on the Linn forum.

[scrutney2]

(12-09-2014 14:40)simoncn Wrote:  

(12-09-2014 13:15)scrutney2 Wrote:  I'm currently using Linn Kazoo. It appears to only display info that is in the .m3u file.

I've tried this and it looks like it's caused by a problem with how Kazoo treats playlist containers. Even though MinimServer is sending album and artist information for the playlist items, Kazoo doesn't display this information. With Kinsky, this information is displayed for playlist items. I will report this problem on the Linn forum.

You're right, Kinsky displays the artist too. Thanks for reporting the problem to Linn.

Simon

[scrutney2]

It appears Kazoo also fails to display artist info for compilation albums.