Creating Folders and Subfolders in PhatNoise Media Manager?

[Shu]

I have saved all my music in Media Library and have created playlists for each artist/album and this is working great.  Is there a way to further subdivide the playlists by say genre? I'd like to have ALL SONGS with every song on the hard drive and then a playlist for ROCK, COUNTRY, POP, etc and then a sub playlist under (for example COUNTRY) with Artist/Album that would contain all the songs on that album.  This way I could quickly hit the COUNTRY playlist and then search only those to find the album I want.  I am using PhatNoise Media Manager 3.92, an Iomega 80 gb hard drive with my Kenwood Excelon DPX701 head unit.

Current way:
1. all songs
2. artist 1 - album
        a. song 1
        b. song 2
        c. etc
3. artist 2 - album
        a. song 1
        b. etc.

Proposed way:
1. all songs
2. country
     A. artist 1 - album
          1. song 1
          2. song 2, etc
     B. artist 2 - album
etc, etc, etc.

[VorTechS]

I'm not sure that's easily achievable unless PhatSort does this without any modification.

I'll bear this scenario in mind for PhatHack Media Manager however.

[Firefox]

First of all, it sounds like you need to get hold of Voice Index On Tap (VIOT) for your Keg. That will automatically give you 3 extra modes in addition to the standard Playlist mode (Genre, Artist, Album). They get populated from your media file tags.

"Nested folders" are not possible within 2 of the VIOT modes (Genre or Artist). But if you haven't even seen those VIOT modes before, they will be better than what you have today. e.g. switching to Genre mode will then let you scroll through each Genre (with A-Z seek if needed) to get to the Genre you want. Within that I'm not sure how tracks are sorted by default. I wrote a post-process program called PhatSort which sorts the VIOT modes how i wanted them.

The VIOT Album mode is slightly different because there is an option in that mode to have the A-Z alpha seek switched over to search by Artist instead. So you can seek by Artist, then select up and down through the Albums for that Artist.
That is sort of what you wanted I think?

Shame that's only possible within the Phatnoise code, it would be cool to hack the 2 other modes to allow that A-Z sort to be replaced.

[VorTechS]

I think this could be doable without hacking the modes.
Unfortunately the way PhatNoise Media Manager manages its files using the SQLite database means the unique IDs are generated when files are added to playlists.  PhatHack Media Manager allocates track IDs when the DMS data files are writtern, which is when the user has already performed the default  media ordering.

This means the default playlist mode could be made to live in whaever order you want it, and by introducing some reasonably flexible sorting routines I'm sure we can achieve something pretty close, if not spot on.

As I said, I'll bear the request in mind when I come to write sortation stuff into the PhatHack Media Manager GUI.

[Shu]

Thanks for the responses.  At least now I know I am not missing something in how to set up playlist (static or dynamic).  It would seem so simple though for you to be able to put a playlist under another playlist though, but apparently the software was not written in a manner to allow this.  I went in and created my own genre's and now I can create genre playlists, artist/album playslist, etc.  I just wish that once I got into the genre I wanted, I could quickly scroll through the artists in that genre and then the album and then the song I wanted instead of having to scroll through song by song.  Oh well.

One other question I have is that I noticed the software (gracenote part of it i'm sure) picks up the album artwork.  On the Kenwood DPX701 head unit it appears the artwork could be shown either to the far right or left.  I searched my iomega hard drive that I use via USB (basically a PhatNoise media drive now:)) and it has the artwork saved ont eh drive.  How can I ensure the head unit displays the album art?

[VorTechS]

The artwork must be written to the MP3 file in order for Head Units to display it.  So you need to use a compatible ripper that supports the writing of the artwork into the ID3 tags.

[Shu]

The artwork must be written to the MP3 file in order for Head Units to display it.  So you need to use a compatible ripper that supports the writing of the artwork into the ID3 tags.

What would be a compatible ripping software?  I have Media Player 11, PhatNoise 3.90, iTunes and a program called intervideo winDVD.  All of them handle ripping music files.  I noticed on PhatNoise 3.90 that I can hook the artwork to the m4a or mp3 audio files.  Here is a screen shot of what I am saying.  Isn't this what would work?

[markbowen]

Guys, the issue of artwork display from the Phatbox/Keg has been discussed in another topic on this forum:  http://forum.phathack.com/index.php/topic,1308.0.html

Judb explained it better, but the short and simple point is that it will not work.  The Keg interfaces with Kenwood HUs like a CD changer, not like a hard drive (which will display the artwork).  Apparently, the ability to display album artwork was planned for a Phatbox 2.0 that never made it out of development.

I have a Kenwood DNX7200 (7100 in the U.S.), which is the latest DVD HU, and a Keg with all album art embedded in the files, and I can report that it is not displayed on the HU.  Art from the iPod and flash drives is displayed.

[Shu]

Markbowen,

I am using a hard drive not a keg.  I have also used flashdrives and for some reason I can not get the artwork to display on my Kenwood DPX701 head unit. 

[judb]

the version of the ID3 tag may have something do with if it displays.  some head units look for a .jpg file of a specific name in the folder where the mp3s are stored for album art.. it depends on the head and how the software in it is configured.

I'd suggest looking for support on ID3 tag and Album Art compatibility with the head unit manufacturer

[markbowen]

I am using a hard drive not a keg.

I'm sorry, my bad for not reading your very first post, and also for not paying enough attention to your head unit model.  The DPX701 cannot display album art.