On Sun, 2011-03-13 at 13:57 +0000, Chris G wrote:
I'm just beginning to dip my toe(s) into moving recorded music and other such things (e.g. radio programmes) onto a computer or computers.
One thing I'd prefer is to be able to keep all the files in a directory hierarchy of my own making rather than using a media player's own way of doing things.
How does most media player type software handle this? If you point them at a hierarchy full of sound files do they build their own indexes from the shape of the hierarchy and the content (as in genre information etc.) of the files or what?
Are there any (all?) that work like Digikam with images for instance where you can tell it to keep *all* of the information in the image files (as well as building its own index) so that if you move the hierarchy or want to access it with other software everything works still?
My approach is that I organise the files in the library by putting them there myself rather than importing them with a music player, hence the directory structure of the library is of my choosing.
Most players then go on to ignore the directory structure and present an interface based on a database they have created by reading the tags from the files (ID3tags (MP3) and Vorbis Comments (Ogg/Vorbis and FLAC). To support this I make sure files are have at least the basic tags correct at the time they go into the library.
With this approach I know where to find something if I need it for some other reason, can play files from the command line or from a graphical shell and the squeezeboxes also allow me to browse by my directory structure as well as the usual Artist, Album, Song, Genre, Year routes.
I can't recommend a Linux music player at the moment as I usually listen on the squeezebox as the sound quality is rather better than the sound card in my home PC and is always accessible even when the home PC is switched off.
In the past I used xmms and more recently I have used mpd and rhythmbox and, in each case, I have pointed the player at the existing library. In the case of mpd by editing the config file and in the case of rhythmbox by specifying it in the preferences.
Steve.